I'm still pretty sure that anyone can enter any women's bathroom in the world by simply pushing on the door regardless of their claimed gender, so I will just never understand how this is a major point of discussion in the trans rights debate.
At this point in the conversation about Rowling's mental health it's good to bring up the reminder that she writes trans panic fiction under a male pen name of a conversion therapist.
The issue is that Rowlings issues run deep and she's deep into the "If I fix the world it will prove I'm not the one who's broken" land to think the collapse of TwitterX might be the best thing for her.
I'm still pretty sure that anyone can enter any women's bathroom in the world by simply pushing on the door regardless of their claimed gender, so I will just never understand how this is a major point of discussion in the trans rights debate.
If you criminalize being in the "wrong" restroom, you can ensure that trans women are forced into the men's restroom, where they face dramatically increased risk of violence and distress all around, which hurts them. That's the actual goal, so it serves its purpose.
It turns out people are allowed to lie about their goals.
__________________ Hear me / and if I close my mind in fear / please pry it open See me / and if my face becomes sincere / beware Hold me / and when I start to come undone / stitch me together Save me / and when you see me strut / remind me of what left this outlaw torn
She does in the piece from which the bit which we've been discussing comes from. It's literally "I accept my one trans friend who did all the things I deem right and proper for acceptance". She wants to go back to the days where a rather small number of trans people who had privileged access to psychologists and surgeons could go through a many years long process of demonstrating continued major distress at dysphoria before enough specialists would deign to sign off permission for surgery and hormones. Then she might accept those trans women in bathrooms.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JKR
Again and again I’ve been told to ‘just meet some trans people.’ I have: in addition to a few younger people, who were all adorable, I happen to know a self-described transsexual woman who’s older than I am and wonderful. Although she’s open about her past as a gay man, I’ve always found it hard to think of her as anything other than a woman, and I believe (and certainly hope) she’s completely happy to have transitioned. Being older, though, she went through a long and rigorous process of evaluation, psychotherapy and staged transformation. The current explosion of trans activism is urging a removal of almost all the robust systems through which candidates for sex reassignment were once required to pass.
I’m from the south. I’m familiar with bigots holding up examples that they deem “one of the good ones” in order to attack the group that they don’t care for.
You are also a trained scientist, Bey. How many bigots holding up examples that they deem “one of the good ones”, while attacking the group that they don’t care for, does a study have to find in order to substantiate the hypothesis "Rowling doesn't care for any trans people and is attacking them"?
Mick, I have been aware of the concept since I was in middle school. I read to Run with the Horsemen (a memoir about growing up in the South around the turn of the century and realizing your dad was a racist piece of shit) in 8th grade. I didn’t get training as a scientist until I was thirty.
You don’t need advance scientific training to not be a bigot or recognize that assholes often will say things to give them cover for their assholery.
Also, I think you are strawmanning me pretty hard.
The fact that bigots often do something means that when Rowling does that thing she isn’t clearing herself of bigotry, but I never said that it being a common tactic of the disingenuous proves that she is lying or a bigot.
I’m rejecting the example as being a degense against bigotry, but I’m not saying it’s strong proof of bigotry.
You often parse language with hyper precision so I find your misrepresentation of my position pretty amusing.
If only you would extend to my posts the same charity you do Rowling’s.
where they face dramatically increased risk of violence and distress all around, which hurts them. That's the actual goal, so it serves its purpose.
Indeed, one of the added bonuses for misogynists is that women will start policing how other women dress. As has already been the case at least once that I know of. Careful dressing too dyky or a well meaning lady might get the manager and turn jeans and short hair into a fight.
I think you are strawmanning me pretty hard. ... I’m not saying it’s strong proof of bigotry.
But Bey, I think you need to acknowledge that it isn't even weak proof of bigotry. While you appear to be defending the same ground as those who present it as evidence of Rowling's being an anti-trans bigot, I am not strawmanning you at all.
I am overall confused why you're talking about her paper in a vacuum. Was there a post I missed where we were to analyze her 2020 blog post as if those were her only words and actions on the subject?
I think you are strawmanning me pretty hard. ... I’m not saying it’s strong proof of bigotry.
But Bey, I think you need to acknowledge that it isn't even weak proof of bigotry. While you appear to be defending the same ground as those who present it as evidence of Rowling's being an anti-trans bigot, I am not strawmanning you at all.
Again you choose to parse my post in an uncharitable fashion while ignoring the bulk of what I said.
