Harry Potter author JK Rowling has gone on an anti-transgender rant yet again, this time likening hormone treatments used by transgender people to conversion therapy.
A Twitter follower posted a screenshot of Rowling liking a tweet comparing hormone replacement to conversion therapy. Rowling claimed that the screenshot was fake, though that didn’t stop her from posting a series of tweets that appeared to defend the sentiment.
“I’ve ignored fake tweets attributed to me and RTed widely,” she tweeted. “I’ve ignored porn tweeted at children on a thread about their art. I’ve ignored death and rape threats. I’m not going to ignore this. When you lie about what I believe about mental health medication and when you misrepresent the views of a trans woman for whom I feel nothing but admiration and solidarity, you cross a line.”
Related: Authors flee lit agency over JK Rowling’s anti-trans remarks
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“I’ve written and spoken about my own mental health challenges,” she went on, “which include OCD, depression and anxiety. I did so recently in my essay ‘TERF Wars’. I’ve taken anti-depressants in the past and they helped me. Many health professionals are concerned that young people struggling with their mental health are being shunted towards hormones and surgery when this may not be in their best interests.”
When you lie about what I believe about mental health medication and when you misrepresent the views of a trans woman for whom I feel nothing but admiration and solidarity, you cross a line. 2/11
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) July 5, 2020
I’ve written and spoken about my own mental health challenges, which include OCD, depression and anxiety. I did so recently in my essay ‘TERF Wars’. I’ve taken anti-depressants in the past and they helped me. 3/11
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) July 5, 2020
“Many, myself included,” Rowling continued,” believe we are watching a new kind of conversion therapy for young gay people, who are being set on a lifelong path of medicalization that may result in the loss of their fertility and/or full sexual function. These concerns were explored by the recent BBC documentary about the Tavistock Clinic. Whistleblowers were talking about transitions driven by homophobia As I’ve said many times, transition may be the answer for some. For others, it won’t – witness the accounts of detransitioners. ‘The system sees surgery as the easy fix to girls who do not conform.’”
Many, myself included, believe we are watching a new kind of conversion therapy for young gay people, who are being set on a lifelong path of medicalisation that may result in the loss of their fertility and/or full sexual function. 5/11
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) July 5, 2020
As I’ve said many times, transition may be the answer for some. For others, it won’t – witness the accounts of detransitioners.
“The system sees surgery as the easy fix to girls who do not conform.”
https://t.co/cr1Zi4JnWR 7/11— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) July 5, 2020
The long-term health risks of cross-sex hormones have been now been tracked over a lengthy period. These side-effects are often minimised or denied by trans activists.https://t.co/fpIxW34AWr
9/11— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) July 5, 2020
Cam
“”Many health professionals are concerned that young people struggling with their mental health are being shunted towards hormones and surgery when this may not be in their best interests.”””
So is she saying that a depressed kid is taken to a therapist and that therapist is saying “Hey, I know you said you’re depressed because you aren’t making friends easily and your parents are divorcing, so you know what would make you feel better? Transitioning!
I notice she didn’t put up a link to any actual examples of this. This seems a reincarnation of the old attacks against “The gays” decades ago that used to claim kids were being “Recruited”. No surprise Rowling is doing this since not that long ago she pulled out the old bathroom boogyman to use against transpeople also.
ryeguypdx
She linked to the BBC documentary, twice, which includes interviews from both medical staff and patients themselves, who fear that young gay kids are being steered toward transitioning, instead of just being gay. Who knows how prevalent it is, but if you want to understand what she’s talking about, you could always click on the links.
In general, I don’t get why so many people are mischaracterizing what she’s saying. I read her original essay, and the latest tweet thread, and all I get is an empathetic woman who supports trans identity, but advocates for more caution with regards to medical treatments provided to minors. Kind of a no-brainer, I would think? But rather than engaging honestly with what she writes, everyone just calls her hateful, exaggerates her position, and dismisses the whole thing without a second though. It’s been frustrating to watch.
Trans people exist, and need all the resources available to them. This can be true, while we still use caution with regards to what steps we take, and at what age in life.
Cam
@ryeguypdx
Except in that documentary they didn’t have concrete examples. If this is happening, then where are the families that this happened to? Where are the people who are saying this was done to them?
It would be like linking to a Fox News report that claims caravans are swamping America.
