#soo long

I’m writing this as a response to J.K Rowling’s statement, which I read on Wednesday night.

It was a profoundly sad experience. Like so many others, I grew up with the Harry Potter books. From the age of eleven, I used to write a list of people I wanted to be like in the start of each new notebook, and Rowling was always on there. I was given her autobiography for my twelfth birthday. I won a Harry Potter competition at fourteen and was in my local newspaper. The Harry Potter fandom got me through some of the darkest times in my life. My first experiences in feeling safe and secure in my identity and sexuality were within that community.

Of course, as I got older, I realised there were things I disliked and disagreed with in the books. The portrayal of goblins as a hook-nosed, money-obsessed minority, critiqued as having clear parallels with antisemitic imagery. The house-elves who are happy to be enslaved. The lack of diverse representation. The fatphobia inherent in the portrayal of the Dursleys. The problems with queer representation. But a lot of media is problematic; I thought that I could acknowledge these flaws along with the joys the world and fan community have brought me over the years.

I wasn’t prepared for how it would feel to have someone I admired for so long, write something that would cause me so much pain.

In the comments below, I saw the people I know and care about talking about how her words gave them food for thought, which makes me feel that it’s really important to try and explain exactly what I disagree with and why her words left me with such a profound feeling of sadness and alienation.

Rowling starts by with the desire to explain her actions: “I know it’s time to explain myself on an issue surrounded by toxicity. I write this without any desire to add to that toxicity.” I’m not sure whether I believe that or not; I leave the reader to decide. This is my attempt to engage with her arguments in good faith.

She follows with a breakdown of her actions and a catalogue of the online abuse she has received:

“I knew perfectly well what was going to happen when I supported Maya. I must have been on my fourth or fifth cancellation by then. I expected the threats of violence, to be told I was literally killing trans people with my hate, to be called cunt and bitch and, of course, for my books to be burned, although one particularly abusive man told me he’d composted them.”

Let’s be clear: I don’t think anyone should be threatened like that. The internet cancel culture which encourages people to hurl personal insults and threats at people is a toxic one. Nobody deserves to suffer personal abuse or threats online.

She continues on to explain the term TERF: “If you didn’t already know — and why should you? — ‘TERF’ is an acronym coined by trans activists, which stands for Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist. In practice, a huge and diverse cross-section of women are currently being called TERFs and the vast majority have never been radical feminists”

So presumably they’re just trans exclusionary, and not feminist at all, then? I’m not sure that’s a recommendation. She also says that radical feminists are not trans-exclusionary because they include trans men. As women.

She goes on to paint trans people as schoolroom bullies: “Accusations of TERFery have been sufficient to intimidate many people, institutions and organisations I once admired, who’re cowering before the tactics of the playground. ‘They’ll call us transphobic!’ ‘They’ll say I hate trans people!’”

In this depiction, trans people are presented as an intimidating mafia, making people afraid to speak up.

Just think about that for a while.

Lets have some statistics while we’re thinking.

“One in seven trans people (14 per cent) aren’t open about their gender identity to anyone in their family. This number increases to one in four non-binary people (24 per cent). Six per cent of trans people are also not open about their gender identity to any of their friends. More than one in ten trans people (11 per cent) who are out to their family, aren’t supported by any of their family members. More than a quarter of trans people (28 per cent) in a relationship in the last year have faced domestic abuse from a partner.”

(https://www.stonewall.org.uk/system/files/lgbt_in_britain_-_trans_report_final.pdf )

As a trans person, your whole reality is being afraid to speak up.

She talks about:

“a hitherto totally unfeminist older lady who’s vowed never to visit Marks & Spencer again because they’re allowing any man who says they identify as a woman into the women’s changing rooms”

If a person is causing trouble in a public toilet, they should be asked to leave, so presumably the woman the lady objected to was not. The old lady chose to leave, presumably to use the public mall toilets instead. Note that she’s not complaining about dangerous behaviour — just about a trans person daring to exist in a public place.

Forty-eight percent of trans people surveyed in the UK said they were afraid to use public toilets. (https://www.stonewall.org.uk/system/files/lgbt_in_britain_-_trans_report_final.pdf )

She also makes a remark about dimorphism:

“Speaking as a biological woman, a lot of people in positions of power really need to grow a pair (which is doubtless literally possible, according to the kind of people who argue that clownfish prove humans aren’t a dimorphic species)”

I assume that this is meant to be taken as an off-colour joke, although its implications are the erasure of intersex people and mocking gender reassignment surgery, which seems in poor taste at best.

