J.K. Rowling’s post on trans-identity and modern misogyny

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree with her completely. It is not about rejecting trans identity. It is about saying that our lives are indeed shaped by our outward-facing gender. A trans woman who passes as their "assigned" gender until adulthood DOES have certain privileges not available to women raised as women from birth. Their experiences are different. They are socialized differently. It is like light-skinned AA who passed for white and had entree into higher education opportunities as a result. Martine Rothblatt is the highest paid woman in American because she used to be a Martin (and had a wife who raised her and Martine's children) so that Martine could benefit from male privilege: https://www.thewrap.com/highest-paid-woman-ceo-used-to-be-a-man/. Intersectionality is often framed as focusing on the most marginalized sub-group with a given group, to the exclusion of other narratives. So, here, we would be being asked to focus on trans women experiences, to the exclusion of other women who were socialized as women from an early age. That doesn't make a lot of sense. It also, in effect, erases the voices of most women. If we frame it as trans women are women and they experiences - but we also need to listen to other women who might have different experiences - I think everyone is on board.

I'm not quite clear on what you are getting at here. I think most trans women would admit that they benefited from male privilege while presenting as men, and many have used their platforms to discuss misogyny from the perspective of someone used to being treated one way, and now being treated another.

What I don't understand is what you think is actually lost when we as women include the concerns of trans women in our feminism. What does it actually mean to "focus on trans women's experiences to the exclusion of other women?" Why can't we have a feminism that includes the needs of all women, no matter what their chromosomes say?

DP. I want to include concerns of trans women as part of intersectional feminism, and welcome trans women into the discussion when discussing how misogyny effects them as women but I am super super super against language that waters down issues that are inherently female and that are used to oppress women around the world. IE, what set her off in the first place, which is saying 'people who menstruate' or 'people who birth children'.

As I frequently bring up, if there was no meaningful difference between being a man and being a woman, people wouldn't want to transition.

I guess I just don't see the harm of inclusive language. Like, let's say I want my employer to put tampons and pads in the restroom, in order to provide for employees who experience menstrual emergencies. It is possible for someone who presents as a man to experience a menstrual emergency. How does it harm me to include that person in my advocacy?

Those are trans men, not trans women.

....but that's the language JKR was objecting to. She objects to talking about "people who menstruate" but the point is that not everyone who menstruates identifies as a woman, but that doesn't mean they don't need menstrual supplies. It is literally the exact thing she got upset about.

Because no one cares about trans men, not cis men or cis women or trans women. Not PP who doesn't even know who she's talking about. No one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How does giving Trans women rights diminish biological women's rights?

We're all in the same group as "female." I don't care if trans women want to join. The more the merrier.

THIS

It doesn't. I think JKR is dumb to make this about the bathrooms. I don't care about trans people advocating for rights at all. They should! They should absolutely do that and feminists should support them as an intersectional partner for advocating for equality.

Changing language so women don't exist is the issue. And it is an issue that trans people would I assume not like either, as they would then not have language to describe their own vision of their gender.

[Anonymous]

Women bear a substantially increased cost of being raped for the same reason.

You know which group is disproportionately likely to face sexual violence? Trans women. So if part of our work is to hold men accountable for rape, to make rape easier to prosecute, to make police more sensitive to the needs of rape victims, or to allocate resources for processing rape kits, we are going to need to include trans women in our activism.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How does giving Trans women rights diminish biological women's rights?

We're all in the same group as "female." I don't care if trans women want to join. The more the merrier.

THIS

It doesn't. I think JKR is dumb to make this about the bathrooms. I don't care about trans people advocating for rights at all. They should! They should absolutely do that and feminists should support them as an intersectional partner for advocating for equality.

Changing language so women don't exist is the issue. And it is an issue that trans people would I assume not like either, as they would then not have language to describe their own vision of their gender.

I think you would do well to reframe your analysis here. No one is changing language so that women don't exist. Women exist, but not everyone who menstruates is a woman, and not all women menstruate.

I'm using the menstruation example because it is what set Rowling off this time. You can say that women exist, and you can say that some men menstruate. Neither invalidates the other.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree with her completely. It is not about rejecting trans identity. It is about saying that our lives are indeed shaped by our outward-facing gender. A trans woman who passes as their "assigned" gender until adulthood DOES have certain privileges not available to women raised as women from birth. Their experiences are different. They are socialized differently. It is like light-skinned AA who passed for white and had entree into higher education opportunities as a result. Martine Rothblatt is the highest paid woman in American because she used to be a Martin (and had a wife who raised her and Martine's children) so that Martine could benefit from male privilege: https://www.thewrap.com/highest-paid-woman-ceo-used-to-be-a-man/. Intersectionality is often framed as focusing on the most marginalized sub-group with a given group, to the exclusion of other narratives. So, here, we would be being asked to focus on trans women experiences, to the exclusion of other women who were socialized as women from an early age. That doesn't make a lot of sense. It also, in effect, erases the voices of most women. If we frame it as trans women are women and they experiences - but we also need to listen to other women who might have different experiences - I think everyone is on board.

