Understanding JK Rowling's Transphobic Rhetoric

Do you have snacks? Do you have water? And are you sitting comfortably? Because this will be a long one. Hey spuds, it's Jamie. Welcome back to another video. If that's not a channel, I don't know, but welcome either way. And today we are breaking down JK Rowling's transphobia. We are looking back at a timeline of the transphobia shared by JK Rowling. Are you ready? We're doing a non-exhaustive but still pretty detailed look back over the years of JK Rowling's transphobia. and how it turned from an accidental like of a tweet into full-blown transphobia and denying that trans women are women and going even further than that as well, all in the space of around six years. So why am I doing this video? Partly because there are still a lot of people who don't believe that JK Rowling is transphobic and still deny that she has said anything anti-trans. Even now, with everything that's happened, and that is a problem. So as with other longer video essays that I have done in the past, I wanted to give you the tools to 1. Decide for yourself and 2. Have evidence points that you are able to express to people who may not understand. Some of the common messages I get are asking, how do I help the people in my social circle understand that people like JK Rowling are contributing towards transphobia? And that this rhetoric isn't a useful or feminist stance, but primarily a transphobic and discriminatory stance. So hopefully this video can help with that. I think the trajectory and development of Rowling's transphobia is also something that we've seen more generally among anti-trans views and people with anti-trans views over recent years. Rowling is a very prominent example of this. It's where people start off very tentative, testing the waters on their opinions, keeping them mostly private or they're unsure of their opinions themselves to begin with, and then eventually over time this spirals into outright transphobia as their confidence in their views grow and their echo chambers strengthen. Firstly, I want to point out that transphobia and discrimination towards trans people causes genuine harm. This is something we already know and there's a lot of evidence to back this up and there are multiple instances of JK Rowling's transphobia being linked to causing harm. One is the International LGBT Plus Review saying that the UK faces serious damage from JK Rowling and other transphobic rhetoric. JK Rowling and anti-trans rhetoric have caused significant damage to the UK, International LGBT Plus report warns. An International LGBT Plus Rights Review has warned the UK is facing significant damage because of transphobic hate speech and JK Rowling. It notes anti-trans rhetoric continued to cause serious damage in the UK again this year. A prime example is repeated transphobic attacks by author JK Rowling on the on Twitter and in her writing. Another is the Women's Media Center who have outright said that J.K. Rowling has undoubtedly hurt the trans community. Also mentioning the fact that a Republican senator shut down legislation that would have protected the LGBT plus community in Oklahoma and cited Rowling's essay in defense of his position. Rowling's statement had broader political implications too. Not long after these events on June 14th the United Kingdom's Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced plans to withdraw the Gender Recognition Act which allows trans people to identify as their preferred gender. A few days later, Oklahoma Republican Senator James Lankford effectively shut down a vote on the Equality Act, legislation that would provide consistent and explicit non-discrimination protections for LGBTQ people across numerous areas of their lives, and cited Rowling's essay as a defense against the bill. And these are just a couple of examples. And what this goes to show is that people with huge platforms, whether they have an intention to cause harm or not to a specific community, the impact of their words can still have a huge and negative effect on large groups of people. This topic is also important to explore because JK Rowling has effectively become the postal women for TERFs and transphobes in the UK. So even if people are refusing to believe that she's transphobic herself, she's being used by very transphobic people as a source of confidence to share their own hateful views. Prominent TERFs show public and active support and or adoration for JK Rowling, and at anti-trans gatherings you are highly likely to see some form of I Love JK Rowling merch such as t-shirts, banners and stickers. What I really question is how a cisgender woman has become the listened to voice and the go-to voice for quite a lot of people when it comes to trans issues. Even if you ignore that what she relies upon to justify her position are half-truths, dog whistles, subpar scientific findings, and her statements are often shown to ignore the actual truth of situations, actual evidence, science, facts. and numerous real-life accounts from the trans community. A bigger issue than JK Rowling herself is the fact that some people in society view her as an authority on a topic that she isn't qualified to talk about in the way she talks about it. How did a cisgender fantasy children's book author become a go-to source for TERF groups and other people on trans people? And what we're seeing now is other people also unqualified and with no lived experience of being trans themselves. Being given televised platforms to deb- debate trans rights when it shouldn't even be a debate in the first place. J.K. Rowling's anti-trans arguments all seem to boil down to a belief that trans women as a group of people are dangerous and pose a risk to cis women's safety in public spaces. Something that there is no evidence for. Trans people are estimated to comprise about half a percent of populations in both the US and the UK. A 2018 study from UCLA found no evidence to support that anti-trans legislation makes designated public spaces safer but did find that reports of privacy and safety violations in these places are exceedingly rare. In essence there was no danger to begin with. Other sources have said No evidence was identified to support the claim that trans women are more likely than cisgender women to sexually assault other women in women-only spaces. This lack of evidence is reiterated by other sources. Trans women have been happily using women's spaces for decades, a very long time, and no one has even noticed or cared to the extent that they are noticing or caring now. Because at the moment, trans people feel like the popular group to pick on. So with the intro out of the way, let's get into the actual timeline and the details of JK Rowling's transphobia over the years. And it kicks off in 2017. Going back to 2017, we have Rowling liking a tweet that linked back... to a now-deleted article that was being, let's just say, not very nice about trans women. This is when some people began to initially question JK Rowling's stance on trans people. Fast forwarding to the following year, we have another like incident on Twitter, but then this was unliked soon after. This tweet referred to men in dresses, it's believed in reference to trans women. This time a spokesperson for Rowling said that this was an accidental like caused by a middle-aged moment. This was the first time I personally started noticing things bubbling around Rowling's potential opinions about the trans community and it raised a lot of questions at this point. And I'm not sure how many people bought into the middle-aged moment. thing. But I think we can safely say that at this point any anti-trans beliefs and opinions that JK Rowling held was something that she was not really public or open about. Personally Harry Potter was something I enjoyed in childhood. It's also something that a lot of the LGBT plus community enjoyed and related to in many ways. Rowling is seen as such an influential figure because of the success of Harry Potter. So the concept that someone whose work was viewed as an escape and a source of comfort for many people including LGBT plus people is now being so anti- inclusive when it comes to the trans community doesn't feel great to say the least and I think has left quite a few people feeling baffled. 2019 saw the initial shift of JK Rowling voicing her anti-trans opinions slash support of anti-trans views more openly. She vocally supported someone who was called out for sharing anti-trans views. This person was suing the company that chose not to renew their contract and there were hashtags and support going around on Twitter at the time that JK Rowling took part in. It was a turning point because there was no excuse of accidentally liking something or having a middle-aged moment, this was obvious support of someone who tweeted things like, because that might hurt men's feelings. At this point, there are a lot of questions over Rowling's personal beliefs and why she was supporting someone with such openly transphobic ones. Rowling herself at this point then tweeted things like this. Dress however you please, call yourself whatever you like, sleep with any consenting adult who'll have you, live your best life in peace and security, but force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real? Hashtag I stand with. person. Hashtag this is not a drill. It's pretty difficult to keep on denying that JK Rowling didn't have any anti-trans beliefs at this point, but this definitely still could have been put down to a one-off incident, a misunderstanding of the situation, or support for an individual in that particular scenario. But then we move to 2020. 2020 saw a big escalation in both her frequency of sharing and her obviousness of her views on people who are transgender. It all seemed to kick off in June 2020 when she tweeted out a response to the use of the phrase people who menstruate. People who menstruate, I'm sure there used to be a word for those people, someone help me out, womben, whimpered, woomud. This tweet was rightfully called out because there's no need to mock or feel threatened by the use of gender neutral language. By its very nature, inclusive language does not exclude anyone. and is used only on a top level when necessary. Women who menstruate will still be referred to as women on an individual level. But neutral language like this in things like articles and healthcare leaflets helps reduce dysphoria and make sure that trans men and AFAB non-binary people are aware that they are involved in those conversations. And also that women who don't menstruate don't feel forgotten about. Because women's rights have been fought for for years to ensure that women are seen as equals. as people, not just a means of reproduction, and not just boiled down to their parts and reproductive organs. So why wouldn't people want to make sure that the language we're using doesn't demean women, or exclude others, including many women who for reasons such as medical issues, or most commonly age, also don't menstruate? Wayne called out Rowling somewhat double down on her stance, but sugarcoated it by including something about loving and respecting trans people. If sex isn't real, there's no same-sex attraction. If sex isn't real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes- the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isn't hate to speak the truth. An important thing to point out here as well is that nobody's denied that sex is real. The idea that women like me who've been empathetic to trans people for decades feeling kinship because they're vulnerable in the same way as women i.e to male violence hate trans people because they think sex is real and has lived consequences is a nonsense. I respect every trans person's right to live any way that feels authentic and comfortable to them. I'd march with you if you were discriminated against on the basis of being trans. At the same time my life has been shaped by being female. I do not believe it's hateful to say so. There are a lot of mixed messages in there and she also claimed that she received respects trans people's rights to live authentically and would march with us if we were discriminated against. Looking back at this now and seeing how vocal she's since been and where her views have escalated to, this feels very surreal to read. Neither statement has transpired to be true based on how her views and her sharing of her views has evolved over the past few years. Also, even in 2020, that if trans people were discriminated against, I'd march with them. was not an if, it's constantly happening. It's a when next, it's a happening right now. And supporting transphobes and mocking the use of gender neutral language and using straw man arguments such as I just think sex is real is not the way to go about marching with trans people who are being discriminated against or showing that you love and respect them. Very shortly after these tweets happened, Rowling shared an essay she wrote about it. JK Rowling writes about her reasons for speaking out on sex and gender issues, sharing the article in a tweet that said, TERF Wars. This essay was filled with half-truths, dog whistles, outright misinformation, and just lacking justification or evidence for the claims that she was making. Plenty of people have broken this essay down, myself and my partner included, I will leave a link to the video down in the description box. We've heard it was important to address this essay and its insidious transphobia. As many people were not aware of the inaccuracies and took it at face value. This is