She goes on to talk about her MS charity, and the differences that biological sex makes to treatment.

“I also fund medical research into MS, a disease that behaves very differently in men and women. It’s been clear to me for a while that the new trans activism is having (or is likely to have, if all its demands are met) a significant impact on many of the causes I support, because it’s pushing to erode the legal definition of sex and replace it with gender.”

Lets deconstruct this. Of course the differences that biological sex makes to medical treatment is important. Many women go misdiagnosed or die because their symptoms differ from men. (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.2217/17455057.4.3.237 )

Medicine and the pharmaceutical industry is vastly hampered by the fact that the default is a white, cis man. Institutional racism and sexism is built into the system. (https://journals.lww.com/em-news/fulltext/2004/05000/race,_gender,_and_age_affect_medical_care,_so_why.18.aspx )

But erasing trans and intersex people is not the way to fix that.

Why can’t we expand our medical research to include cis women, trans women, BAME women, women with PCOS?

Trans and intersex bodies also deserve recognition and research. It’s not a zero-sum game. We can all have rights.

She talks about her project on domestic violence.

“I have a charitable trust that focuses on alleviating social deprivation in Scotland, with a particular emphasis on women and children. Among other things, my trust supports projects for female prisoners and for survivors of domestic and sexual abuse”

I’m Scottish. I’m a domestic violence survivor. So are a huge number of the people I care about. It’s an issue a I have a lot of feelings on.

According to Stonewall, a quarter of trans people experienced intimate partner violence in 2018.

Gendered violence is a thing! It’s a real problem, rife in every community I’ve lived in. I’ve got scars from it, my friends have broken bones, I’ve sheltered kids in my house, hiding till the police get there and their mum was taken to hospital.

Strangely, I don’t think transphobia is the answer. You know that intimate partner violence also affect lesbians, right? 43 per cent of them, to be exact.

The answer isn’t this persecuted minority should be excluded from shelters. The question is: how can we make people feel safer and eradicate domestic violence?

She goes on to talk about children and young people.

“The second reason is that I’m an ex-teacher and the founder of a children’s charity, which gives me an interest in both education and safeguarding. Like many others, I have deep concerns about the effect the trans rights movement is having on both.”

She doesn’t say what concerns her about the effect trans rights could have on safeguarding and education. Notice it appears to be separate from her later point about about being concerned about young trans men, which she outlines as her fourth point. So it’s not young people transitioning that she refers to here.

What is it then? What safeguarding and education concerns does she have around trans rights?

This point says “think of the children!”, and basically nothing else. Just that trans rights are somehow ‘concerning’. I work with young people and kids from all backgrounds, as well as the LGBTQAI community, so I’d really like to know what she’s worried about. I’m pretty sure it’s not the 64 percent of trans kids that experience bullying at school, or the nine percent who get death threats at school. It has worrying echoes of the notorious Section Twenty-Eight, the legacy of which still caused problems when I was a teenager, with older teachers feeling they had to allow homophobic bullying because “wasn’t that the law?”

She talks about the change in the number of young AFAB people transitioning:

“I’m concerned about the huge explosion in young women wishing to transition and also about the increasing numbers who seem to be detransitioning (returning to their original sex), because they regret taking steps that have, in some cases, altered their bodies irrevocably, and taken away their fertility. Some say they decided to transition after realising they were same-sex attracted, and that transitioning was partly driven by homophobia, either in society or in their families.”

Surely the answer, therefore, is to tackle sexism and homophobia, rather than take away the agency of young girls over their own bodies?

Lets ignore, for now, all the butch women who dressed in men’s clothes or used he/him pronouns and might have chosen to transition if it had been easier in the past.

Lets ignore the idea that there are more FTM than MTF transitions happening because being an out trans women is really fucking terrifying. How do you know that an equal number of AMAB people don’t want to transition to female, but are stopped because, oh yeah, sexism is terrible.

Look, I understand your concern, I really do. There’s lots and lots of decisions that young girls make in response to sexism that leave irrevocable traces they later regret: from tattoos to self harm, from ill-advised degree choices, to having kids, to eating disorders.

But the answer is not to take away the agency of young AFAB people over their bodies, and make the lives of all trans people harder.

She is worried that they’ll regret their decision and detransition, having caused harm to their fertility (why is fertility the key issue? Women are not defined by their ability to have kids. Plenty of women are infertile for other reasons.)