I'm not quite clear on what you are getting at here. I think most trans women would admit that they benefited from male privilege while presenting as men, and many have used their platforms to discuss misogyny from the perspective of someone used to being treated one way, and now being treated another.

What I don't understand is what you think is actually lost when we as women include the concerns of trans women in our feminism. What does it actually mean to "focus on trans women's experiences to the exclusion of other women?" Why can't we have a feminism that includes the needs of all women, no matter what their chromosomes say?

DP. I want to include concerns of trans women as part of intersectional feminism, and welcome trans women into the discussion when discussing how misogyny effects them as women but I am super super super against language that waters down issues that are inherently female and that are used to oppress women around the world. IE, what set her off in the first place, which is saying 'people who menstruate' or 'people who birth children'.

As I frequently bring up, if there was no meaningful difference between being a man and being a woman, people wouldn't want to transition.

I guess I just don't see the harm of inclusive language. Like, let's say I want my employer to put tampons and pads in the restroom, in order to provide for employees who experience menstrual emergencies. It is possible for someone who presents as a man to experience a menstrual emergency. How does it harm me to include that person in my advocacy?

Those are trans men, not trans women.

....but that's the language JKR was objecting to. She objects to talking about "people who menstruate" but the point is that not everyone who menstruates identifies as a woman, but that doesn't mean they don't need menstrual supplies. It is literally the exact thing she got upset about.

Because no one cares about trans men, not cis men or cis women or trans women. Not PP who doesn't even know who she's talking about. No one.

I think TERF as a term was actually created to make a distinction because of feminists who believe trans men do fall under the umbrella of women's rights but not trans women because they face the same biological issues as women.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How does giving Trans women rights diminish biological women's rights?

We're all in the same group as "female." I don't care if trans women want to join. The more the merrier.

THIS

It doesn't. I think JKR is dumb to make this about the bathrooms. I don't care about trans people advocating for rights at all. They should! They should absolutely do that and feminists should support them as an intersectional partner for advocating for equality.

Changing language so women don't exist is the issue. And it is an issue that trans people would I assume not like either, as they would then not have language to describe their own vision of their gender.

I think you would do well to reframe your analysis here. No one is changing language so that women don't exist. Women exist, but not everyone who menstruates is a woman, and not all women menstruate.

I'm using the menstruation example because it is what set Rowling off this time. You can say that women exist, and you can say that some men menstruate. Neither invalidates the other.

Humans who are born biologically female, ie women, menstruate. Maybe not all women menstruate for a variety of reasons, but it is a part of being biologically female and it is something that has shaped the experience of women throughout human history. I strongly disagree with divorcing women's issues from the word 'woman'. Watering down an advocacy group waters down the efficacy.

Saying BLM doesn't mean you're saying other lives don't matter. But calling out blackness for being a unique condition in america is important. The specificity is important because it calls out SPECIFIC prejudices faced by black americans.

Women have specific issues. Trans women have specific issues. Some of those issues overlap and some do not. Being specific about that does not mean being exclusionary, it means being precise and accurate with your language.

[Anonymous]

Who cares about menstruation?

I am an XX woman who doesn't menstruate anymore (IUD). I am soooo grateful for that!! LOL. Menstruation sucks. I would love for my DD to get an IUD that stops menstruation when she is a teen.

I have no problem with saying "people who menstruate." As a woman, I have no desire to claim menstruation as some great thing. It's a PITA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree with her completely. It is not about rejecting trans identity. It is about saying that our lives are indeed shaped by our outward-facing gender. A trans woman who passes as their "assigned" gender until adulthood DOES have certain privileges not available to women raised as women from birth. Their experiences are different. They are socialized differently. It is like light-skinned AA who passed for white and had entree into higher education opportunities as a result. Martine Rothblatt is the highest paid woman in American because she used to be a Martin (and had a wife who raised her and Martine's children) so that Martine could benefit from male privilege: https://www.thewrap.com/highest-paid-woman-ceo-used-to-be-a-man/. Intersectionality is often framed as focusing on the most marginalized sub-group with a given group, to the exclusion of other narratives. So, here, we would be being asked to focus on trans women experiences, to the exclusion of other women who were socialized as women from an early age. That doesn't make a lot of sense. It also, in effect, erases the voices of most women. If we frame it as trans women are women and they experiences - but we also need to listen to other women who might have different experiences - I think everyone is on board.