where a lot of the comments about, oh she's not really transphobic, come from. And honestly, for people who didn't really understand trans issues, and if they weren't close to a trans person who they could talk to, I could see how they might come away from reading JK Rowling's essay feeling confused and conflicted. That's why we made a video to break it down further, and show how these half-truths were packaged and the information was packaged in a way that was harmful to the trans community. This essay really marked a turning point, and alongside the tweets shared earlier, they sparked the beginning of JK Rowling being seen by trans people. and trans allies as anti-trans. But it's also the time that she started getting very passionate support from TERFs and other transphobes. Some of the allies who spoke out against her views included some very prominent stars from the Harry Potter series. With Daniel Radcliffe saying, not invalidate their identities and not cause further harm. Emma Watson has also commented on the situation and voiced her trans support. Trans people are who they say they are and deserve to live their lives without being constantly questioned or told they aren't who they say they are. I want my trans followers to know that I and so many other people around the world see you, respect you and love you for who you are. Rupert Grint has also spoken out stating he stands firmly with the trans community. I firmly stand with the trans community and echo the sentiments expressed by many of my peers. Trans women are women, trans men are men, Grint said. We should all be entitled to live with love and without judgment. Eddie Redmayne said, I disagree with Joe's comments. Trans women are women, trans men are men, and non-binary identities are valid, the actor said in a statement. And Bonnie Wright said, If Harry Potter was a source of love and belonging for you, that love is infinite and there to take without judgment or question. Trans women are women. I see you and love you, Bonnie. All of them spoke out shortly after the essay was posted by J.K. Rowling. They have received backlash for their pro-trans stance, even being accused of betraying J.K. Rowling. But it was so important for them to speak up, and I'm passionate. grateful for it. as are many other trans people. Rowling has managed to garner such passionate support, and albeit much smaller than the support that the trans community has, her words still carry such weight and power. And transphobes are so loud it's sometimes difficult to remember that they are not the majority viewpoint. But just because they're not a majority view doesn't mean that they're not causing harm, and it doesn't mean that they're not being used as pawns in wider media and political campaigns. But still, to see the main cast speak out like that so quickly after Rowling's essay was uplifting as a trans person. at a time that felt very unnerving to be trans. We're still not done for 2020 though. This all happened in June and Rowling was not done with Pride Month just yet. JK Rowling tweeted a thank you to fellow author Stephen King after he retweeted one of her tweets. Someone then asked Stephen King what his retweet of Rowling's tweet meant for his opinions on the trans community to which Stephen King replied, trans women are women. Rowling then deleted her thank you tweet to King. Jumping ahead slightly to conclude this element, almost a year after this happened, King's spoke about the incident. Apparently Rowling also blocked him after his trans supportive tweet, and he further stated that he felt that her belief about trans women was wrong. Alongside the pro-trans stances, this time showed an interesting shift in evidence for the increases in Rowling's transphobia over the years, and more importantly, an unwillingness to see or hear views that were different from her own, in that she seemed to block and or ignore anyone who was calling her out. or saying that she was causing harm. What this achieves is an echo chamber where people believe that their opinions are more supported than they actually are. And thus, this will strengthen one's resolve to stick with their opinions and even increase their beliefs and willingness to share those opinions. 2020 is still not done. As the very next month in July, she posted a very long Twitter thread after being called out for liking a tweet that compared hormone therapy to antidepressants. The author caused controversy again in July 2020 when she liked a tweet that read, hormone prescriptions are the new antidepressants. Yes, they are sometimes necessary and life-saving, but they should be a last resort, not the first option. pure laziness for those who would rather medicate than put in the time and effort to heal people's minds. Many took the post as an insinuation that taking mental health medication is lazy, as well as the assumption that trans people are mentally unwell. Just adding to that as well, the assumption that healthcare providers are always really happy and provide hormone replacement therapy really easily to trans people when that's not the case. Her thread made medical claims about hormones and likened the access to medical transition as a kind of conversion therapy for young gay people. Many health professionals are concerned that young young people struggling with their mental health are being shunted towards hormones and surgery when this may not be in their best interests. 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 medicalization that may result in the loss of their fertility and or full sexual function. The point about conversion therapy in particular in reference to young gay people is a very dangerous and horrible viewpoint to share. It is based on several assumptions that are wrong. These are that one, a majority of trans people identify as straight post-transition. they do not. that being gay is more difficult or more discriminated against than being trans, so people therefore transition to escape homophobia. Both transphobia and homophobia exist, are prevalent, and no one would choose to face either. And three, the people going to healthcare professionals for support with their gender identity are then being forced, persuaded, manipulated, or pushed in some way to transition. when it's not the right thing for them to do. This is not happening and the low regret rates evidence this. To liken trans healthcare in any way to conversion therapy is abhorrent and shows a complete lack of awareness to the weight those words can carry and the harm they can do, as well as a lack of understanding about the trans community and trans healthcare as a whole. If transphobia was a rabbit hole, at this point, J.K. Rowling was head first in the hole up to her ankles and was deliberately or accidentally building a very loyal fan base who believed and trusted her every word. every word. It's completely irresponsible in my opinion to tweet so confidently and so frequently and with such authority about a marginalized community that you are a not a part of and b you are lying about and spreading misinformation about and also going directly against what the community is telling you is the truth. And even more problematic is that people are trusting what she's saying because she's rich, white, cis and has a following, which makes what she says all the more harmful. Why are we not listening to the scientific and medical professionals who know the evidence and the facts about the trans community? So many trans people have called out and totally debunked Rowling's viewpoints and the evidence that she tries to use to back up her views. And still she carries on and still other people carry on listening to and trusting her voice above the trans communities. The very next month again, I told you 2020 was a very busy year. Yes, we are still in 2020. And. August 2020, Rowling returned an award given to her in 2019 by the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Organization after they issued a statement rejecting her transphobia, again showing her totally ignoring and rejecting anyone or anything that calls out her transphobia. In September 2020, one of her new books caused further outrage. The book reportedly follows a detective on the hunt for a cis male serial killer who dresses as a woman in order to hunt and murder cis women. women. The Telegraph's review describes it as a book whose moral seems to be never trust a man in a dress. On the face of it, this in itself seems to have nothing to do with trans people specifically, so what's the issue? But like with everything, context changes when you look at things as part of a bigger picture rather than just an isolated incident. There's been many instances to suggest that JK Rowling villainizes trans women, including in her essay where she vulnerably shared her negative experiences with men. which is a terrible thing to have happened and a very important and brave thing to speak out about. Unfortunately, she carried on to wrongly bring trans women into an issue of men's violence against women. Trans women are not men who dress up as women to cause violence or harm to cis women. And that book plot, in the context of other anti-trans build-up, contributes to a false narrative that, one, men do this in the first place, because stats do not reflect that this is happening. And two, even in a hypothetical world where this did happen, why does this mean we should punish trans women for the acts of dangerous men? It doesn't make a lot of sense. And if anyone watching is wondering, well, it's a bit of a stretch that this kind of book plot would harm the trans community. It's happened before. The Silence of the Lambs is widely known for causing harm to the trans community. Troubled Blood, the fifth book released under Rowling's Robert Galbraith pseudonym, has earned the author heavy criticism after an early review revealed it includes a cross-dressing scene. serial killer. Immediately comparisons were drawn between the 900-page tome and Silence of the Lambs, the 1988 Thomas Harris novel that introduced the world to Hannibal Lecter. Silence of the Lambs spinoff Clarice is trying to counter and reframe the harmful narrative of Buffalo Bill as a transsexual serial killer, which resulted in real-world harm to the trans community. Further to the book's plot, Rowling also received criticism for the use of her pen name, Robert Galbraith, the name that happens to also be the name of a man who was famous for practicing conversion therapy, a connection that she has denied. Again, some people claim that this is just a coincidence, which it could be, and if it was an isolated incident I'd be more likely to see it that way. But again, it's important to look at things as a whole and not just as isolated incidences, and alongside the book's plot and her views already shared about the trans community. And it's also important to ask, if the was a coincidence. And if all these points that JK Rowling is being accused of aren't actually transphobic, wouldn't you expect someone who didn't have transphobic views but was shared so heavily in the media for it to have spoken out very strongly and clarified things and clarified how she's being misrepresented in her views? Instead she seems to have just been more vocal about her anti-trans stances and shared more of that. We're now done with 2020. In 2021, Rowling shared a Sunday Times article that mocked the Scottish police. for recognizing trans identities. War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength. The penis individual who raped you is a woman. Many transphobes like bringing up the handful of incidences where a trans woman has committed a crime. This subsequently, intentionally or not, incites fear of others towards trans women, thus increasing transphobia. Whether it's from the political right, left or centre, online transphobia and the spread of false and misleading narratives can have dangerous real-life consequences, transgender advocates say. People are more willing to attack a trans person because they see it on TV. They're more willing to attack a trans person or say whatever they want to a trans person or a queer person because they see this online. Nobody's checking them for it. It's not to say that we should ignore these incidences. And it's not to say that the individuals committing them are not violent and not dangerous and should not face consequences because they absolutely should. But it's to say that we can't let... a few individual cases lead to the demonization of an entire community just because they share a common characteristic. Doing so is discrimination. Not all trans people are wonderful law-abiding citizens, but no group of people in society will be solely made up of all wonderful and law-abiding citizens. It's not right to judge an entire demographic of people based on the actions of a few bad eggs. This is true even for the trans community, although many transphobes will want you to think differently and will use the handful of examples of violent trans women to try and condemn all trans women. In March 2022, JK Rowling chose International Women's Day to tweet negatively about the trans community yet again. Apparently under a Labour government, today will become We Who Must Not Be Named Day. JK Rowling doubles down on transphobia in an International Women's Day twitter rant. The Harry Potter author has gone on record criticising a bill that would make it easier for trans people in Scotland to change genders. On a day where all women should be acknowledged, uplifted and celebrated. Something that should happen all year round, but unfortunately