Why can’t we work on changing female beauty standards and get rid of the stigma of having a deep voice or facial hair, which plenty of cis women are born with? (https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2017/nov/30/female-facial-hair-if-so-many-women-have-it-why-are-we-so-deeply-ashamed )

And, you know what? If people detransition…that’s…. actually ok. According to multiple studies the number of trans people who regret their transition stands at only 1 percent (https://epath.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Boof-of-abstracts-EPATH2019.pdf#page=139 https://www.gendergp.com/evidenced-research-on-detransition-regret-newsnight/ ) and the most commonly cited reason is “the person couldn’t cope with the family and community support they lost and the experiences of transphobia” (https://www.gendergp.com/evidenced-research-on-detransition-regret-newsnight/ ) (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9570489/ )

In other words, its sometimes easier to live a lie than lose everyone you love.

The study that she cites about ‘sudden onset dysphoria’ (which is not a real medical thing recognized by any professional body) did not actually speak to any trans kids, but surveyed only their parents.

“Littman mentioned Tumblr, Reddit, Instagram and YouTube as contributing factors to Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria, where she believes that in the realm of transgender identification ‘youth have created particularly insular echo chambers.’”

Ah yes. Because young trans people, isolated in their communities, are totally unlikely to seek out people who feel the same way. That would * never * happen, right? It’s much more likely to be a “social contagion”.

The “concerned parent” narrative that prioritizes the voices of parents over young people themselves is eerily reminiscent of the controversy surrounding charity Autism Speaks, which many autistic people say advocates for the parents of autistic children while dehumanizing actual autistic people. (https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilywillingham/2013/11/13/why-autism-speaks-doesnt-speak-for-me/#6f2322453152 ) This becomes more worrying when you remember how Rowling talks about how “Autistic girls are hugely overrepresented in their numbers” (of people transitioning)

If you care about AFAB autistic people, perhaps the answer is not to perpetuate a culture of silencing their voices and denying them agency over their bodies.

She goes on to talk about young trans men, describing them as:

“a group of notably sensitive and clever people.”

Although apparently not sensitive or clever enough to have autonomy over their own bodies and identities.

She says that she might have transitioned if she’d lived now, in a paragraph that equates her own struggles with gender with that of trans youth. “If I’d been born 30 years later, I too might have tried to transition. The allure of escaping womanhood would have been huge.”

For me, this felt deeply patronizing. The thing about your internal gender identity is that it doesn’t go away over time. I’ve recovered from eating disorders, from self harm. I can’t recover from who I am.

And, look, it’s ok to struggle, to have a difficult and complicated relationship with your gender. Why does that make you want to make other people’s lives visibly, noticeably harder, which is what the legislation you are arguing for does?

The legislation which Rowling wants to keep in place is described by Stonewall as:

“outdated;…. based on the premise that being trans is a mental illness that needs to be diagnosed, which is similar to what was once thought about being gay or bi. It also requires trans people to take part in a bureaucratic and demeaning process to gain recognition of their gender……

…Many can’t or aren’t able to engage with it, and those who do go through it say they have to fit outdated stereotypes of what it is to be trans, and what it is to be a woman or a man to secure recognition…

…The Act also provides no way for non-binary people to have their gender identity recognised. .”

( https://www.stonewall.org.uk/system/files/lgbt_in_britain_-_trans_report_final.pdf )

I cannot agree with you when you are actively campaigning against things that would significantly improve people’s lives, when the lives of trans people are already statistically terrible.

She goes on to talk about sexism:

“We’re living through the most misogynistic period I’ve experienced. Back in the 80s, I imagined that my future daughters, should I have any, would have it far better than I ever did, but between the backlash against feminism and a porn-saturated online culture, I believe things have got significantly worse for girls. Never have I seen women denigrated and dehumanised to the extent they are now. From the leader of the free world’s long history of sexual assault accusations and his proud boast of ‘grabbing them by the pussy’, to the incel (‘involuntarily celibate’) movement that rages against women who won’t give them sex, to the trans activists who declare that TERFs need punching and re-educating, men across the political spectrum seem to agree: women are asking for trouble.”

In this paragraph, Rowling directly equates trans women with privileged men, most notably Donald Trump, who some might see as the embodiment of cis, straight, white rich male privilege.

Now I know there are trans women out there who are really awful people. This is going to be true of individuals within any group of people. Rowling is evidently aware of the risks facing trans women:

“when I read about a trans woman dying at the hands of a violent man, you’d find solidarity and kinship. I have a visceral sense of the terror in which those trans women will have spent their last seconds on earth….Trans people need and deserve protection. Like women, they’re most likely to be killed by sexual partners. Trans women who work in the sex industry, particularly trans women of colour, are at particular risk ”

It seems, therefore, an incredibly specious argument to equate an oppressed minority group of women with arguably the most privileged man in the world.

