I disagree with Rowling on trans-issues *and* I think Rowling's critics are dishonest

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:England’s transphobia is worse than America. I don’t know why this is suddenly a thing. Trans people are such a tiny percentage of the population! I am talking just transgender folks, not drag queens which is an entirely different thing. It makes me very sad that there is so much vitriol these days towards trans people. I grew up with someone who is trans. She is just a lovely person. She is very kind and wouldn’t hurt anyone. I knew her when she was a child. When I told my Republican mother that he was transitioning to a woman, my mom said, “oh it all makes sense!” My mom knew him in grade school and could sense there was something up. Many people are making decisions for others that they don’t even know! They fear something they know nothing about!

I have a child with ASD and depression and I am fearful of a gender clinic convincing them to change their gender.

You should be. This is what happened to mine.

I know one that has become convinced "they" are trans. Not through a gender clinic, but from the internet. I guess it gives them hope, and so maybe it is not all bad. But I worry what will happen when they realize this is not a magic cure.

Do they have gender dysphoria?

It is hard to tell. They never used to express this at all. They do not claim they have felt this all their life. They just now say that their problems are due to being trans.

It sounds like you haven't actually had an indepth discussion about it with them. Most trans people I know seem to have experienced gender dysphoria from a young age. That seems to be common? But these are more binary trans people. I'm not sure if nonbinary people are the same?

My kid sees his ASP behavior as hidden trans behavior. And if a guy is sensitive, he’s told he’s probably trans.

What? Who told him he's probably trans? Has he been dressing up in women's clothes at home his whole life and wishing he was a girl/woman? Otherwise, why would someone think he's trans because he's sensitive? He's probably just super gay.

You must not have any tweens or teenagers in your house. Those things are not required for an adolescent to be told they are trans. Any sign of gender non-conformance will do these days.

+1 and this is why, statistically speaking, the number of youth who identify as trans literally doubled in four years statically speaking. I do believe there are people who are genuinely trans but the distinguishing of truly trans vs just normal questioning is problematic. There is a cultural phenomenon among youth that is concerning to parents who aren't anti -trans but want to ensure it isn't over diagnosed. If you even question this, you are vilified.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:England’s transphobia is worse than America. I don’t know why this is suddenly a thing. Trans people are such a tiny percentage of the population! I am talking just transgender folks, not drag queens which is an entirely different thing. It makes me very sad that there is so much vitriol these days towards trans people. I grew up with someone who is trans. She is just a lovely person. She is very kind and wouldn’t hurt anyone. I knew her when she was a child. When I told my Republican mother that he was transitioning to a woman, my mom said, “oh it all makes sense!” My mom knew him in grade school and could sense there was something up. Many people are making decisions for others that they don’t even know! They fear something they know nothing about!

I have a child with ASD and depression and I am fearful of a gender clinic convincing them to change their gender.

You should be. This is what happened to mine.

I know one that has become convinced "they" are trans. Not through a gender clinic, but from the internet. I guess it gives them hope, and so maybe it is not all bad. But I worry what will happen when they realize this is not a magic cure.

Do they have gender dysphoria?

It is hard to tell. They never used to express this at all. They do not claim they have felt this all their life. They just now say that their problems are due to being trans.

It sounds like you haven't actually had an indepth discussion about it with them. Most trans people I know seem to have experienced gender dysphoria from a young age. That seems to be common? But these are more binary trans people. I'm not sure if nonbinary people are the same?

My kid sees his ASP behavior as hidden trans behavior. And if a guy is sensitive, he’s told he’s probably trans.

What? Who told him he's probably trans? Has he been dressing up in women's clothes at home his whole life and wishing he was a girl/woman? Otherwise, why would someone think he's trans because he's sensitive? He's probably just super gay.

You must not have any tweens or teenagers in your house. Those things are not required for an adolescent to be told they are trans. Any sign of gender non-conformance will do these days.

Trans without gender dysphoria? Sounds like someone that doesn’t need hormone treatment. I’m sure they’ll stop identifying as trans in the near future. If someone has gender dysphoria? I don’t think you’re going to see them stop identifying as transgender.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:England’s transphobia is worse than America. I don’t know why this is suddenly a thing. Trans people are such a tiny percentage of the population! I am talking just transgender folks, not drag queens which is an entirely different thing. It makes me very sad that there is so much vitriol these days towards trans people. I grew up with someone who is trans. She is just a lovely person. She is very kind and wouldn’t hurt anyone. I knew her when she was a child. When I told my Republican mother that he was transitioning to a woman, my mom said, “oh it all makes sense!” My mom knew him in grade school and could sense there was something up. Many people are making decisions for others that they don’t even know! They fear something they know nothing about!