If you think using a common tactic of bigots means nothing, it sure is odd that you think you can ascribe a position to me that I didn’t argue because others are doing it.
Again mick, why don’t I warrant the charity you extend Rowling?
Honestly, defending that level of gatekeeping is sort of itself evidence of some amount of bigotry? I don't think "I suppose it's maybe okay if some people who have been made to suffer and jump through hoops a lot get treated okay" is actually strong evidence against bigotry. "I will defend your rights only under extremely limited circumstances" is a kind of "I don't think you enjoy the same presumption of rights that I extend to most people".
__________________ Hear me / and if I close my mind in fear / please pry it open See me / and if my face becomes sincere / beware Hold me / and when I start to come undone / stitch me together Save me / and when you see me strut / remind me of what left this outlaw torn
She's abstractly pro-trans, as long as it might not affect herself.
She explicitly doesn't want trans women in spaces for women. I think it's pretty fair to say that she's anti-trans. It's a softer prejudice than wanting to kill or convert them, but it's an opinion that's still based on fear of trans people.
I believe her views have been misrepresented. I believe Kam's joke and your apologia here are examples of that. I accept I could be wrong.
Can you provide a citation for "She explicitly doesn't want trans women in spaces for women"?
So 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.
So, we've had this conversation before. JKR thinks there are women, maybe some "acceptable" trans women, and men who want to invade women's spaces.
I don't know why mickthinks wants to relitigate this over and over again, but I made my opinion clear:
Quote:
She explicitly doesn't want trans women in spaces for women. I think it's pretty fair to say that she's anti-trans. It's a softer prejudice than wanting to kill or convert them, but it's an opinion that's still based on fear of trans people.
I don't get why this particular person's opinion needs to be parsed so much.
Again you choose to parse my post in an uncharitable fashion while ignoring the bulk of what I said.
I haven't quoted or addressed a lot of what you've said, but it would be wrong to assume I have ignored it. Some of it is pertinent to the point i want to settle with you and I believe much of it isn't. I don't think I have interpreted your half denial uncharitably. "I’m not saying it’s strong proof of bigotry" leaves wide open the possibility that you support its being used as some kind of evidential support for a "Rowling is a bigot" thesis.
I have charitably refrained from jumping to conclusions about where you stand. And it is charity that prompts me to leave it to you to clarify.
I don't agree that "She explicitly doesn't want trans women in spaces for women" is not a misrepresentation of her views. I think it is a misrepresentation of what she has written.
__________________
... it's just an idea
Last edited by mickthinks; 11-06-2023 at 10:39 PM.
If I really cared about internet points I wouldn't have deleted my reddit account.
But ok, yes apparently we are analyzing this one specific quote outside of its context.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mickthinks
Quote:
JK Rowling wrote:
So 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.
Now it seems to me clear that, whatever you believe about Rowling's actual position on the wider issues of trans rights, and also whatever criticism you might have, no matter how valid, of her conclusions or the arguments she uses, it is simply not the case that this quote can reasonably be read as "JKR doesn't want any trans women in women's bathrooms".
That is because:
Quote:
Originally Posted by mickthinks View Post
IIf transwomen who have transitioned and transwomen who have yet to transition are not one and the same, then it is possible to distinguish between them and to support the rights of one while expressing reservations about extending those rights to the other, without denying those rights to transwomen as a group.
VM hit one answer pretty squarely.
I also have the feeling this has been mentioned before, but It does not legally open the door to "anyone" who "feels" they are a woman because legally they must still go through the process of getting the certificate.
It would appear to 'open the door' to anyone willing to provide detailed personal and health information to the government proving they're trans while also agreeing to be fined and imprisoned for up to two years if found to be falsifying data.
The issue isn't that it's so easy anyone can do it, it's that it's easier than she personally feels is acceptable. At this point I think it's on her to show convincing data that these changes have any appreciable effect on women in restrooms.
ETA: Additionally the 2022 bill changed the requirements to no need for a formal diagnosis and 6 months of living as trans, but still requires an application, It's projected that these changes will increase the number of requests from 20-30 to 250-300, not 300 thousand, just 300. https://www.theguardian.com/society/...r-wider-issues
Honestly, even if it were "so easy anyone could do it"... so what? What is the evidence available showing that this causes a problem, let alone a problem bad enough to justify the costs of "fixing" it?