we're not there yet. So it's especially important to... have days like International Women's Day and to use them to uplift all women. Rowling chose to divert her attentions into being transphobic. I personally find it really odd that someone who talks about caring for women's rights so deeply would choose to use an important day like International Women's Day to take the conversation away from women's rights issues and speak negatively about the trans community when there could have been infinite ways and infinite things that she could have done to uplift all women. I'm not saying that she doesn't genuinely care about women's rights but it comes across as though all of her time and energy is being poured into being negative towards the trans community, rather than focusing on uplifting women and fighting for equal rights for women. Because transphobia is not the path to go down if you want to be feminist and uplift women. All of that wasted time attacking the trans community is distracting from the real issue. And the real issue is men abusing their privilege and their power. And just as a reminder, that does not include trans women because trans women are women. In July 2022, JK Rowling publicly showed support for for Matt Walsh and his anti-trans film called What is a Woman. And your film did a good job exposing the incoherence of gender identity theory and some of the harms it's done. Many institutions I used to admire have uncritically embraced this dogma but I reserved my ire for them rather than shouting coward at individual women. Matt Walsh is a self-described theoretic fascist and spreader of transphobia. He's also shared things that are homophobic, anti-abortion and misogynistic. Which I think you'd agree isn't very feminist at all. Which therefore makes JK Rowling's alliance with Matt Walsh unusual. And again, perhaps indicates that this isn't about feminism at all. It's about being transphobic. On top of this, Matt Walsh is not the only person that JK Rowling has been shown to be friends with or support the views of, where those views are very extremely right-wing and anti-feminist in nature. Rowling is friends with numerous anti-trans activists, including Helen Joyce, who's made alarmingly transphobic statements calling for a reduction in the number of trans people. She's tweeted, Public support for anti-gay, anti-trans activist Caroline Farrow. These connections are part of the social network echo chamber of trans-exclusionary radical feminists, or TER. JK Rowling sends big love to anti-gay, anti-trans, anti-abortion activist Caroline Farrow. I cannot speak if these alliances and support also means that JK Rowling shares some of the other views shared by these people. But it certainly indicates that being mutually transphobic is the most important factor here, not progressing feminist rights. And for some, transphobia is a belief that means it's worth putting aside other differences, including bodily autonomy in the form of abortions. That does not scream feminism to me. A very important point when we realize that a lot of transphobes like to... to hide behind caring about women's safety and caring about women's rights and using that as an excuse to be transphobic. And that's all it is, an excuse. An excuse that actually then detracts from real and important feminism from happening. Imagine how much powerful impact could be made in progressing women's rights and equality if JK Rowling and all of the other TERFs actually focused their lenses on women's rights and equality rather than targeting trans people. Continuing with the timeline, in October 2022, Rowling supported protests that were against the Scottish reform of the Gender Recognition Act. In October 2022, JK Rowling backed protests over the Scottish Gender Bill which sets out to make it easier for people to be legally recognised as their preferred gender. The reform aimed to make it easier for trans people to get a gender recognition certificate and be legally recognised as their gender. A process that has no impact on anyone else's life except the trans person's. It literally allows trans people to get married and die with dignity by being recognised as their true gender. It does not impact things like access to gendered spaces. This is covered under the Equality Act and trans people can do this without having a gender recognition certificate. And this is a fact that a lot of transphobes either don't know, don't understand, or choose to willingly ignore. Rowling was very against any reform of the Gender Recognition Act and wrote on her website, support centers, domestic violence refuges, hospital wards and prison cells that were hitherto reserved for women. Just to reiterate a gender recognition certificate is not required for trans people at any stage of transition to go into spaces such as public bathrooms or changing rooms. This is an example of a gender recognition certificate. example among others but a very strong example where Rowling is literally going against the statement that she said back in 2020. The one about marching with trans people if they were discriminated against. Because here in 2022 she was literally supporting anti-trans protests. Rowling also posted a photo of herself wearing a t-shirt saying Nicola Sturgeon destroyer of women's rights. It's a t-shirt made by Posey Parker. and matches some other anti-trans merch that she's made that is intended to look like dictionary definitions. The company has been making adult human female stickers and other items for Parker for five years, including a t-shirt calling Nicola Sturgeon a destroyer of women's rights, which was famously modeled by JK Rowling. From what I can see, Nicola Sturgeon does not seem to be the destroyer of women's rights. There are entire articles and long lists of things that Nicola Sturgeon has done in support. of women's rights, including creating action points to ensure all women have access to the best possible healthcare. She also launched the Workplace Equality Fund to champion workplace equality with a focus on gender, age, race and disability. And to support survivors of domestic abuse, Sturgeon pushed to make Scotland one of the few countries where psychological abuse is a crime. And there's much more than this as well. She's repeatedly championed women's rights. And yes, that means all women, including trans women, but because she's a trans ally that somehow makes her anti-feminist and a destroyer of women's rights in the eyes of TERFs. I hope this can be seen as yet another example of TERF rhetoric being rooted in discrimination and not feminism. So for people including JK Rowling to label Nicola Sturgeon the destroyer of women's rights simply because she supports trans women. is objectively wrong. To be honest, I can't even see any substantial evidence of what JK Rowling has done herself to actively support women's rights, or at least not publicly. Because whenever I try and find anything like this, all I find are her comments on the trans community. Her anti-trans views drown out any potential things that there might be out there that she's done. And one thing I could find that was actively supportive of cis women was transphobic. We'll get to that point in a minute. I did find one comment that she made back in 2017 in support of abortion rights. In 2017, Rowling expressed her her opposition to the Mexico City policy. that blocked US government support for international organization that provided abortion counseling when it was reinstated by Donald Trump and said that she supported abortion rights especially in underdeveloped countries. But now she's gone on to show strong support for the anti-trans views of anti-abortionists. I'm not saying that JK Rowling herself is anti-abortion, what I'm saying is that it feels a bit rich to call Nicola Sturgeon the destroyer of women's rights for showing allyship to trans people. when you're then cheering on other people who are very openly, literally against the progression of women's rights. I found the one abortion comment on Wikipedia, and I'm not saying that's all she's said over the years, but in reference on the same Wikipedia page, this is the amount that she had to say about trans people, and it's quite considerably more. Again, showing that if Rowling really was coming from a place of genuine feminism, why is it that there's this much on actual feminist issues and this much on trans people. It doesn't make sense. Now we go to what Rowling did that actually was pro-feminism but unfortunately still features anti-trans efforts which therefore makes it not truly feminist because true feminism includes all women. In December 2022, Rowling personally funded a new domestic support centre that explicitly excludes trans women as either using the service or or being employed there. This month, Rowling also personally funds a new domestic violence support centre in Edinburgh, Scotland which explicitly excludes trans women. Rowling Frames'new centre is offering women-centred and women-delivered care. Edinburgh's long-standing domestic violence support centre has had a trans woman as its director since 2021. Trans women, in particular women of colour, are at a vastly higher risk of experiencing domestic violence and sexual assault than cisgender women. Setting up this centre in this way completely disrespects that trans women are women. The centres for these services are already able to exclude trans women from the exclude any individual person if they feel that that person poses a risk to other service users and that trans women, particularly trans women of colour, are at a vastly higher risk of experiencing domestic violence than cisgender women. So in essence, she was funding a centre that actively excludes the most vulnerable women and the women who are most likely to require its services. That's honestly horrendous to me. More so, there's literally no evidence. for the concerns that Rowling and people who share her views spout, or any evidence for the justifications they try to give to support their transphobia or excuse their transphobia away. In a literature search on the potential impacts that a Gender Recognition Act reform could create, there was absolutely zero evidence found that trans women posed a risk to cis women. And there's also zero evidence identified that trans women using women's spaces led to an increase of cisgender men claiming to be trans women. to access these spaces. There is also a total lack of evidence that anti-trans legislation makes public spaces safer, but it has been found that reports of privacy violations in these places is exceedingly rare in general. Essentially meaning that transphobes claiming they want to protect women, one, only mean cis women, and two, are distracting from the situations where women are actually at risk, as they are pulling all of the focus to be on trans women using toilets, and other gendered spaces. Something that has been shown on multiple levels by multiple sources to not be an issue. There is no reason to protest against trans rights. There is no reason to protest and fund against trans women accessing women's spaces other than transphobia. And a falsified fear where there is an abundance of evidence to show that it is a false fear. Then to round off 2022, JK Rowling tweeted out Merry Tathmas for Christmas. How lovely. In March 2023, Rowling was interviewed for a podcast called The Witch Trials of JK Rowling. that was hosted by former member of the Westboro Baptist Church. You know, the ones that have signs like this. If you want to know more about the podcast and some other info surrounding JK Rowling in general, I'd strongly recommend watching ContraPoint's videos called The Witch Trials of JK Rowling. The link is in the description box. The specific bit I want to address here is when in an episode, Rowling described the modern trans rights movement as dangerous. She said she believed that there was something dangerous about the modern trans rights movement and that it needed to be challenged. In its fifth episode, Rowling begins discussing the modern trans rights movement, calling it a cultural movement that was liberal in its methods and questionable in its ideas and insisting, I believe absolutely that there is something dangerous about this movement and it must be challenged. Rowling went on to describe the fight for trans rights as insidious, powerful and misogynistic, even comparing it to Death Eaters. It's such a bizarre concept to me that someone would see the fight for equal rights from a marginalized community as something that's powerful, insidious, dangerous and misogynistic. It shows a deep misunderstanding of why trans rights are even being fought for, of the trans community in general. and generally of equal rights movements. Rowling saying things like this about the trans rights movement is an example of history repeating itself in a very painful and frustrating way. Similar words were said about the gay rights movement 50 years ago. Bryant's campaign adopted the mantra homosexuals cannot reproduce so they must recruit, championing religious purity and aiming to protect children from supposed anti-Christian values. Bryant's virulent rhetoric, including in press conferences and commercials, swiftly gained her a national conservative following. Almost as soon as she became involved, In the campaign against gay rights legislation, she claimed she had lost bookings and been blacklisted. because of the actions of the militant homosexuals who opposed her. This story resonated with conservative Christians who were just beginning to mobilize in new