I have a child with ASD and depression and I am fearful of a gender clinic convincing them to change their gender.

You should be. This is what happened to mine.

I know one that has become convinced "they" are trans. Not through a gender clinic, but from the internet. I guess it gives them hope, and so maybe it is not all bad. But I worry what will happen when they realize this is not a magic cure.

Do they have gender dysphoria?

It is hard to tell. They never used to express this at all. They do not claim they have felt this all their life. They just now say that their problems are due to being trans.

It sounds like you haven't actually had an indepth discussion about it with them. Most trans people I know seem to have experienced gender dysphoria from a young age. That seems to be common? But these are more binary trans people. I'm not sure if nonbinary people are the same?

My kid sees his ASP behavior as hidden trans behavior. And if a guy is sensitive, he’s told he’s probably trans.

What? Who told him he's probably trans? Has he been dressing up in women's clothes at home his whole life and wishing he was a girl/woman? Otherwise, why would someone think he's trans because he's sensitive? He's probably just super gay.

You must not have any tweens or teenagers in your house. Those things are not required for an adolescent to be told they are trans. Any sign of gender non-conformance will do these days.

Trans without gender dysphoria? Sounds like someone that doesn’t need hormone treatment. I’m sure they’ll stop identifying as trans in the near future. If someone has gender dysphoria? I don’t think you’re going to see them stop identifying as transgender.

Well that is the question, making sure we identify youth correctly when the number identifying as trans is accelerating quickly as a cultural phenomenon... And feeling comfortable that doctors are making correct diagnoses before recommending permanent medical treatment. Are parents wrong to be concerned when accelerating number of youth identity as trans when it might simply be normal adolescent questioning?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I think there has been a chilling effect on women who are concerned about having transwomen in certain spaces. I want to be sensitive to these concerns, some of which are legitimate. (Other concerns are maybe borne of fear that isn't completely justified but are, nevertheless, sincere and aren't coming from a place of malice.)

Also, I want to be supportive of trans people. Sometimes I'm not at all sure how to reconcile these things.

An (admittedly imperfect) analogy. I think society should be supportive of people with disabilities. But I don't think this means we should eliminate vision requirements for a bus driver.

Similarly, I have no problem forbidding
1. Transwomen working in a rape crisis center (such as that funded by JK Rowling)
2. Transwomen who have committed sex crimes in a women's prison
3. Transwomen in women's sports

Inclusion is important, but it is not the only thing that is important.

Disagree mostly with transwonen in women’s sports. D1 varsity sport’s & professional level stuff, I can see. But at lower levels of competition, I don’t think trans women and girls should be excluded. I know 4 biological boys transitioning to girls and honestly they are unathletic. If they want to get involved with sports, they’d be way more comfortable with other girls & wouldn’t be depriving other girls of very much.

How young do they have to be? There are multiple high school girls who have lost access to university athletic scholarships because they raced against trans girls who are unquestionably faster in high school. That is, in my view, a miscarriage of justice.

Track is literally a zero sum game. When one wins, another loses. And qualifying races start the first year of high school.

The number of girls going to college on an athletic scholarship is a rounding error compared to the number of girls in sports. If colleges want to make girls' scholarships available only to biological girls and women, I wouldn't personally have a problem with that. I just don't think trans-girls should be excluded from girls sports as a matter of course. I think we lose site of the big picture when we focus narrowly on the very top athletes and then use those concerns to make policy affecting the median and lower level athletes who are, nevertheless, getting a variety of benefits from participating in sports.

But the world doesn’t work this way. At the elite levels, which start in middle school, athletics is a zero-sum game. A girl who doesn’t get a spot on the track team does not get the better coaching and exposure that leads to the offer of a position on the regional team, etc. Look, I can tell you have no experience at all with competitive middle school and high school athletes, but what you are saying simply doesn’t work for those ages because athletics is a zero sum game. If a trans girl takes the spot of an otherwise competitive high school runner, that high school runner isn’t getting a scholarship opportunity. And it’s not just college: it’s varsity sports, it’s local scholarships, it’s training for the next level. You think college athletics is this unique independent thing that has nothing to do with teen youth sports, and that is absolutely not tethered to any reality whatsoever.