I'm not quite clear on what you are getting at here. I think most trans women would admit that they benefited from male privilege while presenting as men, and many have used their platforms to discuss misogyny from the perspective of someone used to being treated one way, and now being treated another.

What I don't understand is what you think is actually lost when we as women include the concerns of trans women in our feminism. What does it actually mean to "focus on trans women's experiences to the exclusion of other women?" Why can't we have a feminism that includes the needs of all women, no matter what their chromosomes say?

DP. I want to include concerns of trans women as part of intersectional feminism, and welcome trans women into the discussion when discussing how misogyny effects them as women but I am super super super against language that waters down issues that are inherently female and that are used to oppress women around the world. IE, what set her off in the first place, which is saying 'people who menstruate' or 'people who birth children'.

As I frequently bring up, if there was no meaningful difference between being a man and being a woman, people wouldn't want to transition.

I guess I just don't see the harm of inclusive language. Like, let's say I want my employer to put tampons and pads in the restroom, in order to provide for employees who experience menstrual emergencies. It is possible for someone who presents as a man to experience a menstrual emergency. How does it harm me to include that person in my advocacy?

Women all over the world are denied access to education because they have periods. They are entrapped in lifetimes of being less than because they bear children and bear the responsibility of raising them more than male counterparts.

Women are held down in society by restricting access to birth control and abortion. Women bear a substantially increased cost of being raped for the same reason. These are issues women face that women advocate for. I have NO problem with trans rights, literally none. But I want to talk about how these things effect WOMEN, not 'people who menstruate' because the reality is that women have been held back for centuries because of these issues. And we have been held back BY MEN (and trans women have, until they transitioned, enjoyed the benefits that men enjoy in our society). And so by being vague in language, we once again put women in the backseat, even in the space of advocating for their own rights.

When men and women share an entirely equal place in society and we aren't in a position where women's rights are being stripped away daily across this country, then I will not care what language we use. But right now women are having their SPECIFIC rights that are tied specifically to their biological reality stripped away. And anything that makes that unclear is, to me, unacceptable.

This is well stated. I am uncomfortable with language that diminishes the extraordinary violence women face around the world on the basis of their biological sex, and that's what this language change demand feels like. I would genuinely love to learn how it's not, though. I am trying to learn.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Women bear a substantially increased cost of being raped for the same reason.

You know which group is disproportionately likely to face sexual violence? Trans women. So if part of our work is to hold men accountable for rape, to make rape easier to prosecute, to make police more sensitive to the needs of rape victims, or to allocate resources for processing rape kits, we are going to need to include trans women in our activism.

We absolutely should. Its a ven diagram. I see you deleted the part where I said advocating for trans women is a key part of intersectional feminism.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who cares about menstruation?

I am an XX woman who doesn't menstruate anymore (IUD). I am soooo grateful for that!! LOL. Menstruation sucks. I would love for my DD to get an IUD that stops menstruation when she is a teen.

I have no problem with saying "people who menstruate." As a woman, I have no desire to claim menstruation as some great thing. It's a PITA.

Sounds to me like, because you are a woman, you have had to deal with menstruation and take steps to handle it in your life and assisted your daughter in the same task. It is a PITA, a PITA women have to deal with all over the world.

[Anonymous]

The one point I will give her is that pressuring/shaming people about not wanting to date trans men or women who haven’t transitioned is just absolutely crazy. Wtf-if I can have a preference for not dating gingers why in the world wouldn’t people be able to have a preference re: type of genitals?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The one point I will give her is that pressuring/shaming people about not wanting to date trans men or women who haven’t transitioned is just absolutely crazy. Wtf-if I can have a preference for not dating gingers why in the world wouldn’t people be able to have a preference re: type of genitals?

FWIW, I run in very lefty, very queer, circles and have never seen anyone shamed for who they don't date. I have seen people shamed for being jerks about who they don't date, though. So, if you are putting an ad up on a queer dating site, and lead with NO FATTIES, you are going to get pushback. If you just happen to only date super fit women, no one is going to harass you about it.

The point is that leading with exclusionary language is hurtful, where as just having a preference is being human.

[Anonymous]

I really don’t understand what’s offensive about that statement.

I have seen friends’ occasionally post about blocking her and how she’s transphobic. Because I was never a Harry Potter fan I had never followed her very closely. It’s very disappointing to now read her statement and know this is what all the anger was about. Really? Seriously?

[Anonymous]

She’s awful. Transphobia is gross.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I really don’t understand what’s offensive about that statement.

I have seen friends’ occasionally post about blocking her and how she’s transphobic. Because I was never a Harry Potter fan I had never followed her very closely. It’s very disappointing to now read her statement and know this is what all the anger was about. Really? Seriously?

She literally denies the existence of trans people. She will not acknowledge that gender =/= sex and a trans woman in her mind is not a woman.