This section also explicitly conflates people who disagree with her personal ideology with people who assault women, and exhibit misogynistic behaviour. People dislike trans-exclusionary feminism, it implies, because they hate women. And not, you know, because it’s a movement actively campaigning to make the lives of trans people more difficult.

I agree that sexism is rife, and horrific. I want my daughter to grow up in a better world, where she will not face the sexism, violence and misogyny endemic to our society. I also want life to be a bit less shitty for trans people. The two are not mutually exclusive.

The next section is about the shared experiences of biological sex:

“I’ve read all the arguments about femaleness not residing in the sexed body, and the assertions that biological women don’t have common experiences, and I find them, too, deeply misogynistic and regressive…. one of the objectives of denying the importance of sex is to erode what some seem to see as the cruelly segregationist idea of women having their own biological realities or — just as threatening — unifying realities that make them a cohesive political class.”

Saying the idea that ‘biological women don’t have common experiences is misogynistic’, is, in my opinion, dismissive and undermining of the unique perspectives of individuals and minority groups. A trans man’s experience of pregnancy will not be the same as a cis woman’s. Intersex people’s bodies deserve to be recognised and included.

Amanda Lawrence points out that :

“White Feminism is criticized so often because white Feminists view gender as central to their identity, whereas Non-white Feminists have many identities beyond gender — including race, class, ability, religion, and sexual orientation — that intersect and overlap in ways overlooked by those with different (and oftentimes more limited) experiences.”

(Lawrence, The Power of Intersectionality to Transcend National Identity in the United States; accessed from: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/sena.12235 )

As a White person who benefits from racism, I am in no way qualified to speak on behalf of others. But it is my opinion that to say that you speak for all women as a monolithic “biological and political class” is to be in danger of erasing the voices of marginalized people, particularly at a time when it is clear that White Feminism routinely fails women of colour; and when the ideology you espouse involves exerting control over the bodies of a marginalized group.

Rowling talks about alienating language:

“the ‘inclusive’ language that calls female people ‘menstruators’ and ‘people with vulvas’ strikes many women as dehumanising and demeaning”

Yet Rowling making no attempt to find a compromise, and specifically uses language that itself seems designed to alienate others. Yeah, let’s not call people ‘menstruators’ that’s real creepy. But also, trans men menstruate and lots of women don’t. Saying ‘women’ when you mean ‘people who menstruate’ is alienating a portion of your target audience while including post-menopausal women, pregnant people and others. Inclusive speech, like all language, is constantly evolving in response to changing needs and societies. It belongs to us all.

Rowling states:

“…as many women have said before me, ‘woman’ is not a costume. ‘Woman’ is not an idea in a man’s head. ‘Woman’ is not a pink brain, a liking for Jimmy Choos or any of the other sexist ideas”

No. It’s not. And its not having a womb, or breasts, or menstruating (hysterectomies. Gynecomastia. Breast cancer survivors. Post menopausal women.)

You can’t fully define womanhood, Rowling, but you know it includes you, even if you don’t always want it to.

We all negotiate our relationship to gender in different ways. Why is that so scary?

“I want trans women to be safe. At the same time, I do not want to make natal girls and women less safe. When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman — and, as I’ve said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones — then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside. That is the simple truth.”

The myth of trans women attacking people in bathrooms has been debunked here: https://www.glaad.org/sites/default/files/Debunking_the_Bathroom_Bill_Myth_2017.pdf

And here: https://www.vox.com/identities/2016/5/13/17938102/transgender-people-bathrooms-locker-rooms-schools

And here: https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/no-link-between-trans-inclusive-policies-bathroom-safety-study-finds-n911106

However, people angry at trans women using bathrooms have assaulted cis women, who didn’t present femininely enough for them, so there’s that. (https://www.vox.com/2016/5/18/11690234/women-bathrooms-harassment )

Look, J.K Rowling, if you really don’t want men in women’s bathrooms and changing rooms, why aren’t you up in arms about male cleaning attendants? You’re not.

She continues:

“I stand alongside the brave women and men, gay, straight and trans, who’re standing up for freedom of speech and thought, and for the rights and safety of some of the most vulnerable in our society: young gay kids, fragile teenagers, and women who’re reliant on and wish to retain their single sex spaces.”

I was going to deconstruct this but I honestly don’t think I could do better than my sibling’s reply: “Well you don’t stand with us, do you, Joanne? Cos you wilnae let us in the fucking toilets!”