I am ok with trans girls joining purely rec teams and teams of kids under age 8. But I think it is grossly unfair and misogynist to allow trans girls to take spots from natal girls in teen girl competitive sports.

Honestly, this sounds like a problem with how kids' athletics are structured that goes beyond gender issues.

Fine, but that doesn’t change the reality, which is that trans girls in competitive girls sports at the middle and high school level take opportunities away from natal girls. You may not like the system, but it is how it works.

I’m not sure what else you want. You want very competitive kids to not be competitive? Do you prefer the European and Chinese system where kids who aren’t identified at age 8 never have a chance at high-level athletics again?

If you don’t like kids playing competitive sports, I don’t know what to tell you. Some kids like being very competitive athletes, and some of those kids are natal girls. You appear to wish natal girls weren’t competitive athletes so you don’t have to deal with the fact that they are losing opportunities, but they exist.

When you say competitive athletics, are you referring to athletics with scholarships only or are you saying no trans girl should be allowed to play sports in high school? What about something like cheerleading where it's sort of individual as well as team based? Some schools definitely give scholarships for it.

I don’t think trans girls past age 8 or 10 (eg past puberty onset) should be allowed to play in any girls sport where there is a competitive tryout. I am fine with them joining rec teams or no-cut high school teams. But where a team has tryouts or cuts (varsity sports, club teams, select teams, etc.), I think it is grotesquely unfair and morally wrong to allow trans girls who have started or gone through male puberty to take a spot that would otherwise be taken by a natal girl.

Cheerleading is extremely competitive and I would say that the same rule should apply.

What about girls who are naturally stronger or taller than the other girls? Should they get a pass for their biological advantages? How is that fair?

Oh stop with the gaslighting. We see through this nonsense now.

No seriously. Explain why natural advantages in strength and height among biological females don't count but trans-women should be excluded because of their biological advantages? It's just an excuse to be exclusionary based on "tradition." There's no objective reason to include the one but exclude the other.

Because it’s not feasible to match competitors’ height, weight, muscle mass, bone density, speed, strength, agility, arm span, heart and lung capacity, etc., perfectly, but we can make general rules to level the playing field, such as not having 10 year olds and 15 year olds competing against other or biological males and biological females competing against each other.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think there has been a chilling effect on women who are concerned about having transwomen in certain spaces. I want to be sensitive to these concerns, some of which are legitimate. (Other concerns are maybe borne of fear that isn't completely justified but are, nevertheless, sincere and aren't coming from a place of malice.)

Also, I want to be supportive of trans people. Sometimes I'm not at all sure how to reconcile these things.

An (admittedly imperfect) analogy. I think society should be supportive of people with disabilities. But I don't think this means we should eliminate vision requirements for a bus driver.

Similarly, I have no problem forbidding
1. Transwomen working in a rape crisis center (such as that funded by JK Rowling)
2. Transwomen who have committed sex crimes in a women's prison
3. Transwomen in women's sports

Inclusion is important, but it is not the only thing that is important.

Disagree mostly with transwonen in women’s sports. D1 varsity sport’s & professional level stuff, I can see. But at lower levels of competition, I don’t think trans women and girls should be excluded. I know 4 biological boys transitioning to girls and honestly they are unathletic. If they want to get involved with sports, they’d be way more comfortable with other girls & wouldn’t be depriving other girls of very much.

How young do they have to be? There are multiple high school girls who have lost access to university athletic scholarships because they raced against trans girls who are unquestionably faster in high school. That is, in my view, a miscarriage of justice.

Track is literally a zero sum game. When one wins, another loses. And qualifying races start the first year of high school.

The number of girls going to college on an athletic scholarship is a rounding error compared to the number of girls in sports. If colleges want to make girls' scholarships available only to biological girls and women, I wouldn't personally have a problem with that. I just don't think trans-girls should be excluded from girls sports as a matter of course. I think we lose site of the big picture when we focus narrowly on the very top athletes and then use those concerns to make policy affecting the median and lower level athletes who are, nevertheless, getting a variety of benefits from participating in sports.

