Summary of previous thread
Many contributors acknowledged their thanks and support of JK Rowling speaking up for women, standing up for women's rights and particularly raising concerns about the current political and social trend to promote extreme trans-activism at the expense of the safety of women and girls by allowing a biologically determined male (i.e. someone with intact male genitalia) to self identify as female and enter female designated places, such as toilets and changing rooms.
There has been much discussion with occasional contributors making statements that to not accept the current trend was transphobic, making comments about supportive opinions of JK Rowling were being made by "Karen's", "TERFs" or "cis" (usually) older females (definitions at end of post).
On the whole, intelligent arguments were made to counter these allegations. JK Rowling continues to be lambasted by extremists and there is a campaign to "cancel" her and her contribution to literature, culture and society. Some of the excellent arguments I copied and saved, but to my shame forgot to save the names of the contributors so please, if this was your contribution, acknowledge it and thank you
" I have no issues whatsoever with trans people. I do however have issues with men who still have penises and have no intention of undergoing genital surgery but still identify as women. Some insist that they should be allowed into women only spaces such as changing rooms and public toilets, and that if they go to prison they should go to a women’s prison. Several self-identified trans women have sexually assaulted or raped women prisoners whilst in jail.
They also believe that lesbians who won’t sleep with them are transphobic and have attacked and harassed women who don‘t agree with them.
These are the types that JK Rowling has issues with."
"The trans sense of entitlement really reminds me of er...male entitlement actually. Entitled to women’s spaces and women’s bodies.
Fuck off with that shit."
"The trans lobby is inherently anti women. Look at the comments on this thread. If they were supportive of gays and lesbians why have they alienated lesbians by arguing that they are homophobic for refusing to sleep with trans women. Leave women alone. Leave us be. And stop calling us cis. We are not a sub set of woman. We are women. Not cis, not bleeders, not menstruators, not cervix holders. Women. Adult female human. Woman."
"They can do what the fuck they want. Just keep their male bodies and male pattern criminality AWAY from women and children.
Yaniv is NOT an isolated incident. That is an utter lie. There is an entire subreddit, r/thisneverhappens , dedicated to recording such crimes.
One that springs to mind is Karen White, a convicted bepenised rapist and paedophile who was put in a women’s prison, and who, surprise surprise, sexually assaulted his fellow inmates.
Another is teenage transgenderist Katie Dolatowski, who attempted to sexually assault a 10 year old girl in a women’s public toilet."
"Trans women’s rights are directly taking away women’s rights.
The entire reason that women’s spaces are separate from men’s is that men are a risk to women. This risk is due to male-bodied strength relative to females, and male pattern criminality.
Since transwomen retain both male-bodied strength and the same tendency to commit male-pattern criminality, admitting transwomen into women’s safe spaces is the same risk as admitting men into these spaces. It is therefore the same as taking away women’s right to safe spaces.
This is proven by the fact that transwomen make up 0.5% of women’s prison oppositions but commit 11% of rapes. This number is conservative because transwomen with gender recognition certificates are counted as female.
As for transwomen being unwelcome in male toilets due to the threat of male violence, firstly there is no evidence that this is the case, unlike the countless crimes committed by transwomen in women’s toilets. Drag queens have been using men’s toilets for decades with few issues.
Men should be educated to not attack violent males in different clothing. Women's and children’s safety should not be sacrificed for issues that are not our fault.
Black women have spoken up about historic US toilet segregation being compared trans women’s invasive demands. You are an ignorant racist. Firstly it is racist because you are comparing black women to biological males, and because you are misrepresenting their historic struggles to use them as props in arguments.
Secondly it’s not a valid comparison; blacks were segregated in many areas of life including even water fountains and bus seats, not just private safe spaces. The toilets were extensions of general segregation, not due to particular concerns about black womens’ anatomy, strength, or sex crime risk, as you imply with these irrelevant comparisons.
Please state exactly what JK Rowling has said that “fuels hatred”.
My last thought is that it’s ironic that you are accusing this thread of being an “echo chamber”, when you are so enraged by JK Rowling gentle disagreeing with an echo chamber, that you want to boycott her."
"The majority of transgender women retain their male genitalia. So, the point is, people with penises will be using female spaces - not just toilets (which aren’t really the issue) but open changing rooms, women’s only wards in hospitals, women’s prisons, domestic abuse shelters etc. The fact is that there will be vulnerable women, victims of rape and abuse, who will have significant trauma, and should not be forced to share these spaces with people with penises, just because those people feel like women.
It’s a further problem when you realise that most transgender ideology and charities now believe that transgender does not mean you have gender dysphoria or even have to attempt to present as the opposite sex. If you say you are, you are. So a bearded, male-looking person can say he’s a woman and that’s that. Isn’t that troubling?
Then we get to the fact that self ID laws and this idea of “everyone is what they say they are” can be exploited by male predators. It is being exploited already, there are numerous examples of this. This is without getting into the fact that some transwomen (emphasis on some) are predators themselves. Plenty of examples out there."
"(It would have prevented) Katie Dolatowski (being) in the ladies toilets in the Morrisons in Kirkcaldy when, on two separate occasions, Katie filmed a 12-year-old girl over the cubicle wall and sexually assaulted a 10one-year-old girl while her father waited for her outside. Katie was convicted of voyeurism and sexual assault."
