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Cont: Transwomen are not women - part 13

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TurkeysGhost said:
I'll take it as a concession that since you're not defending Linehan the same way you defend Rowling, you know he's a dud. I don't blame you, I wouldn't want him on my "side" either.
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I knew you'd grab that Lineham gotcha and I knew you'd ignore me if I just asked about Rowling's reactionary conservatism. You're just that transparent
 
TurkeysGhost said:
I'll take it as a concession that since you're not defending Linehan the same way you defend Rowling, you know he's a dud. I don't blame you, I wouldn't want him on my "side" either.
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Another possibility is that Manger Mouse isn't defending Lineham because he doesn't know much about him. I don't even know who Lineham is, so I wouldn't attempt to defend him. From my place of ignorance, it's entirely possible that your characterization is correct, but the fact that I'm not attempting to defend him isn't any evidence in favor of your characterization.

On the other hand, your refusal to back up your assertion with respect to Rowling does suggest that you don't actually have evidence of her "reactionary conservatism".
 
Samson said:
A question posed:

How can anyone be born in such a way that it requires state of the art technology in order to exist? (drugs, surgery).
Can anyone here answer that?

It is certain that children are being told this is the case.
I am trying to reduce this to its simplest form for my own peace of mind.
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Is this a serious question?

Premature birth.

In-utero surgery, for example, to repair a hole in the heart.

Also, gene therapy to correct genetic diseases.
 
ThatGuy11200 said:
Is this a serious question?

Premature birth.

In-utero surgery, for example, to repair a hole in the heart.

Also, gene therapy to correct genetic diseases.
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Specifically the high tech related to altering the body, because the mind has been encouraged by the authorities to demand changing the body.
 
Roboramma said:
Another possibility is that Manger Mouse isn't defending Lineham because he doesn't know much about him. I don't even know who Lineham is, so I wouldn't attempt to defend him. From my place of ignorance, it's entirely possible that your characterization is correct, but the fact that I'm not attempting to defend him isn't any evidence in favor of your characterization.

On the other hand, your refusal to back up your assertion with respect to Rowling does suggest that you don't actually have evidence of her "reactionary conservatism".
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Rowling has penned an entire anti-trans manifesto outlining her views. It's been posted several times before. Whether or not various posters find this as acceptable "evidence" is not really worth rehashing again. Most decide it doesn't count for whatever reasons, mostly because, unlike Linehan, Rowling is much more polite and less direct. She has a much more refined sense of reputation management than Linehan, who seems happy to be known as the frothing at the mouth bigot. So you have to give that to Rowling, she's not a total nutter.
 
TurkeysGhost said:
Rowling has penned an entire anti-trans manifesto outlining her views. It's been posted several times before. Whether or not various posters find this as acceptable "evidence" is not really worth rehashing again. Most decide it doesn't count for whatever reasons, mostly because, unlike Linehan, Rowling is much more polite and less direct. She has a much more refined sense of reputation management than Linehan, who seems happy to be known as the frothing at the mouth bigot. So you have to give that to Rowling, she's not a total nutter.
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Stating that sex and the patriarchy is real isn't reactionary conservativism.
 
Manger Douse said:
I'll take that as a concession you've no evidence for Rowling's reactionary conservatism and you've made something up to get angry with her about (again)
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Truly a tragedy. Nobody has ever been so falsely maligned as Rowling. Got to be one of the all time PR failures that this beloved children's author will probably be best known as a bigot :rolleyes:
 
TurkeysGhost said:
Truly a tragedy. Nobody has ever been so falsely maligned as Rowling. Got to be one of the all time PR failures that this beloved children's author will probably be best known as a bigot :rolleyes:
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Know as a bigot *by people who make stuff up about her to get angry with*
 
//Slight hijack, but still on broad topic//

I think Rowlings gets more attention and focus because prior to her opinions about transgenderism becoming a thing there was this vague idea that she was on the "progressive" (and I'm talking a VERY general loose social not political sense of the term) side of things and I think the Harry Potter stories connected with people in non-traditionally sexual communities.

Speculative fiction has always used "The Secret Hidden World of X" Trope as metaphor for minority or disenfranchised or other groups that feel left out. It doesn't take a psychology degree to get why "Here's a story about a person who has felt left out and different their entire life finding a secret world of other people just like them where they are both welcomed AND a hero and proves they were never broken or weird in the first place" would appeal to certain people. And she was a self made female critical and financial success with a rags to riches back story. She was tailor made for certain demographics to really, really, really like her.