But the world doesn’t work this way. At the elite levels, which start in middle school, athletics is a zero-sum game. A girl who doesn’t get a spot on the track team does not get the better coaching and exposure that leads to the offer of a position on the regional team, etc. Look, I can tell you have no experience at all with competitive middle school and high school athletes, but what you are saying simply doesn’t work for those ages because athletics is a zero sum game. If a trans girl takes the spot of an otherwise competitive high school runner, that high school runner isn’t getting a scholarship opportunity. And it’s not just college: it’s varsity sports, it’s local scholarships, it’s training for the next level. You think college athletics is this unique independent thing that has nothing to do with teen youth sports, and that is absolutely not tethered to any reality whatsoever.

I am ok with trans girls joining purely rec teams and teams of kids under age 8. But I think it is grossly unfair and misogynist to allow trans girls to take spots from natal girls in teen girl competitive sports.

Honestly, this sounds like a problem with how kids' athletics are structured that goes beyond gender issues.

Fine, but that doesn’t change the reality, which is that trans girls in competitive girls sports at the middle and high school level take opportunities away from natal girls. You may not like the system, but it is how it works.

I’m not sure what else you want. You want very competitive kids to not be competitive? Do you prefer the European and Chinese system where kids who aren’t identified at age 8 never have a chance at high-level athletics again?

If you don’t like kids playing competitive sports, I don’t know what to tell you. Some kids like being very competitive athletes, and some of those kids are natal girls. You appear to wish natal girls weren’t competitive athletes so you don’t have to deal with the fact that they are losing opportunities, but they exist.

When you say competitive athletics, are you referring to athletics with scholarships only or are you saying no trans girl should be allowed to play sports in high school? What about something like cheerleading where it's sort of individual as well as team based? Some schools definitely give scholarships for it.

I don’t think trans girls past age 8 or 10 (eg past puberty onset) should be allowed to play in any girls sport where there is a competitive tryout. I am fine with them joining rec teams or no-cut high school teams. But where a team has tryouts or cuts (varsity sports, club teams, select teams, etc.), I think it is grotesquely unfair and morally wrong to allow trans girls who have started or gone through male puberty to take a spot that would otherwise be taken by a natal girl.

Cheerleading is extremely competitive and I would say that the same rule should apply.

What about girls who are naturally stronger or taller than the other girls? Should they get a pass for their biological advantages? How is that fair?

Oh stop with the gaslighting. We see through this nonsense now.

No seriously. Explain why natural advantages in strength and height among biological females don't count but trans-women should be excluded because of their biological advantages? It's just an excuse to be exclusionary based on "tradition." There's no objective reason to include the one but exclude the other.

Because it’s not feasible to match competitors’ height, weight, muscle mass, bone density, speed, strength, agility, arm span, heart and lung capacity, etc., perfectly, but we can make general rules to level the playing field, such as not having 10 year olds and 15 year olds competing against other or biological males and biological females competing against each other.

One basic element of this issue, maybe more significant than the rankings or scholarships, is: by allowing trans[] to compete as the other sex, we’d be demanding that everyone else pretend, and people don’t like having their arms twisted into pretending.

[Anonymous]

I don’t even think JKR has spoken much if at all about transwomen athletes. Her concern has remained with child and women protection: prisons, rape crisis centers, medical care, etc. It is possible she has spoken out about trans girls in athletics, but it has not been a big focus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What I want to know: do the trans advocates in this thread about JKR and transphobia believe that convicted rapists that self-ID as women should be placed in women’s prisons? And do you believe that women who have been raped are bigots for not wanting to be seen by people with a penis when those rape victims are in crisis?

These are positions that JKR takes publicly and for which she has endured countless rape threats, death threats, and for which she has to pay for additional security.

What is your position on these points?

I would like to know this too

They aren’t going to answer the question. Of course.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t even think JKR has spoken much if at all about transwomen athletes. Her concern has remained with child and women protection: prisons, rape crisis centers, medical care, etc. It is possible she has spoken out about trans girls in athletics, but it has not been a big focus.

She isn’t focused on only trans women. Her blog post spends a significant amount of time discussing trans men.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t even think JKR has spoken much if at all about transwomen athletes. Her concern has remained with child and women protection: prisons, rape crisis centers, medical care, etc. It is possible she has spoken out about trans girls in athletics, but it has not been a big focus.

