J.K. Rowling Writes about Her Reasons for Speaking Out on Sex and Gender Issues
jkrowling.com
jkrowling.com
That’s quite a thing to say without elaboration. I don’t have a well developed view about where femaleness resides and am not well read, but I find it hard to believe that such arguments are essentially “deeply misogynistic and regressive”.
I respect her for elaborating on her views and sharing her experience — I admire her courage. But comments like this, and the joke about “growing a pair,” don’t convey the empathy she might.
This is a topic with a lot of nuance and I'm no Rowling when it comes to writing or discussion about gender and sex. I think she's making clear that she's a feminist first, and that she's taking issue with how any woman who does not fall in line with the "approved hashtags" regarding trans issues is labeled a TERF. All nuance on what she actually believes (3690-word essay) has been replaced by a catchy, provocative statement like "you are killing trans people with your ideas."
It would be so much easier to tweet the approved hashtags – because of course trans rights are human rights and of course trans lives matter – scoop up the woke cookies and bask in a virtue-signalling afterglow
“TERF”s do not exist. This is just a slur invented by men who object to lesbians not wanting to have sex with them. It goes hand-in-hand with the idea that they should be forced, coerced, or shamed into doing so, regardless of their desires. The use of this term is an implied rape threat, like the related expression “cotton ceiling”.
Rowling's definition of 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. Examples of so-called TERFs range from the mother of a gay child who was afraid their child wanted to transition to escape homophobic bullying, to 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. Ironically, radical feminists aren’t even trans-exclusionary – they include trans men in their feminism, because they were born women.
Wikipedia's definition of TERF [0]:
> ["TERF"] was originally applied to a minority of feminists espousing sentiments that other feminists consider transphobic, such as the rejection of the assertion that trans women are women, the exclusion of trans women from women's spaces, and opposition to transgender rights legislation. The meaning has since expanded to refer more broadly to people with trans-exclusive views who may have no involvement with radical feminism.
Rowling and Wikipedia agree that being trans-exclusionary, and not necessarily radically feminist, is the main reason why people might call other people TERFs.
Rowling herself, in this essay, emits words which are very TERF-like, and while I don't particularly care who is and is not a TERF (as I am not in charge of policing radical feminists), I am interested in how she simultaneously protests the term, while also saying things like:
> 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.
This sort of transphobic concern-trolling is frustratingly common and definitely doesn't help her optics.
On a more personal note, I don't know what the term "TERF" has meant to you in the past, but I have seen it typically applied to religious women who apply some sort of filter to discriminate between trans and cis folks. It is hard not for me to see echos of bathroom bills [1] in Rowling's worries:
> 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.
Regardless of whether TERFs exist, if Rowling wants to not be considered a TERF, she might reconsider her position on "the exclusion of trans women from women's spaces".