If this had been pushed and somebody was now upset it happened to them, the lawsuits would be flooding in.
jayceecook
@CamCam Here you go again asking people to do your homework for you because you’re too ignorant to do the research yourself. It’s so much easier to lie, deny, and deflect. What you do best. Because I’m feeling generous today…
https ://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/health-51806962
https ://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/health-51676020
https ://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7926675/amp/Witness-court-battle-against-gender-clinic-reveals-happened-cry-help.html
https ://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zTRnrp9pXHY5%2F9
https ://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/feb/02/gender-identity-treatments-for-young-expert-review
https ://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailysignal.com/2020/06/11/the-trans-teen-revolution/amp/
https ://www.christianpost.com/news/nhs-scrutinizes-puberty-blockers-amid-detransitioner-complaints-lawsuit-against-tavistock-clinic.html
https ://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/01/18/tavistock-silencing-debate-critics-say-book-removed-library/amp/
https ://www.google.com/amp/s/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/12/12/childrens-transgender-clinic-hit-35-resignations-three-years/amp/
https ://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/feb/23/child-transgender-service-governor-quits-chaos
https ://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/01/06/children-cannot-give-consent-transgender-treatment-nurse-launching/
https ://www.christianpost.com/news/35-psychologists-resign-from-uk-gender-identity-clinic-with-3000-kids-on-wait-list.html
Not that you’ll read any of them or watch the video. Or even do some research yourself. Because that might take precious time away from CamCam’s troll hunting.
ShiningSex
She’s garbage. She has her millions now, so she don’t give a f*ck what crap spews out of her ugly mouth.
People should burn her books and never support her again.
Mack
Don’t burn books that’s you’ve bought, that doesn’t do any thing because the money is already in her pocket. Notify her publisher that you will form a group to boycott all sales of her books, current and future.
LumpyPillows
Shame you didn’t read the article. While one could debate her points, she isn’t this evil person you have made up in your rigid mind.
trsxyz
JK’s position on the transgender issue appears to be similar to Camille Paglia’s. Both are concerned about individuals pursuing sex reassignment surgery & hormone therapy at a very young age, when they still have many years or psychosocial & sexual development ahead of them. This concern seems valid, since surgery & hormone treatment aren’t easily reversable. However if you have a child struggling with gender identity issues, and threatening suicide, then all treatment options must be considered.
S.anderson
Ya know, Rowling has a solid point about being maliciously misrepresented. That fact should not be brushed over. Those who are doing this deliberately ought to face public reconciliation for their off-point attacks. You can’t just shrug this off like “oh, haha how dare Rowling try to defend herself against the clever spin of our trans spokespeople?” WELL, because if you can’t stick with the honest truth, then your cause is invalidated. Yet, this article skims over this manufactured conflict, as if it were par for the course and not desirable to bring to the audience’s attention. Is it because punching down on Rowling will win this venue more positive ad impressions than daring to defend her?
I don’t know whether there is a conspiracy to mislead gay, lesbian and bisexual youth into believing they are actually trans or nonbinary, but I was a member of an LGBT youth group while in my teens, and looked into volunteering with one in my city a couple years ago. This group is extrordinarilly well funded, and own their own building. The monthly open house overlapped with a regular meeting, and I was baffled by the lack of CIS LGB teens there. The vast majority (of about 25 attending) were transboys, the rest transgirls except for one lesbian and two gay boys. This is the only LGBTQ youth group in the city, and there is no official focus on transgender folk. Statistically, there should have been far more CIS LGB youth present. Where were they?
I don’t believe that “friendly straight bars”, Grindr and Scruff have eliminated the need for LGBTQ youth to seek support and face-to-face socializing. Yet, something in this program’s environment was filtering them out. Depsite their web site and newsletters begging for volunteers, at the end, they told us that actually they weren’t accepting volunteers and had no training sessions scheduled. None of us 9 visitors identified as transgender. My email newsletter subscription was terminated, which I discovered when I continued to get it under another name, as I had been double-subscribed for some time.
While volunteering with another LGBTQ org, I spoke with a young gay man who had aged out of that youth group. He described an effective caste system which subjected CIS teens to social shunning and even unchecked verbal abuse by trans teens. He mainly stuck it out for fellowship with other gay teens. How sad.
And I have noticed that “LGBTQ” organizations are staffed mostly by trans and nonbinary people now. They make sanguine public statements and issue historical accounts which would make LGBTQ people from my time as a college activist say W.T.F.? And we hear today’s “LGBTQ” leaders sneer about “some silly conspiracy” on their part to cancel the contributions of LGB people and rewrite the heroes and heroines from decades and hundreds of years ago as transgender instead. Well, why ARE the accounts so different now? Where are the LGB organizers now? Folks I have talked to agree that they’ve been pushed out, perhaps because they represent some heretical past which are unwelcome in today’s brave new Queer movement. Queer spokespeople and news outlets respond with a conspiracy theory of their own, where actually it was older LGB people discrediting and marginalizing trans people all this time. It’s absurd.