So yeah I'd wager about 4-5 years back when Rowling's transgender opinions started to become part of the public discourse, it hit at a time where a statistically significant part of the really hardcore Harry Potter Fanbase, and (going on gut feeling here) a REALLY big part of the weird adult "Harry Potter and the 35 Year Olds Who Really Should Have Read Another Book By Now" fanbase was overly represented by people from non-traditional sexualities. Long story short I don't think it's too much of a leap to assume there was a LGBQT Harry Potter fandom of meaningful size.

I mean they are starting to retcon it NOW in that insufferable "No I never liked, I always knew it was rotten, I knew it before you did, in fact I knew it before everybody" way but for the longest time "Conservatives hate Harry Potter for promoting witchcraft" was the major narrative and in the modern world people do take sides in almost everything. Almost every major franchise "belongs" to either the Left or the Right and the Left "owned" Harry Potter for like 90% of its time where it was culturally relevant.

So rightfully or wrongfully the non-traditional sexual community, I think, sees a subtext of "betrayal" in Rowling, a vague, not directly spoken, not super well spelled out but still there under the surface sense of "I thought you were on our side."

If that makes sense.
 
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JoeMorgue said:
//Slight hijack, but still on broad topic//

I think Rowlings gets more attention and focus because prior to her opinions about transgenderism becoming a thing there was this vague idea that she was on the "progressive" (and I'm talking a VERY general loose social not political sense of the term) side of things and I think the Harry Potter stories connected with people in non-traditionally sexual communities.

Speculative fiction has always used "The Secret Hidden World of X" Trope as metaphor for minority or disenfranchised or other groups that feel left out. It doesn't take a psychology degree to get why "Here's a story about a person who has felt left out and different their entire life finding a secret world of other people just like them where they are both welcomed AND a hero and proves they were never broken or weird in the first place" would appeal to certain people. And she was a self made female critical and financial success with a rags to riches back story. She was tailor made for certain demographics to really, really, really like her.

So yeah I'd wager about 4-5 years back when Rowling's transgender opinions started to become part of the public discourse, it hit at a time where a statistically significant part of the really hardcore Harry Potter Fanbase, and (going on gut feeling here) a REALLY big part of the weird adult "Harry Potter and the 35 Year Olds Who Really Should Have Read Another Book By Now" fanbase was overly represented by people from non-traditional sexualities. Long story short I don't think it's too much of a leap to assume there was a LGBQT Harry Potter fandom of meaningful size.

I mean they are starting to retcon it NOW in that insufferable "No I never liked, I always knew it was rotten, I knew it before you did, in fact I knew it before everybody" way but for the longest time "Conservatives hate Harry Potter for promoting witchcraft" was the major narrative and in the modern world people do take sides in almost everything. Almost every major franchise "belongs" to either the Left or the Right and the Left "owned" Harry Potter for like 90% of its time where it was culturally relevant.

So rightfully or wrongfully the non-traditional sexual community, I think, sees a subtext of "betrayal" in Rowling, a vague, not directly spoken, not super well spelled out but still there under the surface sense of "I thought you were on our side."

If that makes sense.
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The Harry Potter books had a sort of double lifespan. There were a whole generation of children that came of age with the books as they were released, then another cohort that similarly aged in parallel with the movie releases.

I have to assume that the kind of thing you're describing is generally true for most youth literature. The Harry Potter books say next to nothing directly about LBGTQ issues, but they are targeted at adolescents and people will associate them with the many issues involved with coming of age, which includes self-discovery and self-expression, even if that's not really covered in the actual text. It's more association by proximity than any direct linkage. Vague "good vs evil" storylines are easily cut-and-paste into other contexts and people can read pretty much whatever they like into that.

A youth author will probably always get associated with whatever political culture is common among the youth audience of the time unless they explicitly distance themselves from it, as Rowling has done after the fact.

I also agree that the "Harry Potter was always bad" is a transparent overcorrection, and the broader point of "childhood is transitory, time to read a book for adults and stop obsessing about a world created for middle schoolers" is a good prescription that totally preempts the necessity for endless reevaluation. That gets into the tangent of whether adults celebrating media created for children is a desirable thing, be it Disney adults or Harry Potter obsessives or whatever, which is beyond the scope of this topic.
 
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JoeMorgue said:
//Slight hijack, but still on broad topic//

I think Rowlings gets more attention and focus because prior to her opinions about transgenderism becoming a thing there was this vague idea that she was on the "progressive" (and I'm talking a VERY general loose social not political sense of the term) side of things and I think the Harry Potter stories connected with people in non-traditionally sexual communities.