"For me it’s not just about toilets.
I, of course, do believe trans people have rights. I recognise they are a marginalised group. I believe that gender is a social construct.
i will also say this; women have difficulty entering public spaces. From catcalling, to being groped, to being abused - all of this behaviour stems from the public sphere historically being the Male domain, something that is still present in the psyche of people today. We have had to fight and negotiate for our place in this public sphere - to be able to walk down the street in a skirt and not have it be commented upon. To be able to walk alone at night. By virtue of being born with a specific set of genitalia, women have been removed from certain privileges. We continue to fight for these.
There is also the fact that, statistically, the vast vast majority of women have been sexually harassed or assaulted in the UK. I’d go so far to say that every single woman in the U.K. has experienced a form of harassment or assault at some point, ranging from unwanted advances in a pub, to someone grabbing your bum, to full on attacks. It is prevalent. I include myself among this statistic, as does JK.
I also do not see trans women as being a threat or as being perpetrators of this abuse at all. Most I’ve known are gentle souls with more empathy than most. This isn’t about these people being abusive.
for me the issue is this; women have carefully negotiated their place in the public sphere. If we - as a society - deem any people who are biologically Male AND decide they identify as the gender female, should have access to these spaces, it removes arenas that have been ringfenced for biological/cis women and it opens our public spheres to anyone who claims they are a woman. It’s opens our protected rights and spaces to exploitation.
we have had the vote for just a hundred years, compared to thousands of years of oppression. Until relatively recently, a woman was property of her male relatives or husband with few legal rights. It is mind numbing, just how recent this state of affairs was.
it isn’t about if I mind a trans woman in a bathroom; it’s about minding if a trans woman can use female only gym areas, women’s only swimming sessions, designated women’s sporting events, women’s changing rooms, women’s domestic abuse facilities, women’s health facilities and so on.
in worst case scenarios, women who have been subject to abuse from men (I volunteered in a charity supporting these women) sometimes find they cannot feel safe or secure in the presence of men. To state that any biological Male should have access to these women’s spaces based on their gender identity alone, is an idea worthy of discussion at the very least. No one should have TERF yelled at them over it."
The following definitions are from dictionary.com
"Cancel Culture" - Canceling, today, is used like a massive, informal boycott when someone or something in the public eye offends … or when we’re just over them. Justified or not, canceling someone sounds harsh. Synonyms for cancel are similarly severe: abort, wipe out, squash, trash, and repudiate.
"What happens when someone gets canceled?"
There are varying degrees of cancelation. Sometimes, it’s just a general declaration via the media or by social-media users. In other cases, however, cancelations are accompanied by mass unfollowings on social media, declines in sales and subscriptions, lost contracts, and more. While canceling can also be used with benign or humorous intent, such as with love, in other cases, canceling someone can have a very real impact on their livelihood.
"Karen" is a pejorative slang term for an obnoxious, angry, entitled, and often racist middle-aged white woman who uses her privilege to get her way or police other people's behaviours.
In 2020, Karen spread as a label used to call out white women who were in viral videos engaging in what are widely seen as racist acts.
"TERF" is an acronym for "trans-exclusionary radical feminism" or "trans-exclusionary radical feminist."
TERF is used to describe cisgender women who self-identify as feminist but who are opposed to including transgender women in spaces they reserve for people who were assigned female at birth. This is because they believe trans women are men and since men cannot coexist with their feminist ideologies, they exclude them from their beliefs and support. In fact, they often believe they should be denied rights and sometimes advocate for harm against trans people.
"Gender" is sometimes confused with “sex.” “Sex” is biological; gender is complex and somewhat amorphous, and relates to behavioral and psychological traits. Gender is primarily applied to human beings.
"Sex assignment" is the determination of an infant’s sex at birth. Generally, it’s unambiguous, but there may be complications in making that assignment if a baby is intersex. (People born with genital ambiguity were previously referred to as “hermaphrodites,” but that term is considered outdated and “intersex” is now preferred.) On occasion the sex that a child is assigned at birth doesn’t conform with that person’s innate gender identity.
"Cisgender", or just "cis", is a term for a person whose gender identity corresponds with their biological sex assigned at birth. It’s the opposite of transgender. The prefix cis is Latin for “on this side of,” whereas trans means “on the other side of.”Cisgender is favored over another term, gender-normative, which can be seen to imply that transgender identities are not “normal.”
"Transgender" has long applied to people whose gender identities do not correspond to the sex they were assigned at birth. It can be used for those who have sex reassignment surgery, or for those who present and live publicly as a different gender than they were assigned at birth.
Transgender is the “T” in the acronym LGBTQ.
"Gender identity" is a person’s self-perception of their gender as male, female, a mix of male and female, or as something else beyond the gender binary. It may differ from their sex assigned at birth. A range of identities are now being recognized.
"Binary", in the context of the gender lexicon, refers to the view of gender as consisting of only two identities: man or woman, male or female.
Nonbinary refers to a gender identity outside of those two categories: not exclusively male or female, perhaps both, neither, or something else entirely.
"Gender Neutrality" - In addition to gender neutral words and restrooms, gender neutrality can refer to the concept of ending the branding and discrimination related to gender and sex in society. Gender neutrality also encourages the idea that we should end the practice of giving roles or making rules based on sex or gender.