I have always felt it appropriate for LGB people to stand with other sex and gender minorities. After all, we are fighting the same enemy, HOMOPHOBES, though we are actually different phenomena and have different goals.
The difference is that LGB people have been fighting to demonstrate that they are normal, that among other things, they are not “confused about their gender” (the “bad old belief” which homophobes presume explains our “unnatural” behavior). That it is actually traditional sex/gender roles which fail to be representative of nature, whatever a person’s gender. In other words, a boy’s attraction to another boy is not because he really is or believes he is a girl. The traditional sex/gender roles are too restrictive, or outright wrong. It’s easy to demonstrate that these roles have scant connection to biological reality, as sex/gender roles vary widely among humanity’s cultures.
However, transgender people demonstrate little issue with traditional sex/gender roles! One could say they embrace traditional sex/gender roles too much. In essence, they match their feelings/personality to identify with an established traditional sex/gender identity which is at odds with the one their culture would assign to their physiology. Rather than defy the traditional role, they adhere to them religiously, and it is their physiology that becomes the focus of their conflict. In other words, they reinforce and evangelize the “bad old belief” that people with same-sex attractions are people with gender conflicts.
The Queer movement strongly asserts the point that gender is a construct. Sure, it certainly can be. Mostly, because gender identity is strongly influenced by your local traditional sex/gender roles. And I don’t think a reasonable person can deny that those roles are almost completely constructed. However, this is also the basis for CIS LGB people’s argument that their noncompliance with assigned roles means that these roles don’t agree with nature, while transgender folks argue that one’s nature directs you to which set of sex/gender roles fit you better than the one assigned to you by physiology.
So where one stands on the issue of homosexuality vs transgender is probably related to how comfortable they are with their physiology. Traditional sex/gender roles, which are constructs, play a dominant role in the development of our gender identity, a construct. If you like your physiology, you defy the traditional sex/gender roles, and see a broader world. If you don’t like your physiology, you defy your physiology and identify with traditional sex/gender roles in whole or in part.
Where one stands on the issue of transgender as conversion therapy is probably related to the era you came out in, and the messages you recieved that informed the resolution of your identity conflict. Older people are seeing their message and history overwritten with one which certainly feels like the one which they thought was a falsehood settled years ago. Younger people are eager to believe that THEY are the ones who have risen out of the dust to embrace the truth, so naturally all that came before must be either replaced or destroyed.
trsxyz
Thanks for sharing your experience. This part really resonated with me:
“That it is actually traditional sex/gender roles which fail to be representative of nature, whatever a person’s gender. In other words, a boy’s attraction to another boy is not because he really is or believes he is a girl. The traditional sex/gender roles are too restrictive, or outright wrong.”
LumpyPillows
My family’s experience is with a niece who insisted she was a trans boy. She reached this conclusion after falling in with a group of trans people. None of us who knew this girl since she was born thought this trans boy idea made sense, but we were supportive of her situation. I specifically said to her mother should seek honest medical assistance to evaluate what the truth was, and that I, as a gay man, did not have the training to assess the situation. i was concerned about the significance of making a mistake and modifying this girl’s body, even if only with hormones and blockers. I then lost track of the progress. A few years pass and my niece is now back to being a girl, happily, with a boy friend. This rush to transition is dangerous. I support trans people, but I am not comfortable with the attitude that many people have to this major step.
Also, the idea of trans people is 180 degrees in opposition to the concept of non-binary. Non-binary is more of a fashion or style choice in my mind. It is not a gender. It is what it is, and knock yourself out if that is what you want to do.
S.anderson
@trsxyz I appreciate the compliment. I do want to emphasize that I believe in transgenderism and support sex and gender minorities who suffer much like LGB do at the hands of homophobes. I just don’t believe that same sex attraction or bisexuality is a sign of gender conflict in most cases. It’s usually just because people are attracted to others in ways which traditional sex/gender roles fail to honestly depict. But, that’s my paradigm. Someone in another paradigm might see everything in terms of gender conflicts somehow.