Speculative fiction has always used "The Secret Hidden World of X" Trope as metaphor for minority or disenfranchised or other groups that feel left out. It doesn't take a psychology degree to get why "Here's a story about a person who has felt left out and different their entire life finding a secret world of other people just like them where they are both welcomed AND a hero and proves they were never broken or weird in the first place" would appeal to certain people. And she was a self made female critical and financial success with a rags to riches back story. She was tailor made for certain demographics to really, really, really like her.

So yeah I'd wager about 4-5 years back when Rowling's transgender opinions started to become part of the public discourse, it hit at a time where a statistically significant part of the really hardcore Harry Potter Fanbase, and (going on gut feeling here) a REALLY big part of the weird adult "Harry Potter and the 35 Year Olds Who Really Should Have Read Another Book By Now" fanbase was overly represented by people from non-traditional sexualities. Long story short I don't think it's too much of a leap to assume there was a LGBQT Harry Potter fandom of meaningful size.

I mean they are starting to retcon it NOW in that insufferable "No I never liked, I always knew it was rotten, I knew it before you did, in fact I knew it before everybody" way but for the longest time "Conservatives hate Harry Potter for promoting witchcraft" was the major narrative and in the modern world people do take sides in almost everything. Almost every major franchise "belongs" to either the Left or the Right and the Left "owned" Harry Potter for like 90% of its time where it was culturally relevant.

So rightfully or wrongfully the non-traditional sexual community, I think, sees a subtext of "betrayal" in Rowling, a vague, not directly spoken, not super well spelled out but still there under the surface sense of "I thought you were on our side."

If that makes sense.
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That totally makes sense to me. The only issue I have is that once again it leaves out any examination of what "Rowling's transgender opinions" actually are.
 
TurkeysGhost said:
Rowling has penned an entire anti-trans manifesto outlining her views. It's been posted several times before. Whether or not various posters find this as acceptable "evidence" is not really worth rehashing again. Most decide it doesn't count for whatever reasons, mostly because, unlike Linehan, Rowling is much more polite and less direct. She has a much more refined sense of reputation management than Linehan, who seems happy to be known as the frothing at the mouth bigot. So you have to give that to Rowling, she's not a total nutter.
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You've brought it up several times, yet never been able to actually produce a quote from it that supports your assertions. Maybe its Straussian Transphobia that you're accusing her of, but "reactionary conservative" was the claim, and that's no where to be found in anything Rowling has every said.
 
theprestige said:
That totally makes sense to me. The only issue I have is that once again it leaves out any examination of what "Rowling's transgender opinions" actually are.
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I really don't get what is so hard about it. I'm not wasting my time examining her stance because it's not complicated.

She doesn't think people with a penis can be a woman. Her stance is pretty clear and people's opposition to her stance is pretty clear.

It's basically the title of the thread we're now on the 13th continuation off that we're both talking in right now, the base question of whether or not transgenderism is a valid concept.

Whether or not Rowling is correct or not is the topic (well this subsection of the argument.) People pretending like it either it or the opposition to it needs to be explained yet again is, well let's just say something else.
 
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Just a possible factor to throw out into all of this.

Rowling is British and while a vague conservative/liberal dynamic of some sort probably exists in most all major western societies not everything manifest exactly as it does here in America.

There might some across the pond lost in translation stuff at work here in the exact nuance of a person's social/political stance is all I'm saying.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Just a possible factor to throw out into all of this.

Rowling is British and while a vague conservative/liberal dynamic of some sort probably exists in most all major western societies not everything manifest exactly as it does here in America.

There might some across the pond lost in translation stuff at work here in the exact nuance of a person's social/political stance is all I'm saying.
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I mean, yeah. Liberal transphobia is far more common in the UK. "TERF Island" is a joke, but not really.

For whatever reason much of the conversation on this board has focused on the particular context of the UK, which is fine, but not exactly representative of much beyond the particular character of UK politics and culture at the moment.
 
It's so weird to hear "American does something, anything better then Europe" coming out of the Progressive side where "Well they make it work in the glorious perfect socialist utopias of Europe unlike the backwards United States" is like 99% of their arguments.
 
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JoeMorgue said:
I really don't get what is so hard about it. I'm not wasting my time examining her stance because it's not complicated.

She doesn't think people with a penis can be a woman. Her stance is pretty clear and people's opposition to her stance is pretty clear.

It's basically the title of the thread we're now on the 13th continuation off that we're both talking in right now, the base question of whether or not transgenderism is a valid concept.

Whether or not Rowling is correct or not is the topic (well this subsection of the argument.) People pretending like it either it or the opposition to it needs to be explained yet again is, well let's just say something else.
Click to expand...

I read the question as wanting to identify if JKR's stance on transgender issues has expanded to other, or at least more clearly, extreme conservative issues. This seems to be the line of exploration here, as was mentioned for Linehan.
 
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