ways to protect moral values that they believed were under attack by the gay rights movement, feminists and other forces on the left. The idea that their standard bearer had been brought down by gay activists provided proof to support the narrative of cultural alienation that animated this movement. And other people have noted this too, again with the ContraPoints video going into far more detail on this specific topic. But in summary, Rowling has been described as the Anita Brian of our era. J.K. Rowling is the Anita Brian of our era, a woman who used her celebrity to spread bigotry against a queer minority on the grounds of saving women and children from queer people. Rowling at this point was moving very, very far away from her initial dip into transphobia. In October 2023, I feel like this is when things took another step up and her transphobic opinions got significantly more obvious. Rowling retweeted an image that showed the text, trans women are women, projected onto a building. And she replied to it simply by saying, no, literally just no. clear as day the opinion that's kind of already been said before is now right there in black and white J.K. Rowling does not believe that trans women are women. She then responded to someone who said vote Labour and get a two-year stretch and said I'll happily do two years if the alternative is compelled speech and forced denial of the reality and importance of sex. Bring on the court case, I say. It'll be more fun than I've had on a red carpet. This prison stretch comment was about a hypothetical new hate crime legislation under a Labour government that would make gender identity attacks a criminal offence. So in short, J.K. Rowling doesn't believe that trans women are women and would rather go to prison or fight a crime. court case than gender a trans person correctly. In my opinion that's a very strong opinion to hold and it is transphobia in its purest most basic form to not respect a trans person's identity. To view trans women as not women, to misgender a trans person, that is transphobic. A phobia is not just a fear it's also an aversion to. It's also yet another example of how much more extreme her views have gotten over the years. Either generally her views have grown that much worse or she's just grown that much more confidence in sharing them publicly. But either way stating that you would happily do a two-year stretch for misgendering a trans person is a far cry from saying things like, I know and love trans people and I respect every trans person's right to live authentically. As she's literally saying that she would do something that would actively cause discomfort for a trans person and very clearly goes against respecting them. and respecting them living authentically. Now we are into 2024 and we are only a few months in but stuff has still happened. For context, I'm filming this in mid-March. So just letting you know if I'm not up to date that is why but I'm making it up to date to the date that I'm filming it on. Rowling donated £70,000, yes £70,000, towards a legal battle to try and stop the SNP government in Scotland from trying to change the definition of woman. JK Rowling reportedly donated £70,000 to group Supreme Court appeal over woman. definition. For a bit of background this is an issue dating back to 2021 when a certain anti-trans group took the Scottish Government to court over its definition of woman in the Gender Representation on Public Board Act. The law aimed to ensure that non-executive members on public boards are made up of at least 50% women. The Scottish Government had initially defined woman as those living as women or those who intended to or had already gone through the process of legal gender recognition. But the particular anti-trans group argued against this. They lost an initial judicial review but were successful on an appeal. This appeal resulted in the Scottish government changing the definition in the Act to now stating that woman is defined by the Equality Act. and the GRA 2004, meaning those with a GRC can legally be defined as women for the purpose of the legislation. But the anti-trans group was still not happy and called for an additional judicial review. This review was defeated in December 2022 and they lost a further appeal in November 2023. However, in February this year, the group was granted permission to appeal the decision. This is now what they're fundraising for and what JK Rowling donated £70,000 towards. All of this time and money and resource being spent on whether trans women's statistics sit for equality, when it could be put towards working towards genuine equal access for all women. When funnily enough, it's not trans women who are winning out over all women and unfairly getting opportunities, not based on merit but based on patriarchy and misogyny. It's not transgender women doing that, it's cisgender men. Yet another example of all women being made second priority to transphobes want to be transphobic and progress their transphobia and legally start stripping away the rights of trans people. The legal process is far more than simply wanting the definition of woman to change. It is essentially an opposition to the Gender Recognition Act at the level of the Supreme Court. In March this year, JK Rowling made transphobic comments towards India Willoughby, a journalist and transgender woman. In a response to a video of India Willoughby, JK Rowling said, There isn't a lady in this one, just a man reveling in his misogynistic performance of what he thinks woman means. narcissistic, shallow and exhibitionist. And in another tweet she said India didn't become a woman. India is cosplaying a misogynistic male fantasy of what a woman is. India reported JK Rowling's comments to the police and the police registered JK Rowling as causing a non-crime hate incident, meaning her transphobia is now a matter of public record. Her transphobia towards India met the threshold to be recorded as a hate incident, meaning her transphobia is officially considered a as hate. More recently, Rowling recycled a really rubbish and unfunny joke that was originally said by Ben Shapiro. Another person well known for their transphobia, anti-feminism, all of this stuff. And she did this for Mother's Day. Rowling tweeted, Happy birthing parent day to all whose large gametes were fertilized, resulting in small humans whose sex was assigned by doctors making mostly lucky guesses. A very similar vibe to Ben Shapiro's tweets a year earlier. Happy primary legal guardian of unspecific gender day. I will keep tweeting the same joke every year and the correlative joke on Father's Day until the left explains why mothers are both different than fathers and necessary to the health and welfare of children. It's bizarre and not just offensive to trans people. but also reduces defining women based on their reproductive capabilities, and once again takes away from the opportunity JK Rowling had to celebrate and uplift all women, instead redirecting the conversation, again, to transphobia. How is this feminist at all? Finally, the most recent thing that's happened at the time I'm making this video was Rowling shared a statement that said, The Nazis burnt books on trans healthcare and research. Why are you so desperate to uphold their ideology around gender? And JK Rowling replied with, I just How? How did you type this out and press send without thinking I should maybe check my source for this because it might have been a fever dream? She's saying it's a fever dream that the Nazis burnt books about trans people and trans research. Okay, a very quick Google search reveals that the Nazis did in fact burn books about trans healthcare and trans research. And this didn't just set trans research back, but also important research about the wider community, including cisgender people who were not straight. And if it wasn't easy enough to search online for yourself, someone replied to Rowling with links to the relevant information and evidence. You're engaging in Holocaust denial, Joanne. With the links. To which Rowling replied with, If her response is confusing to you, it's because she's using a common tactic. where her response has changed the goalposts of what she said and of the conversation. Her initial tweet denied that the Nazis burnt trans research and books. Now, when someone's shown her clear as day that the Nazis did burn these things, she says they're engaging in lying because not all research was destroyed. And the trans people weren't the first targets. of the Nazis. Both points that weren't being discussed in the first place. That's like saying this apple is bruised and someone saying that's a fever dream that apple isn't bruised. And you provide a photograph that says um actually it's bruised look at this bruise. And then the person replies saying oh stop engaging in lying. There is no proof that every apple is bruised and by the way apples were not the first fruits to be bruised. No one was saying that and the last statement doesn't change the fact that the first statement was trying to deny that the apple that very clearly had a bruise on it had a bruise. So there you have it, a timeline that quite clearly shows a very extensive amount of evidence of JK Rowling's transphobia over the years and how it's developed. And in the last couple of days alone from when I was planning this video, JK Rowling had tweeted 20 times, 19 of which were about trans people and most of which were done in the same day. In conclusion, it seems clear that JK Rowling has become more extreme in her views over the past six years or has become more confident in being able to share those views publicly. She is a powerful and famous figure that other transphobes gain confidence from to be openly discriminatory. It's clear that she has, deliberately or not, created a very passionate following of transphobes who organise and attend anti-trans protests, create transphobic content, and much, much more, often using her name in some way. Despite many people attempting to provide awareness and education on trans topics and the trans community, JK Rowling has only gotten more severe with her views. I think what we need as a society is for her viewpoints to be viewed more widely in the way that Anita Bryant's eventually were, and platforms to stop providing so much airtime for people who hate on protected marginalized groups within society and cause further damage to those communities undeservedly. Generally and as a response to the increasing transphobic rhetoric, discrimination in any form is not something to be proud of, it's not something to be loud about, and it's not something to campaign for or put money behind. A loud pushback against a discriminated against community always seems to come when representation and rights of that group are on the increase. I think that strong pushback is the phase we're in with trans people at the moment. With transphobia feeling incredibly loud and widespread because trans people are becoming more supported and spoken about than ever before. I think what we're also seeing is a cult-like level of belief from some anti-trans people. They seem to believe that trans people are Dangerous. Trans rights are dangerous and that trans rights threaten other rights, primarily women's rights. But rights are not pi and the trans community are not the threat to feminism and women's rights that anti-trans people might believe or might want you to believe. Looking into this topic is like going down a conspiracy rabbit hole and seeing people double down time and time again and getting deeper and deeper into the conspiracy. Where it gets to the point that the more people that call them out the more obvious it becomes that they're wrong. the harder they believe the lies, and the more difficult it gets to admit that they're wrong. Therefore it's really difficult for people to admit that they're transphobic, that JK Rowling is transphobic and that transphobia is wrong, especially if that transphobia has caused direct or indirect harm to other people, because then you'd have to accept that you've done something bad and you've caused harm to others and most people don't want to face up to that. Transphobes also get lost in echo chambers and feed off of each other, recycling the same arguments and the same incorrect sources to try and justify their bigotry. It's a vicious cycle that people have to fight really hard to get out of and then they have to face face up to some really hard truths. And when they don't, they just end up sounding ridiculous. There is no justification to transphobia, which is why transphobes have to make ones up. If you stuck around to the end of this video, I hope it's answered some questions for you that I get asked a lot and I hope that it's helped provide you with some tools to help you going forward. And as a little positive note to end the video on, I want to reiterate that transphobia has only gotten louder because trans representation and acceptance is on the increase. And despite the loudness and despite the harm it's causing right now, transphobia is still a minority view. We will come out the other side of this a stronger more represented and more supported community. Thank you so much for listening to this video, please go leave your comments down below, think about giving a thumbs up and subscribing if you want to. Do go check out those other videos in the description box as well if you want to learn more about some of the specific things I spoke about in today's video. As always, thank you so so much for watching, I'll see you next time. Much love, bye!