But also, we do have the lovely benefit of having decades of this to look at, and what we consistently find is that people who want "just a few common sense restrictions" inevitably escalate past those if they get them.
Currently, she says she wants thing A, but not thing B which is more extreme. But if she gets thing A, are you confident she won't switch to asking for thing B?
Can you offer an example of someone who had a stance against trans people having some rights, but was okay with others, and who got what they wanted, and then actively worked to protect the rights they previously said they thought were okay? Because I have never seen an example of that, but I've seen lots of people who got what they said they wanted, and then started asking for lots more.
And to be clear, that is a trend that occurs in both directions. I think nearly everyone's position ends up cashing out to either "yeah whatever let people transition as much or as little as they want, it really doesn't matter" or "all transitioning is bad and should be banned". Like, that won't be what they're saying, but there's no intermediate point at which they'll actually stop. In general, people don't go around advocating for trans rights up to some point then say "no stop this point is good", or vice versa.
__________________ Hear me / and if I close my mind in fear / please pry it open See me / and if my face becomes sincere / beware Hold me / and when I start to come undone / stitch me together Save me / and when you see me strut / remind me of what left this outlaw torn
One of the most fundamental problems in discourse about this is that the actual scale of the trans population pretty small. So, for instance, Utah's governor attempted to veto an anti-trans law (it was pushed through despite the veto). He pointed out that they had 75,000 kids playing sports in their schools, of whom four were trans and only one was playing girls' sports. His argument, which I think is pretty reasonable, was basically that this simply isn't enough cases to justify doing anything at all even if there were a problem.
Laws intended to harm trans people regularly end up hurting dramatically more cis people than trans people, just because of population sizes.
If you try to classify people's faces as masculine or feminine, you're going to hit a lot more cis women than trans women, because there are so many more cis women than trans women that even a 1-2% error rate will completely swamp the trans population.
__________________ Hear me / and if I close my mind in fear / please pry it open See me / and if my face becomes sincere / beware Hold me / and when I start to come undone / stitch me together Save me / and when you see me strut / remind me of what left this outlaw torn
Again you choose to parse my post in an uncharitable fashion while ignoring the bulk of what I said.
I haven't quoted or addressed a lot of what you've said, but it would be wrong to assume I have ignored it.
I’m not seeing a real difference between you read what I wrote and thought about and then decided to ascribe to me a position that I expressly didn’t take and that you ignored what I wrote.
Quote:
Some of it is pertinent to the point i want to settle with you and I believe much of it isn't. I don't think I have interpreted your half denial uncharitably. "I’m not saying it’s strong proof of bigotry" leaves wide open the possibility that you support its being used as some kind of evidential support for a "Rowling is a bigot" thesis.
I have charitably refrained from jumping to conclusions about where you stand. And it is charity that prompts me to leave it to you to clarify.
So while I do think that Rowling using model minority language is soft evidence of bigotry, zi only ever argued that using such an argument doesn’t demonstrate that she isn’t a bigot.
I do think it’s soft evidence, which is why I won’t say that it isn’t, but that wasn’t my argument.
I expressly said what my argument was (using model minorities as deserving rights doesn’t show that you support those rights as bigots often use that tactic)and you responded with.
Quote:
While you appear to be defending the same ground as those who present it as evidence of Rowling's being an anti-trans bigot, I am not strawmanning you at all.
mickthinks has insisted that wants to only post about one particular point before he's willing to engage in a slightly wider discussion. Nonetheless he decided to ignore my direct response on that specific point and instead focus on bey's subsequent commentary.
I hate having to move from discussing topics to discussing the discussion, but we're at that point here, and it is very tedious.
Quote:
Originally Posted by fragment
Quote:
Originally Posted by mickthinks
it is simply not the case that this quote can reasonably be read as "JKR doesn't want any trans women in women's bathrooms"
Quote:
for the purposes of explaining why it is wrong to read "any man who believes or feels he is a women" as "all transwomen"
Has anyone made claims about JKR's prejudice using these universals? Or is it more charitable to read them as "JKR doesn't want many, probably most, trans women in women's bathrooms, with a few exceptions like her one black trans friend who is one of the good ones"?
I will add that the principle of charity isn't to be nice, and it's definitely not to determine the truth of a person's views, it's to assume the strongest possible interpretation of someone's statements so that any counter you come up with is also strong.
But we're not trying to debate JKR here. What we're doing is textual and contextual analysis to determine the most likely positions she holds on the basis of all relevant evidence. That's a different goal.
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