How do I tell a person I know, who loves Harry Potter (like a huge part of their life is Harry Potter), about JK Rowling's transphobia?
I practically live with the person everyday, also I don't know if they already know about Rowling's controversies (Idk if they even care about Rowling, they haven't said anything about her)
(I did ask someone else this, but it didn't get much traction and advice in it)
I mean, I think just be straightforward? I can't really give advice about how to tell someone whom I know nothing about. However, I can give advice of WHAT to bring up.
Honestly, my best advice is to just send or show this post to the person if you want, with whatever message of "I care about you and I am not sharing this with you to accuse you of agreeing with her, but rather because I trust/hope you'd want to know how she uses her income and platform from her fans to harm marginalized groups."
-That she donated £70,000 (approximately $88,200 USD) to an anti-trans organization [link.] This means all money going to her has absolute potential of being used against trans rights.
-That she posted an up-the-skirt photo of a Freda Wallace (a trans woman) [link], used the wrong pronouns on her, called her "Fred" in an attempt to misgender her, and made a fatphobic joke about her. All the while calling her a "paraphilic exhibitionist" for wearing a mini skirt and engaging in sexual humor (which is also paramisic, as it doesn't matter if Freda is or isn't a paraphile - it doesn't change that its really fucked up to sexually harass someone.)
-Has written multiple stories demonizing trans women as sexual predators [link], and has mocked prison rape against trans women suffer in said stories (quote: "prison won't be fun for you...not pre-op.")
Which is a disgusting thing to make fun of, considering the existence of V-coding (which is where trans women are placed into men's prisons as a form of sex trafficking to appease to aggressive [peri]cis men.)
-Has claimed transness is somehow homophobic and misogynistic (as if transness cannot intersect with gayness and the experiences of being a woman, being socially imposed as female, and having estrogenized traits.)
Not to mention how this narrative harms intersex people, including cis intersex people. Sex is not binary.
-Has denied the existence of trans kids, comparing it to lobotomies. Quote:
"There are no trans kids. No child is ‘born in the wrong body’. There are only adults like you, prepared to sacrifice the health of minors to bolster your belief in an ideology that will end up wreaking more harm than lobotomies and false memory syndrome combined.”
-Has misgendered peritrans men who menstruate, intersex men who menstruate, and non-binary people who menstruate:
-Has fear mongered medical transition, especially amongst trans men. Quotes:
"I fear that the detransitioned women I interviewed are canaries in the coalmine. Not only for detransitioners, but for womanhood. They all, in some combination, found being a woman too difficult, too dangerous or too disgusting."
(This ignores the real reason why a majority of trans men detransition [link], which is not that they aren't trans, but that they didn't have support.)
"I'm concerned about the huge explosion in young women wishing to transition and also about the increasing numbers who seem to be detransitioning."
Detransition rates are still very very low. This is blowing things out of proportion. And monogender trans boys aren't "young women."
"Some of the most heartbreaking letters I’ve received have been from young women who regret the irreversible surgeries they’ve undertaken. These stories need to be told."
-The many things she has said about trans women. Here are a few:
"When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he's a woman...then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside."
If a man wants to enter a bathroom and assault someone, they are not going to bother with social or medical transitions. They'll just walk in regardless. They aren't going to be deterred by a sign that says "woman" on it. There are places around the world where bathrooms are fully gender neutral, and it has never increased the rate of assault.
"We don't leave our doors and windows wide open when we go out because 'thieves will find a way in, anyway.' Strangely, I've never heard anyone say 'let's stop background checking teachers, because paedophiles will always find a way to interfere with kids.'
When men - all men, however they identify - are banned from women's spaces, those who disregard the ban can be challenged, inside the space and out. They mark themselves out as suspicious by breaking a rule decent men respect. Nobody claims the rule has successfully kept out every single man who wants to commit voyeurism or sexual assault. What we're saying is that allowing males into female only spaces on the basis of their claim to be a women removes an obstacle that has hitherto been *proven* to increase women and girls' safety.
88% of sexual crimes committed in changing/locker rooms happen in those that are unisex. Why? Because malign men don't have to justify their presence near unclothed women and girls. They can't be challenged. They don't stand out. This is obvious to all but the terminally naive.
It is too seldom noted that every single man arguing for the removal of single sex spaces is arguing for his *own* right to enter those spaces. I know from experience that they feign outrage when this point is put to them, gibbering that they're just being good, virtuous progressives who're standing up for trans women, that they *personally* won't be availing themselves of the new opportunities afforded them. The fact remains that instead of calling out male violence against trans women, and working to make male spaces safer, these men have thrown their energy into the fight to remove women's and girls' rights to safety, privacy and dignity. And if anyone genuinely believes none of these enthusiastic heterosexual, non-trans-identified male 'allies' aren't personally enthralled by the idea of women and girls losing basic protections, I have several bridges to sell you."
I cannot find the 88% statistic she gives on any sites except for news sites. (Ie; Fair Play For Women, which says things such as "trans rights do not exist in isolation and they must not come at the expense of another extremely vulnerable and disadvantaged group: women and girls.")
What I can find, however, is statistics that shows trans minors are more likely to be sexually assaulted in gender segregated bathrooms & locker rooms [link.] Thus, gender neutral locker rooms are safer because they don't get people harassing them to try and figure out if they "belong." (And also, because non-binary people NEED gender neutral bathrooms if we are to create a world that accepts their existence.)
Additionally, there is no risk towards cisgender people associated with trans people in bathrooms found in any studies.
(Also, again with her being paramisic, conflating pedophilia with child predation, but that's a whole other topic.)
Moving on, here's a time she misgendered a trans woman, calling her gender identity a "misogynistic cosplay", exhibitionistic, and "narcissistic." (Which is once again paramisic and its ableist towards NPD.)
There's so many other things she's said about trans women that I could be here all day. So I'll just move on.
-She misgendered an intersex athlete, Imane Khelif, who has an SRY-gene.
-She speaks for intersex people, calling them "people with DSDs", using an intersexist slur, and making false claims. Quote:
The facts, coming from an intersex person:
First, DSD (disorder of sexual development) is not the preferred term for intersex people. Treating sex variations as a disorder perpetuates the idea that being intersex is "wrong" or "harmful" compared to being perisex. If she listened to the intersex community, she'd know this. DSD is primarily being used by intersex people who do not know the community exists and/or have internalized intersexism.
Second, the reason why intersex is known by many to mean the h-slur is because intersex education is lacking, people fetishize the intersex experience, and gatekeeping is at an all time high.
Third, the H-slur (which she should NOT be saying) was applied to intersex people FIRST. It was lazily reapplied to cosexual animals LATER.
Fourth, humans have produced both eggs and sperm [link.] It's rare, but its unclear if this is rarity is due to the high rates of reproductive mutilation within people with ovotestes, due to eggs and sperm requiring different hormone profiles to survive, due to a lack of actual diagnosis and testing, or a mix of all three.
-That she has called oppression against asexuals fake [link] (ignoring the severe conversion therapy and ostracization they face.)
And this isn't even getting into all the racism of Harry Potter (ie; naming an East Asian character "Cho Chang", creating a slave race and having Hermione be made fun of for wanting to save them, taking the Native American S-walker beliefs and bastardizing them for her "The History of Magic in North America" series [link], etc) and the body shaming and fat shaming in the story.
All around, she is just filled to the brim with oppositional sexism, gynequeerphobia, androqueerphobia, exorsexism, transsexism. intersexism, acephobia, racism, fatphobia, ableism, and much more.