Do you have snacks? Do you have water? And are you sitting comfortably?

Because this will be a long one. Hey spuds, it's Jamie. Welcome back to another video. If that's not a channel, I don't know, but welcome either way. And today we are breaking down JK Rowling's transphobia.

We are looking back at a timeline of the transphobia shared by JK Rowling. Are you ready? We're doing a non-exhaustive but still pretty detailed look back over the years of JK Rowling's transphobia. and how it turned from an accidental like of a tweet into full-blown transphobia and denying that trans women are women and going even further than that as well, all in the space of around six years. So why am I doing this video?

Partly because there are still a lot of people who don't believe that JK Rowling is transphobic and still deny that she has said anything anti-trans. Even now, with everything that's happened, and that is a problem. So as with other longer video essays that I have done in the past, I wanted to give you the tools to 1. Decide for yourself and 2. Have evidence points that you are able to express to people who may not understand. Some of the common messages I get are asking, how do I help the people in my social circle understand that people like JK Rowling are contributing towards transphobia?

And that this rhetoric isn't a useful or feminist stance, but primarily a transphobic and discriminatory stance. So hopefully this video can help with that. I think the trajectory and development of Rowling's transphobia is also something that we've seen more generally among anti-trans views and people with anti-trans views over recent years. Rowling is a very prominent example of this.

It's where people start off very tentative, testing the waters on their opinions, keeping them mostly private or they're unsure of their opinions themselves to begin with, and then eventually over time this spirals into outright transphobia as their confidence in their views grow and their echo chambers strengthen. Firstly, I want to point out that transphobia and discrimination towards trans people causes genuine harm. This is something we already know and there's a lot of evidence to back this up and there are multiple instances of JK Rowling's transphobia being linked to causing harm. One is the International LGBT Plus Review saying that the UK faces serious damage from JK Rowling and other transphobic rhetoric. JK Rowling and anti-trans rhetoric have caused significant damage to the UK, International LGBT Plus report warns.

An International LGBT Plus Rights Review has warned the UK is facing significant damage because of transphobic hate speech and JK Rowling. It notes anti-trans rhetoric continued to cause serious damage in the UK again this year. A prime example is repeated transphobic attacks by author JK Rowling on the on Twitter and in her writing.

Another is the Women's Media Center who have outright said that J.K. Rowling has undoubtedly hurt the trans community. Also mentioning the fact that a Republican senator shut down legislation that would have protected the LGBT plus community in Oklahoma and cited Rowling's essay in defense of his position. Rowling's statement had broader political implications too.

Not long after these events on June 14th the United Kingdom's Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced plans to withdraw the Gender Recognition Act which allows trans people to identify as their preferred gender. A few days later, Oklahoma Republican Senator James Lankford effectively shut down a vote on the Equality Act, legislation that would provide consistent and explicit non-discrimination protections for LGBTQ people across numerous areas of their lives, and cited Rowling's essay as a defense against the bill. And these are just a couple of examples. And what this goes to show is that people with huge platforms, whether they have an intention to cause harm or not to a specific community, the impact of their words can still have a huge and negative effect on large groups of people.

This topic is also important to explore because JK Rowling has effectively become the postal women for TERFs and transphobes in the UK. So even if people are refusing to believe that she's transphobic herself, she's being used by very transphobic people as a source of confidence to share their own hateful views. Prominent TERFs show public and active support and or adoration for JK Rowling, and at anti-trans gatherings you are highly likely to see some form of I Love JK Rowling merch such as t-shirts, banners and stickers. What I really question is how a cisgender woman has become the listened to voice and the go-to voice for quite a lot of people when it comes to trans issues. Even if you ignore that what she relies upon to justify her position are half-truths, dog whistles, subpar scientific findings, and her statements are often shown to ignore the actual truth of situations, actual evidence, science, facts.

and numerous real-life accounts from the trans community. A bigger issue than JK Rowling herself is the fact that some people in society view her as an authority on a topic that she isn't qualified to talk about in the way she talks about it. How did a cisgender fantasy children's book author become a go-to source for TERF groups and other people on trans people?

And what we're seeing now is other people also unqualified and with no lived experience of being trans themselves. Being given televised platforms to deb- debate trans rights when it shouldn't even be a debate in the first place. J.K. Rowling's anti-trans arguments all seem to boil down to a belief that trans women as a group of people are dangerous and pose a risk to cis women's safety in public spaces.

Something that there is no evidence for. Trans people are estimated to comprise about half a percent of populations in both the US and the UK. A 2018 study from UCLA found no evidence to support that anti-trans legislation makes designated public spaces safer but did find that reports of privacy and safety violations in these places are exceedingly rare. In essence there was no danger to begin with. Other sources have said No evidence was identified to support the claim that trans women are more likely than cisgender women to sexually assault other women in women-only spaces.

This lack of evidence is reiterated by other sources. Trans women have been happily using women's spaces for decades, a very long time, and no one has even noticed or cared to the extent that they are noticing or caring now. Because at the moment, trans people feel like the popular group to pick on. So with the intro out of the way, let's get into the actual timeline and the details of JK Rowling's transphobia over the years.

And it kicks off in 2017. Going back to 2017, we have Rowling liking a tweet that linked back... to a now-deleted article that was being, let's just say, not very nice about trans women. This is when some people began to initially question JK Rowling's stance on trans people. Fast forwarding to the following year, we have another like incident on Twitter, but then this was unliked soon after.

This tweet referred to men in dresses, it's believed in reference to trans women. This time a spokesperson for Rowling said that this was an accidental like caused by a middle-aged moment. This was the first time I personally started noticing things bubbling around Rowling's potential opinions about the trans community and it raised a lot of questions at this point. And I'm not sure how many people bought into the middle-aged moment.

thing. But I think we can safely say that at this point any anti-trans beliefs and opinions that JK Rowling held was something that she was not really public or open about. Personally Harry Potter was something I enjoyed in childhood. It's also something that a lot of the LGBT plus community enjoyed and related to in many ways.

Rowling is seen as such an influential figure because of the success of Harry Potter. So the concept that someone whose work was viewed as an escape and a source of comfort for many people including LGBT plus people is now being so anti- inclusive when it comes to the trans community doesn't feel great to say the least and I think has left quite a few people feeling baffled. 2019 saw the initial shift of JK Rowling voicing her anti-trans opinions slash support of anti-trans views more openly.

She vocally supported someone who was called out for sharing anti-trans views. This person was suing the company that chose not to renew their contract and there were hashtags and support going around on Twitter at the time that JK Rowling took part in. It was a turning point because there was no excuse of accidentally liking something or having a middle-aged moment, this was obvious support of someone who tweeted things like, because that might hurt men's feelings.

At this point, there are a lot of questions over Rowling's personal beliefs and why she was supporting someone with such openly transphobic ones. Rowling herself at this point then tweeted things like this. Dress however you please, call yourself whatever you like, sleep with any consenting adult who'll have you, live your best life in peace and security, but force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real?

Hashtag I stand with. person. Hashtag this is not a drill.

It's pretty difficult to keep on denying that JK Rowling didn't have any anti-trans beliefs at this point, but this definitely still could have been put down to a one-off incident, a misunderstanding of the situation, or support for an individual in that particular scenario. But then we move to 2020. 2020 saw a big escalation in both her frequency of sharing and her obviousness of her views on people who are transgender. It all seemed to kick off in June 2020 when she tweeted out a response to the use of the phrase people who menstruate.

People who menstruate, I'm sure there used to be a word for those people, someone help me out, womben, whimpered, woomud. This tweet was rightfully called out because there's no need to mock or feel threatened by the use of gender neutral language. By its very nature, inclusive language does not exclude anyone. and is used only on a top level when necessary.

Women who menstruate will still be referred to as women on an individual level. But neutral language like this in things like articles and healthcare leaflets helps reduce dysphoria and make sure that trans men and AFAB non-binary people are aware that they are involved in those conversations. And also that women who don't menstruate don't feel forgotten about.

Because women's rights have been fought for for years to ensure that women are seen as equals. as people, not just a means of reproduction, and not just boiled down to their parts and reproductive organs. So why wouldn't people want to make sure that the language we're using doesn't demean women, or exclude others, including many women who for reasons such as medical issues, or most commonly age, also don't menstruate?

Wayne called out Rowling somewhat double down on her stance, but sugarcoated it by including something about loving and respecting trans people. If sex isn't real, there's no same-sex attraction. If sex isn't real, the lived reality of women globally is erased.

I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes- the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isn't hate to speak the truth. An important thing to point out here as well is that nobody's denied that sex is real.

The idea that women like me who've been empathetic to trans people for decades feeling kinship because they're vulnerable in the same way as women i.e to male violence hate trans people because they think sex is real and has lived consequences is a nonsense. I respect every trans person's right to live any way that feels authentic and comfortable to them. I'd march with you if you were discriminated against on the basis of being trans.

At the same time my life has been shaped by being female. I do not believe it's hateful to say so. There are a lot of mixed messages in there and she also claimed that she received respects trans people's rights to live authentically and would march with us if we were discriminated against.

Looking back at this now and seeing how vocal she's since been and where her views have escalated to, this feels very surreal to read. Neither statement has transpired to be true based on how her views and her sharing of her views has evolved over the past few years. Also, even in 2020, that if trans people were discriminated against, I'd march with them.

was not an if, it's constantly happening. It's a when next, it's a happening right now. And supporting transphobes and mocking the use of gender neutral language and using straw man arguments such as I just think sex is real is not the way to go about marching with trans people who are being discriminated against or showing that you love and respect them. Very shortly after these tweets happened, Rowling shared an essay she wrote about it.

JK Rowling writes about her reasons for speaking out on sex and gender issues, sharing the article in a tweet that said, TERF Wars. This essay was filled with half-truths, dog whistles, outright misinformation, and just lacking justification or evidence for the claims that she was making. Plenty of people have broken this essay down, myself and my partner included, I will leave a link to the video down in the description box. We've heard it was important to address this essay and its insidious transphobia. As many people were not aware of the inaccuracies and took it at face value.

This is where a lot of the comments about, oh she's not really transphobic, come from. And honestly, for people who didn't really understand trans issues, and if they weren't close to a trans person who they could talk to, I could see how they might come away from reading JK Rowling's essay feeling confused and conflicted. That's why we made a video to break it down further, and show how these half-truths were packaged and the information was packaged in a way that was harmful to the trans community.