If you’re really afraid that trans women will assault other women, then you could look into tackling intimate partner violence in the lesbian community, which is a real and serious problem. If you want to support LGBTQ youth, perhaps you should listen to their voices and respect their autonomy.

She goes on to say that anyone who disagrees with her is ignorant:

“Polls show those women are in the vast majority, and exclude only those privileged or lucky enough never to have come up against male violence or sexual assault, and who’ve never troubled to educate themselves on how prevalent it is.”

I’m pretty sure quite a lot of survivors of sexual assault would disagree with that. I am a survivor of sexual assault and gendered violence, and quite frankly, I’m appalled that you want to leverage my trauma for the political purpose of making the lives of trans people harder.

Especially when your solidarity would have meant so much to me at one time, and when you have so much power to influence people.

Rowling talks about her history of abuse, specifically domestic violence and sexual assault. This was upsetting to read, and I’m truly sorry it happened to her.

When I was eighteen, the last Harry Potter book came out. I remember buying it with money I didn’t have, and reading it in one sitting, on a bus and then on the grass. It was an escape from my life at that time, which was filled with both of those things.

But I don’t think making it harder to transition, in a world that is already hard to negotiate as a trans person, will decrease domestic violence.

You say that you support trans people. But the policies you advocate for take away our agency, deny us our rights and make life harder for us in real, tangible ways, and I wish that you could see that.

What are you afraid of? That everyone will be trans and there will be no cis women left? That everyone will be non-binary? I don’t understand.

Can’t we make a world that’s better for every one? Where we can all exist without the fear of being assaulted simply for who we are. Where it’s easier to be a woman, where we tackle domestic violence, where we have equal medical research. Where systemic racism and sexism are uprooted, and the poverty in which systemic violence thrives most dangerously is eradicated. And where trans people can transition easily and safely, in the way that’s right for them, and be recognized.

That’s the world I believe in, and I’m sad to read that it’s not the one you want for me.

***

The Trevor Project is a charity that supports LGBTQ youth in the UK, including Trans people:

• Black Visions Collective is a trans- and queer-led social-justice organization and legal fund based in Minneapolis-St. Paul.

• Transgender Law Center offers legal resources to advance the rights of transgender and gender nonconforming people.

• Solutions Not Punishment Collaborative, SNaPCo, is an Atlanta-based group that provides community and financial support for Black trans and queer people in need and works to dismantle the prison industrial complex.

• The Marsha P. Johnson Institute’s mission is to protect and defend the human rights of Black transgender people.

• The National Center for Black Equity connects members of the Black LGBTQ+ community with information and resources to empower their fight for equity and access.

• LGBTQ+ Freedom Fund posts bail to secure the safety and liberty of people in jail and immigration detention.

• Emergency Release Fund, a member of the National Bail Fund Network, posts bail for pretrial medically vulnerable individuals and anyone who identifies as LGBTQ+.

• Incite! is a national activist organization of trans and gender nonconforming people of color working to end violence against individuals and communities through direct action, dialogue, and grassroots organizing.

• Black AIDS Institute works to end the Black HIV epidemic through policy, advocacy, and high-quality direct HIV services.

• For the Gworls raises money to assist wtih Black trans people’s rent & affirmative surgeries.

• Black Transmen is a nonprofit organization focused on social advocacy and empowering trans men with resources to aid in a healthy transition.

• Black Trans Femmes in the Arts connects the community of Black trans women and non-binary femmes in the arts to build power.

• The Okra Project addresses the global crisis faced by Black trans people by bringing them home-cooked meals and resources.

• The National Black Justice Coalition is a civil rights organization dedicated to empowering Black LGBTQ+ people.

• Trans Women of Color Collective, a grass-roots funded global initiative, uplifts the narratives and experiences of trans people of color and offers them opportunities.

• House of GG creates safe and transformative spaces where members of the community can heal from generational trauma, primarily focusing on trans women of color in the South.

• Trans Justice Funding Project is a community-led funding initiative that support grassroots trans justice groups run by-and-for trans people.

• Black Queer & Intersectional Collective, a grassroots community organization, works toward liberation through direct action, community organizing, education, and creating spaces to uplift voices.

• The Transgender District aims to stabilize and economically empower the transgender community through ownership of homes, businesses, historic and cultural sites, and safe community spaces in San Francisco.

• Brave Space Alliance is a trans-led center dedicated to creating and providing resources, programming, and services for LGBTQ+ individuals in Chicago.

• BreakOUT! seeks to end the criminalization of LGBTQ+ youth to build a safer and more just New Orleans.