She isn’t focused on only trans women. Her blog post spends a significant amount of time discussing trans men.

Yes, that comes under medical care. She is worried about the medical care neurodivergent girls are getting. You are correct.

[Anonymous]

I really empathize with parents with gender dysphoric kids. They are told by one side that if they dont transition their kids, the kid will kill themselves.

By the other side, they are told that if they do transition the kid, they are mutilating them and chopping off their body parts and sentencing them to a life of infertility, lack of a functional sex life, and ongoing medical intervention.

This is too much for parents. Something has to give. And the science seems to be on the side of transition skeptics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What I want to know: do the trans advocates in this thread about JKR and transphobia believe that convicted rapists that self-ID as women should be placed in women’s prisons? And do you believe that women who have been raped are bigots for not wanting to be seen by people with a penis when those rape victims are in crisis?

These are positions that JKR takes publicly and for which she has endured countless rape threats, death threats, and for which she has to pay for additional security.

What is your position on these points?

I would like to know this too

They aren’t going to answer the question. Of course.

I think those threats are wrong and shouldn’t be said. I also think that cisgender people are not experts on what it’s like to be a trans person.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What I want to know: do the trans advocates in this thread about JKR and transphobia believe that convicted rapists that self-ID as women should be placed in women’s prisons? And do you believe that women who have been raped are bigots for not wanting to be seen by people with a penis when those rape victims are in crisis?

These are positions that JKR takes publicly and for which she has endured countless rape threats, death threats, and for which she has to pay for additional security.

What is your position on these points?

I would like to know this too

They aren’t going to answer the question. Of course.

I think those threats are wrong and shouldn’t be said. I also think that cisgender people are not experts on what it’s like to be a trans person.

Answer the questions asked. I will repeat them. Do you believe convicted rapists that have self-ID’d as women should be place in women’s prisons? Do you believe that women who have been raped are bigots for not wanting to be seen by people with penises when those rape victims are in crisis?

You have not answered the questions asked. They are above. Please answer them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What I want to know: do the trans advocates in this thread about JKR and transphobia believe that convicted rapists that self-ID as women should be placed in women’s prisons? And do you believe that women who have been raped are bigots for not wanting to be seen by people with a penis when those rape victims are in crisis?

These are positions that JKR takes publicly and for which she has endured countless rape threats, death threats, and for which she has to pay for additional security.

What is your position on these points?

I would like to know this too

They aren’t going to answer the question. Of course.

I think those threats are wrong and shouldn’t be said. I also think that cisgender people are not experts on what it’s like to be a trans person.

Answer the questions asked. I will repeat them. Do you believe convicted rapists that have self-ID’d as women should be place in women’s prisons? Do you believe that women who have been raped are bigots for not wanting to be seen by people with penises when those rape victims are in crisis?

You have not answered the questions asked. They are above. Please answer them.

Psssst.... they dont care about women.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What I want to know: do the trans advocates in this thread about JKR and transphobia believe that convicted rapists that self-ID as women should be placed in women’s prisons? And do you believe that women who have been raped are bigots for not wanting to be seen by people with a penis when those rape victims are in crisis?

These are positions that JKR takes publicly and for which she has endured countless rape threats, death threats, and for which she has to pay for additional security.

What is your position on these points?

I would like to know this too

They aren’t going to answer the question. Of course.

I think those threats are wrong and shouldn’t be said. I also think that cisgender people are not experts on what it’s like to be a trans person.

Answer the questions asked. I will repeat them. Do you believe convicted rapists that have self-ID’d as women should be place in women’s prisons? Do you believe that women who have been raped are bigots for not wanting to be seen by people with penises when those rape victims are in crisis?

You have not answered the questions asked. They are above. Please answer them.

Psssst.... they dont care about women.

Oh yes, that much is clear. And that’s why they are avoiding answering the questions asked, because they know their answer will openly expose their misogyny.

It is for shining a light on this deep and systemic misogyny in the trans rights movement that JK Rowling is so hated by trans activists. She stands up for vulnerable women, and they despise her for it.

[Anonymous]

While Rowling does herself no favors (why does she maintain a Twitter account, when no mature discussion happens there; why does she say combative things in response to trolls, instead of being more controlled than them?), she raises valid points. I agree with her, frankly.