This essay really marked a turning point, and alongside the tweets shared earlier, they sparked the beginning of JK Rowling being seen by trans people. and trans allies as anti-trans. But it's also the time that she started getting very passionate support from TERFs and other transphobes. Some of the allies who spoke out against her views included some very prominent stars from the Harry Potter series.

With Daniel Radcliffe saying, not invalidate their identities and not cause further harm. Emma Watson has also commented on the situation and voiced her trans support. Trans people are who they say they are and deserve to live their lives without being constantly questioned or told they aren't who they say they are.

I want my trans followers to know that I and so many other people around the world see you, respect you and love you for who you are. Rupert Grint has also spoken out stating he stands firmly with the trans community. I firmly stand with the trans community and echo the sentiments expressed by many of my peers. Trans women are women, trans men are men, Grint said.

We should all be entitled to live with love and without judgment. Eddie Redmayne said, I disagree with Joe's comments. Trans women are women, trans men are men, and non-binary identities are valid, the actor said in a statement.

And Bonnie Wright said, If Harry Potter was a source of love and belonging for you, that love is infinite and there to take without judgment or question. Trans women are women. I see you and love you, Bonnie. All of them spoke out shortly after the essay was posted by J.K.

Rowling. They have received backlash for their pro-trans stance, even being accused of betraying J.K. Rowling. But it was so important for them to speak up, and I'm passionate. grateful for it.

as are many other trans people. Rowling has managed to garner such passionate support, and albeit much smaller than the support that the trans community has, her words still carry such weight and power. And transphobes are so loud it's sometimes difficult to remember that they are not the majority viewpoint.

But just because they're not a majority view doesn't mean that they're not causing harm, and it doesn't mean that they're not being used as pawns in wider media and political campaigns. But still, to see the main cast speak out like that so quickly after Rowling's essay was uplifting as a trans person. at a time that felt very unnerving to be trans.

We're still not done for 2020 though. This all happened in June and Rowling was not done with Pride Month just yet. JK Rowling tweeted a thank you to fellow author Stephen King after he retweeted one of her tweets. Someone then asked Stephen King what his retweet of Rowling's tweet meant for his opinions on the trans community to which Stephen King replied, trans women are women.

Rowling then deleted her thank you tweet to King. Jumping ahead slightly to conclude this element, almost a year after this happened, King's spoke about the incident. Apparently Rowling also blocked him after his trans supportive tweet, and he further stated that he felt that her belief about trans women was wrong. Alongside the pro-trans stances, this time showed an interesting shift in evidence for the increases in Rowling's transphobia over the years, and more importantly, an unwillingness to see or hear views that were different from her own, in that she seemed to block and or ignore anyone who was calling her out. or saying that she was causing harm.

What this achieves is an echo chamber where people believe that their opinions are more supported than they actually are. And thus, this will strengthen one's resolve to stick with their opinions and even increase their beliefs and willingness to share those opinions. 2020 is still not done. As the very next month in July, she posted a very long Twitter thread after being called out for liking a tweet that compared hormone therapy to antidepressants. The author caused controversy again in July 2020 when she liked a tweet that read, hormone prescriptions are the new antidepressants.

Yes, they are sometimes necessary and life-saving, but they should be a last resort, not the first option. pure laziness for those who would rather medicate than put in the time and effort to heal people's minds. Many took the post as an insinuation that taking mental health medication is lazy, as well as the assumption that trans people are mentally unwell. Just adding to that as well, the assumption that healthcare providers are always really happy and provide hormone replacement therapy really easily to trans people when that's not the case.

Her thread made medical claims about hormones and likened the access to medical transition as a kind of conversion therapy for young gay people. Many health professionals are concerned that young young people struggling with their mental health are being shunted towards hormones and surgery when this may not be in their best interests. 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 medicalization that may result in the loss of their fertility and or full sexual function. The point about conversion therapy in particular in reference to young gay people is a very dangerous and horrible viewpoint to share. It is based on several assumptions that are wrong.

These are that one, a majority of trans people identify as straight post-transition. they do not. that being gay is more difficult or more discriminated against than being trans, so people therefore transition to escape homophobia. Both transphobia and homophobia exist, are prevalent, and no one would choose to face either.

And three, the people going to healthcare professionals for support with their gender identity are then being forced, persuaded, manipulated, or pushed in some way to transition. when it's not the right thing for them to do. This is not happening and the low regret rates evidence this.

To liken trans healthcare in any way to conversion therapy is abhorrent and shows a complete lack of awareness to the weight those words can carry and the harm they can do, as well as a lack of understanding about the trans community and trans healthcare as a whole. If transphobia was a rabbit hole, at this point, J.K. Rowling was head first in the hole up to her ankles and was deliberately or accidentally building a very loyal fan base who believed and trusted her every word. every word.

It's completely irresponsible in my opinion to tweet so confidently and so frequently and with such authority about a marginalized community that you are a not a part of and b you are lying about and spreading misinformation about and also going directly against what the community is telling you is the truth. And even more problematic is that people are trusting what she's saying because she's rich, white, cis and has a following, which makes what she says all the more harmful. Why are we not listening to the scientific and medical professionals who know the evidence and the facts about the trans community?

So many trans people have called out and totally debunked Rowling's viewpoints and the evidence that she tries to use to back up her views. And still she carries on and still other people carry on listening to and trusting her voice above the trans communities. The very next month again, I told you 2020 was a very busy year. Yes, we are still in 2020. And.

August 2020, Rowling returned an award given to her in 2019 by the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Organization after they issued a statement rejecting her transphobia, again showing her totally ignoring and rejecting anyone or anything that calls out her transphobia. In September 2020, one of her new books caused further outrage. The book reportedly follows a detective on the hunt for a cis male serial killer who dresses as a woman in order to hunt and murder cis women. women.

The Telegraph's review describes it as a book whose moral seems to be never trust a man in a dress. On the face of it, this in itself seems to have nothing to do with trans people specifically, so what's the issue? But like with everything, context changes when you look at things as part of a bigger picture rather than just an isolated incident.

There's been many instances to suggest that JK Rowling villainizes trans women, including in her essay where she vulnerably shared her negative experiences with men. which is a terrible thing to have happened and a very important and brave thing to speak out about. Unfortunately, she carried on to wrongly bring trans women into an issue of men's violence against women. Trans women are not men who dress up as women to cause violence or harm to cis women. And that book plot, in the context of other anti-trans build-up, contributes to a false narrative that, one, men do this in the first place, because stats do not reflect that this is happening.

And two, even in a hypothetical world where this did happen, why does this mean we should punish trans women for the acts of dangerous men? It doesn't make a lot of sense. And if anyone watching is wondering, well, it's a bit of a stretch that this kind of book plot would harm the trans community.

It's happened before. The Silence of the Lambs is widely known for causing harm to the trans community. Troubled Blood, the fifth book released under Rowling's Robert Galbraith pseudonym, has earned the author heavy criticism after an early review revealed it includes a cross-dressing scene.

serial killer. Immediately comparisons were drawn between the 900-page tome and Silence of the Lambs, the 1988 Thomas Harris novel that introduced the world to Hannibal Lecter. Silence of the Lambs spinoff Clarice is trying to counter and reframe the harmful narrative of Buffalo Bill as a transsexual serial killer, which resulted in real-world harm to the trans community.

Further to the book's plot, Rowling also received criticism for the use of her pen name, Robert Galbraith, the name that happens to also be the name of a man who was famous for practicing conversion therapy, a connection that she has denied. Again, some people claim that this is just a coincidence, which it could be, and if it was an isolated incident I'd be more likely to see it that way. But again, it's important to look at things as a whole and not just as isolated incidences, and alongside the book's plot and her views already shared about the trans community. And it's also important to ask, if the was a coincidence.

And if all these points that JK Rowling is being accused of aren't actually transphobic, wouldn't you expect someone who didn't have transphobic views but was shared so heavily in the media for it to have spoken out very strongly and clarified things and clarified how she's being misrepresented in her views? Instead she seems to have just been more vocal about her anti-trans stances and shared more of that. We're now done with 2020. In 2021, Rowling shared a Sunday Times article that mocked the Scottish police. for recognizing trans identities. War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength.

The penis individual who raped you is a woman. Many transphobes like bringing up the handful of incidences where a trans woman has committed a crime. This subsequently, intentionally or not, incites fear of others towards trans women, thus increasing transphobia.

Whether it's from the political right, left or centre, online transphobia and the spread of false and misleading narratives can have dangerous real-life consequences, transgender advocates say. People are more willing to attack a trans person because they see it on TV. They're more willing to attack a trans person or say whatever they want to a trans person or a queer person because they see this online. Nobody's checking them for it.

It's not to say that we should ignore these incidences. And it's not to say that the individuals committing them are not violent and not dangerous and should not face consequences because they absolutely should. But it's to say that we can't let...

a few individual cases lead to the demonization of an entire community just because they share a common characteristic. Doing so is discrimination. Not all trans people are wonderful law-abiding citizens, but no group of people in society will be solely made up of all wonderful and law-abiding citizens. It's not right to judge an entire demographic of people based on the actions of a few bad eggs. This is true even for the trans community, although many transphobes will want you to think differently and will use the handful of examples of violent trans women to try and condemn all trans women.

In March 2022, JK Rowling chose International Women's Day to tweet negatively about the trans community yet again. Apparently under a Labour government, today will become We Who Must Not Be Named Day. JK Rowling doubles down on transphobia in an International Women's Day twitter rant. The Harry Potter author has gone on record criticising a bill that would make it easier for trans people in Scotland to change genders.

On a day where all women should be acknowledged, uplifted and celebrated. Something that should happen all year round, but unfortunately we're not there yet. So it's especially important to... have days like International Women's Day and to use them to uplift all women. Rowling chose to divert her attentions into being transphobic.