S.anderson
@LumpyPillows It’s my view that “nonbinary” is the transgender movement’s drop-in-replacement to bisexuality, with a gender-conflict mechanism to explain same-sex attraction instead of a “that’s actually natural, we’ve just been taught lies” explanation which most CIS LGB identify with. It’s got some nice twists and features, but I don’t adopt this model because I have never felt significant conflict with my assigned gender. Though I do find my assigned sex roles are stilted stereotypes that rarely feel natural to me. And through this lens, I see it is probably an inappropriate model for many people.
Joshooeerr
The way gay media are jumping on the “JK Rowling is anti-trans” bandwagon is seriously disturbing. As this article illustrates, they are wilfully misrepresenting what she has said. Nobody who has actually read what she has written could rightfully characterise her words as “an anti-transgender rant”. She is never less than empathetic and considerate, and she raises genuine concerns that many medical professionals share – and that quite a few trans activists share too. Before you mindlessly echo the hate for JK, try reading what she’s actually said and understanding the issues. Also, the “trans community” is not a group that is in complete agreement on all the politics related to gender transition; there are quite divergent views within the community, but, for the most part, even LGBT media are just too lazy and clueless to represent them.
leo1008
every time one of these articles comes along, I take a look at what Rowling actually says and I come away unable to figure out why people are getting so upset. Example from this article:
“As I’ve said many times, transition may be the answer for some. For others, it won’t – witness the accounts of detransitioners.”
What am I missing here? This sounds like a valid concern presented in a perfectly acceptable and non-judgmental manner?
Toofie
Exactly!
LumpyPillows
This is all the new witch hunt where they burn anyone at the figurative stake who is accused of anything. Facts don’t matter. It is a horde mentality. I think JK, who is clear a supported of LGB causes, is not anti-trans. Her comments on this topic can be debated, but I usually agree with her. A trans woman is a trans woman, and there is nothing wrong with being a trans woman. She is not, however, a woman, which the radical social engineers keep repeating in their brainwashing. We will lose this argument and it weakens us against our enemies.
ThinkPlease
Yep, but she’s now rich and white, at least, so there’s two of the three no-no’s. And I guess GBR is first-world enough to burn her for that as well.
If she were male, they’d already have torched her. As it is, they at least have to lie about her first. Mission underway.
S.anderson
@LumpyPillows I agree, and certainly don’t see how Rowling is clearly anti-trans. I think she’s merely “off-message” in relation to the current narrative of prominent trans spokespeople, and that heresy is intolerable to some people.
yup5hioop
This over rated writer is a Karen pure and simple. IDK why anybody cares about her opinion on anything but fantasy wizards. Trump won’t let “elitist” scientists run the corona response and we are just dragging along when the rest of the world is basically over it. IDK why we are consulting a children’s book writer on this issue. Maybe Mike Pence can give a lecture on quantum physics next.
NotNow
Problem is, she’s . . . unless this is really Rob’t Galbraith talking, very influential and she’s talking -tweeting, for chriss-sakes, about a complicated issue(which I don’t think she truly understands) that’s more than one person’s(anybody’s but the patient and their clinical team’s) opinion. She does, tho, just need to stop. Sort of like the third Potter book. Is she really basing her authority on the fact she’s a depressive?
MaxH
It is not bigoted to not recognise people as their chosen gender. The world is not obliged to see you as you see yourself. The sense of entitlement is baffling.
Jared MacBride
She’s entitled to her opinion, I’m entitled not to care about it. But I do wonder to what end she’s doing all this. It’s not helping her book sales or changing anyone’s mind.
JessPH
If we are not allowing minors to vote then we should not allow them to undergo crucial irreversible medical procedures like hormones therapies. JK is right.
dustychiffon
Does anyone else wonder why she’s so obsessed with this issue? I’m starting to wonder if she’s harboring her own trans identity issues and it’s just self hating.
jayceecook
What I gather from her own words is that as a biological woman who was repeatedly victimized by biological men during her life she doesn’t want trans women, whom she may or may not believe to be women, included in “safe spaces” for victimized biological women.
My understanding is that she believes that since trans women never had the “female experience” growing up, i.e. all the “horrors of the patriarchy”, not only can they never understand what it is like to be a “real” woman but because they were born biologically male they are inherently culpable because of “male privilege”.
Notice how she rarely, if ever, mentions trans men. Her position is, again based on her own words, all men, biological at least, are all rapists, abusers, women hating, defenders of the patriarchy in waiting. And their presence (i.e. trans women) in single sex safe spaces for biological women is under attack.
S.anderson
Does anyone else wonder why she’s accused of obsession when she’s being bombarded with lies from unbalanced individuals with a severely warped narrative, ignoring them for the most part, and has simply spoken up recently to refute a particularly egregious accusation? 🙂