I personally find it really odd that someone who talks about caring for women's rights so deeply would choose to use an important day like International Women's Day to take the conversation away from women's rights issues and speak negatively about the trans community when there could have been infinite ways and infinite things that she could have done to uplift all women. I'm not saying that she doesn't genuinely care about women's rights but it comes across as though all of her time and energy is being poured into being negative towards the trans community, rather than focusing on uplifting women and fighting for equal rights for women. Because transphobia is not the path to go down if you want to be feminist and uplift women. All of that wasted time attacking the trans community is distracting from the real issue. And the real issue is men abusing their privilege and their power.

And just as a reminder, that does not include trans women because trans women are women. In July 2022, JK Rowling publicly showed support for for Matt Walsh and his anti-trans film called What is a Woman. And your film did a good job exposing the incoherence of gender identity theory and some of the harms it's done.

Many institutions I used to admire have uncritically embraced this dogma but I reserved my ire for them rather than shouting coward at individual women. Matt Walsh is a self-described theoretic fascist and spreader of transphobia. He's also shared things that are homophobic, anti-abortion and misogynistic.

Which I think you'd agree isn't very feminist at all. Which therefore makes JK Rowling's alliance with Matt Walsh unusual. And again, perhaps indicates that this isn't about feminism at all. It's about being transphobic. On top of this, Matt Walsh is not the only person that JK Rowling has been shown to be friends with or support the views of, where those views are very extremely right-wing and anti-feminist in nature.

Rowling is friends with numerous anti-trans activists, including Helen Joyce, who's made alarmingly transphobic statements calling for a reduction in the number of trans people. She's tweeted, Public support for anti-gay, anti-trans activist Caroline Farrow. These connections are part of the social network echo chamber of trans-exclusionary radical feminists, or TER.

JK Rowling sends big love to anti-gay, anti-trans, anti-abortion activist Caroline Farrow. I cannot speak if these alliances and support also means that JK Rowling shares some of the other views shared by these people. But it certainly indicates that being mutually transphobic is the most important factor here, not progressing feminist rights.

And for some, transphobia is a belief that means it's worth putting aside other differences, including bodily autonomy in the form of abortions. That does not scream feminism to me. A very important point when we realize that a lot of transphobes like to...

to hide behind caring about women's safety and caring about women's rights and using that as an excuse to be transphobic. And that's all it is, an excuse. An excuse that actually then detracts from real and important feminism from happening.

Imagine how much powerful impact could be made in progressing women's rights and equality if JK Rowling and all of the other TERFs actually focused their lenses on women's rights and equality rather than targeting trans people. Continuing with the timeline, in October 2022, Rowling supported protests that were against the Scottish reform of the Gender Recognition Act. In October 2022, JK Rowling backed protests over the Scottish Gender Bill which sets out to make it easier for people to be legally recognised as their preferred gender.

The reform aimed to make it easier for trans people to get a gender recognition certificate and be legally recognised as their gender. A process that has no impact on anyone else's life except the trans person's. It literally allows trans people to get married and die with dignity by being recognised as their true gender.

It does not impact things like access to gendered spaces. This is covered under the Equality Act and trans people can do this without having a gender recognition certificate. And this is a fact that a lot of transphobes either don't know, don't understand, or choose to willingly ignore. Rowling was very against any reform of the Gender Recognition Act and wrote on her website, support centers, domestic violence refuges, hospital wards and prison cells that were hitherto reserved for women.

Just to reiterate a gender recognition certificate is not required for trans people at any stage of transition to go into spaces such as public bathrooms or changing rooms. This is an example of a gender recognition certificate. example among others but a very strong example where Rowling is literally going against the statement that she said back in 2020. The one about marching with trans people if they were discriminated against. Because here in 2022 she was literally supporting anti-trans protests. Rowling also posted a photo of herself wearing a t-shirt saying Nicola Sturgeon destroyer of women's rights.

It's a t-shirt made by Posey Parker. and matches some other anti-trans merch that she's made that is intended to look like dictionary definitions. The company has been making adult human female stickers and other items for Parker for five years, including a t-shirt calling Nicola Sturgeon a destroyer of women's rights, which was famously modeled by JK Rowling.

From what I can see, Nicola Sturgeon does not seem to be the destroyer of women's rights. There are entire articles and long lists of things that Nicola Sturgeon has done in support. of women's rights, including creating action points to ensure all women have access to the best possible healthcare.

She also launched the Workplace Equality Fund to champion workplace equality with a focus on gender, age, race and disability. And to support survivors of domestic abuse, Sturgeon pushed to make Scotland one of the few countries where psychological abuse is a crime. And there's much more than this as well. She's repeatedly championed women's rights. And yes, that means all women, including trans women, but because she's a trans ally that somehow makes her anti-feminist and a destroyer of women's rights in the eyes of TERFs.

I hope this can be seen as yet another example of TERF rhetoric being rooted in discrimination and not feminism. So for people including JK Rowling to label Nicola Sturgeon the destroyer of women's rights simply because she supports trans women. is objectively wrong.

To be honest, I can't even see any substantial evidence of what JK Rowling has done herself to actively support women's rights, or at least not publicly. Because whenever I try and find anything like this, all I find are her comments on the trans community. Her anti-trans views drown out any potential things that there might be out there that she's done.

And one thing I could find that was actively supportive of cis women was transphobic. We'll get to that point in a minute. I did find one comment that she made back in 2017 in support of abortion rights.

In 2017, Rowling expressed her her opposition to the Mexico City policy. that blocked US government support for international organization that provided abortion counseling when it was reinstated by Donald Trump and said that she supported abortion rights especially in underdeveloped countries. But now she's gone on to show strong support for the anti-trans views of anti-abortionists.

I'm not saying that JK Rowling herself is anti-abortion, what I'm saying is that it feels a bit rich to call Nicola Sturgeon the destroyer of women's rights for showing allyship to trans people. when you're then cheering on other people who are very openly, literally against the progression of women's rights. I found the one abortion comment on Wikipedia, and I'm not saying that's all she's said over the years, but in reference on the same Wikipedia page, this is the amount that she had to say about trans people, and it's quite considerably more. Again, showing that if Rowling really was coming from a place of genuine feminism, why is it that there's this much on actual feminist issues and this much on trans people.

It doesn't make sense. Now we go to what Rowling did that actually was pro-feminism but unfortunately still features anti-trans efforts which therefore makes it not truly feminist because true feminism includes all women. In December 2022, Rowling personally funded a new domestic support centre that explicitly excludes trans women as either using the service or or being employed there. This month, Rowling also personally funds a new domestic violence support centre in Edinburgh, Scotland which explicitly excludes trans women. Rowling Frames'new centre is offering women-centred and women-delivered care.

Edinburgh's long-standing domestic violence support centre has had a trans woman as its director since 2021. Trans women, in particular women of colour, are at a vastly higher risk of experiencing domestic violence and sexual assault than cisgender women. Setting up this centre in this way completely disrespects that trans women are women. The centres for these services are already able to exclude trans women from the exclude any individual person if they feel that that person poses a risk to other service users and that trans women, particularly trans women of colour, are at a vastly higher risk of experiencing domestic violence than cisgender women. So in essence, she was funding a centre that actively excludes the most vulnerable women and the women who are most likely to require its services. That's honestly horrendous to me.

More so, there's literally no evidence. for the concerns that Rowling and people who share her views spout, or any evidence for the justifications they try to give to support their transphobia or excuse their transphobia away. In a literature search on the potential impacts that a Gender Recognition Act reform could create, there was absolutely zero evidence found that trans women posed a risk to cis women. And there's also zero evidence identified that trans women using women's spaces led to an increase of cisgender men claiming to be trans women. to access these spaces.

There is also a total lack of evidence that anti-trans legislation makes public spaces safer, but it has been found that reports of privacy violations in these places is exceedingly rare in general. Essentially meaning that transphobes claiming they want to protect women, one, only mean cis women, and two, are distracting from the situations where women are actually at risk, as they are pulling all of the focus to be on trans women using toilets, and other gendered spaces. Something that has been shown on multiple levels by multiple sources to not be an issue.

There is no reason to protest against trans rights. There is no reason to protest and fund against trans women accessing women's spaces other than transphobia. And a falsified fear where there is an abundance of evidence to show that it is a false fear. Then to round off 2022, JK Rowling tweeted out Merry Tathmas for Christmas. How lovely.

In March 2023, Rowling was interviewed for a podcast called The Witch Trials of JK Rowling. that was hosted by former member of the Westboro Baptist Church. You know, the ones that have signs like this. If you want to know more about the podcast and some other info surrounding JK Rowling in general, I'd strongly recommend watching ContraPoint's videos called The Witch Trials of JK Rowling.

The link is in the description box. The specific bit I want to address here is when in an episode, Rowling described the modern trans rights movement as dangerous. She said she believed that there was something dangerous about the modern trans rights movement and that it needed to be challenged. In its fifth episode, Rowling begins discussing the modern trans rights movement, calling it a cultural movement that was liberal in its methods and questionable in its ideas and insisting, I believe absolutely that there is something dangerous about this movement and it must be challenged. Rowling went on to describe the fight for trans rights as insidious, powerful and misogynistic, even comparing it to Death Eaters.

It's such a bizarre concept to me that someone would see the fight for equal rights from a marginalized community as something that's powerful, insidious, dangerous and misogynistic. It shows a deep misunderstanding of why trans rights are even being fought for, of the trans community in general. and generally of equal rights movements.

Rowling saying things like this about the trans rights movement is an example of history repeating itself in a very painful and frustrating way. Similar words were said about the gay rights movement 50 years ago. Bryant's campaign adopted the mantra homosexuals cannot reproduce so they must recruit, championing religious purity and aiming to protect children from supposed anti-Christian values.

Bryant's virulent rhetoric, including in press conferences and commercials, swiftly gained her a national conservative following. Almost as soon as she became involved, In the campaign against gay rights legislation, she claimed she had lost bookings and been blacklisted. because of the actions of the militant homosexuals who opposed her.

This story resonated with conservative Christians who were just beginning to mobilize in new ways to protect moral values that they believed were under attack by the gay rights movement, feminists and other forces on the left. The idea that their standard bearer had been brought down by gay activists provided proof to support the narrative of cultural alienation that animated this movement. And other people have noted this too, again with the ContraPoints video going into far more detail on this specific topic. But in summary, Rowling has been described as the Anita Brian of our era. J.K.

Rowling is the Anita Brian of our era, a woman who used her celebrity to spread bigotry against a queer minority on the grounds of saving women and children from queer people. Rowling at this point was moving very, very far away from her initial dip into transphobia. In October 2023, I feel like this is when things took another step up and her transphobic opinions got significantly more obvious.

Rowling retweeted an image that showed the text, trans women are women, projected onto a building. And she replied to it simply by saying, no, literally just no. clear as day the opinion that's kind of already been said before is now right there in black and white J.K. Rowling does not believe that trans women are women. She then responded to someone who said vote Labour and get a two-year stretch and said I'll happily do two years if the alternative is compelled speech and forced denial of the reality and importance of sex. Bring on the court case, I say.

It'll be more fun than I've had on a red carpet. This prison stretch comment was about a hypothetical new hate crime legislation under a Labour government that would make gender identity attacks a criminal offence. So in short, J.K. Rowling doesn't believe that trans women are women and would rather go to prison or fight a crime. court case than gender a trans person correctly.

In my opinion that's a very strong opinion to hold and it is transphobia in its purest most basic form to not respect a trans person's identity. To view trans women as not women, to misgender a trans person, that is transphobic. A phobia is not just a fear it's also an aversion to.

It's also yet another example of how much more extreme her views have gotten over the years. Either generally her views have grown that much worse or she's just grown that much more confidence in sharing them publicly. But either way stating that you would happily do a two-year stretch for misgendering a trans person is a far cry from saying things like, I know and love trans people and I respect every trans person's right to live authentically. As she's literally saying that she would do something that would actively cause discomfort for a trans person and very clearly goes against respecting them. and respecting them living authentically.

Now we are into 2024 and we are only a few months in but stuff has still happened. For context, I'm filming this in mid-March. So just letting you know if I'm not up to date that is why but I'm making it up to date to the date that I'm filming it on. Rowling donated £70,000, yes £70,000, towards a legal battle to try and stop the SNP government in Scotland from trying to change the definition of woman. JK Rowling reportedly donated £70,000 to group Supreme Court appeal over woman.

definition. For a bit of background this is an issue dating back to 2021 when a certain anti-trans group took the Scottish Government to court over its definition of woman in the Gender Representation on Public Board Act. The law aimed to ensure that non-executive members on public boards are made up of at least 50% women. The Scottish Government had initially defined woman as those living as women or those who intended to or had already gone through the process of legal gender recognition. But the particular anti-trans group argued against this.

They lost an initial judicial review but were successful on an appeal. This appeal resulted in the Scottish government changing the definition in the Act to now stating that woman is defined by the Equality Act. and the GRA 2004, meaning those with a GRC can legally be defined as women for the purpose of the legislation. But the anti-trans group was still not happy and called for an additional judicial review.

This review was defeated in December 2022 and they lost a further appeal in November 2023. However, in February this year, the group was granted permission to appeal the decision. This is now what they're fundraising for and what JK Rowling donated £70,000 towards. All of this time and money and resource being spent on whether trans women's statistics sit for equality, when it could be put towards working towards genuine equal access for all women. When funnily enough, it's not trans women who are winning out over all women and unfairly getting opportunities, not based on merit but based on patriarchy and misogyny. It's not transgender women doing that, it's cisgender men.

Yet another example of all women being made second priority to transphobes want to be transphobic and progress their transphobia and legally start stripping away the rights of trans people. The legal process is far more than simply wanting the definition of woman to change. It is essentially an opposition to the Gender Recognition Act at the level of the Supreme Court.

In March this year, JK Rowling made transphobic comments towards India Willoughby, a journalist and transgender woman. In a response to a video of India Willoughby, JK Rowling said, There isn't a lady in this one, just a man reveling in his misogynistic performance of what he thinks woman means. narcissistic, shallow and exhibitionist. And in another tweet she said India didn't become a woman.

India is cosplaying a misogynistic male fantasy of what a woman is. India reported JK Rowling's comments to the police and the police registered JK Rowling as causing a non-crime hate incident, meaning her transphobia is now a matter of public record. Her transphobia towards India met the threshold to be recorded as a hate incident, meaning her transphobia is officially considered a as hate.

More recently, Rowling recycled a really rubbish and unfunny joke that was originally said by Ben Shapiro. Another person well known for their transphobia, anti-feminism, all of this stuff. And she did this for Mother's Day. Rowling tweeted, Happy birthing parent day to all whose large gametes were fertilized, resulting in small humans whose sex was assigned by doctors making mostly lucky guesses.

A very similar vibe to Ben Shapiro's tweets a year earlier. Happy primary legal guardian of unspecific gender day. I will keep tweeting the same joke every year and the correlative joke on Father's Day until the left explains why mothers are both different than fathers and necessary to the health and welfare of children.

It's bizarre and not just offensive to trans people. but also reduces defining women based on their reproductive capabilities, and once again takes away from the opportunity JK Rowling had to celebrate and uplift all women, instead redirecting the conversation, again, to transphobia. How is this feminist at all? Finally, the most recent thing that's happened at the time I'm making this video was Rowling shared a statement that said, The Nazis burnt books on trans healthcare and research.

Why are you so desperate to uphold their ideology around gender? And JK Rowling replied with, I just How? How did you type this out and press send without thinking I should maybe check my source for this because it might have been a fever dream?

She's saying it's a fever dream that the Nazis burnt books about trans people and trans research. Okay, a very quick Google search reveals that the Nazis did in fact burn books about trans healthcare and trans research. And this didn't just set trans research back, but also important research about the wider community, including cisgender people who were not straight. And if it wasn't easy enough to search online for yourself, someone replied to Rowling with links to the relevant information and evidence.

You're engaging in Holocaust denial, Joanne. With the links. To which Rowling replied with, If her response is confusing to you, it's because she's using a common tactic. where her response has changed the goalposts of what she said and of the conversation.

Her initial tweet denied that the Nazis burnt trans research and books. Now, when someone's shown her clear as day that the Nazis did burn these things, she says they're engaging in lying because not all research was destroyed. And the trans people weren't the first targets.

of the Nazis. Both points that weren't being discussed in the first place. That's like saying this apple is bruised and someone saying that's a fever dream that apple isn't bruised.

And you provide a photograph that says um actually it's bruised look at this bruise. And then the person replies saying oh stop engaging in lying. There is no proof that every apple is bruised and by the way apples were not the first fruits to be bruised.

No one was saying that and the last statement doesn't change the fact that the first statement was trying to deny that the apple that very clearly had a bruise on it had a bruise. So there you have it, a timeline that quite clearly shows a very extensive amount of evidence of JK Rowling's transphobia over the years and how it's developed. And in the last couple of days alone from when I was planning this video, JK Rowling had tweeted 20 times, 19 of which were about trans people and most of which were done in the same day. In conclusion, it seems clear that JK Rowling has become more extreme in her views over the past six years or has become more confident in being able to share those views publicly. She is a powerful and famous figure that other transphobes gain confidence from to be openly discriminatory.

It's clear that she has, deliberately or not, created a very passionate following of transphobes who organise and attend anti-trans protests, create transphobic content, and much, much more, often using her name in some way. Despite many people attempting to provide awareness and education on trans topics and the trans community, JK Rowling has only gotten more severe with her views. I think what we need as a society is for her viewpoints to be viewed more widely in the way that Anita Bryant's eventually were, and platforms to stop providing so much airtime for people who hate on protected marginalized groups within society and cause further damage to those communities undeservedly. Generally and as a response to the increasing transphobic rhetoric, discrimination in any form is not something to be proud of, it's not something to be loud about, and it's not something to campaign for or put money behind.

A loud pushback against a discriminated against community always seems to come when representation and rights of that group are on the increase. I think that strong pushback is the phase we're in with trans people at the moment. With transphobia feeling incredibly loud and widespread because trans people are becoming more supported and spoken about than ever before. I think what we're also seeing is a cult-like level of belief from some anti-trans people.

They seem to believe that trans people are Dangerous. Trans rights are dangerous and that trans rights threaten other rights, primarily women's rights. But rights are not pi and the trans community are not the threat to feminism and women's rights that anti-trans people might believe or might want you to believe. Looking into this topic is like going down a conspiracy rabbit hole and seeing people double down time and time again and getting deeper and deeper into the conspiracy. Where it gets to the point that the more people that call them out the more obvious it becomes that they're wrong.

the harder they believe the lies, and the more difficult it gets to admit that they're wrong. Therefore it's really difficult for people to admit that they're transphobic, that JK Rowling is transphobic and that transphobia is wrong, especially if that transphobia has caused direct or indirect harm to other people, because then you'd have to accept that you've done something bad and you've caused harm to others and most people don't want to face up to that. Transphobes also get lost in echo chambers and feed off of each other, recycling the same arguments and the same incorrect sources to try and justify their bigotry. It's a vicious cycle that people have to fight really hard to get out of and then they have to face face up to some really hard truths. And when they don't, they just end up sounding ridiculous.

There is no justification to transphobia, which is why transphobes have to make ones up. If you stuck around to the end of this video, I hope it's answered some questions for you that I get asked a lot and I hope that it's helped provide you with some tools to help you going forward. And as a little positive note to end the video on, I want to reiterate that transphobia has only gotten louder because trans representation and acceptance is on the increase.

And despite the loudness and despite the harm it's causing right now, transphobia is still a minority view. We will come out the other side of this a stronger more represented and more supported community. Thank you so much for listening to this video, please go leave your comments down below, think about giving a thumbs up and subscribing if you want to. Do go check out those other videos in the description box as well if you want to learn more about some of the specific things I spoke about in today's video.

As always, thank you so so much for watching, I'll see you next time. Much love, bye!

Transcript for:Understanding JK Rowling's Transphobic Rhetoric

Transcript for:
Understanding JK Rowling's Transphobic Rhetoric