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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   25763 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 1, 2024

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Sometimes I think you just read posts, decide who's expressing the "conservative" (bad) position, and reflexively argue the opposite.

Whereas people like Rowling aren't fully committed to that broader conservative project, they just want to slander and eradicate trans people

All right, you have hit one of my pet peeves, because I hear this shit all the time from my nice progressive friends. It's just repeated ad infinitum, as an article of faith, as a proven, established fac, that JK Rowling "hates trans people," that she "wants to slander and eradicate them," etc. In unrelated hobby spaces, I've seen it argued unironically, in all seriousness, that she literally advocates "genocide of trans people" (and also that Harry Potter goblins were intended to be metaphors for Jews because she also hates Jews).

I have been a Rowling fan since before she got on Twitter. Yes, I actually like the Harry Potter books (despite being way too old for them). I've read all her Cormoran Strike novels, and even The Casual Vacancy. I follow her on Twitter and I read her blog. So I know whereof I speak, though I won't claim I can remember every single thing she's ever said in public.

I have never seen her say anything that approaches "hate" or "wanting to eradicate" trans people. She has said the opposite many times. She is a standard issue very liberal second wave feminist.

What does she say?

  1. She does not believe trans women are women.
  2. Therefore she does not believe trans women should play in women's sports or go to women's prisons.
  3. She believes trans people should be free to live their lives in peace without harassment.
  4. Some so-called trans women (like the sexual predators she highlighted) are bad faith opportunists claiming trans status for political purposes or because they would prefer to go to women's prison rather than men's prison.

I think all of these points are reasonable, and even if you disagree with some or all of them, none of them resemble anything like "hate" or wishing for a "trans genocide."

I would love it if you could point to me any public statement of hers, or even a reliable second-hand account of some alleged private statement, in which she's said anything that resembles what you are claiming.

I think you're correct. From everything I've ever seen of her, I don't think she's anti-trans, I think she's anti-men. That then cascades over into some anti-trans positions because she hates men, especially those who she deems as a threat to women, and she believes that trans women are actually just men who are infringing on female space.

But this is all a moot point, because in the court of public opinion, if you don't believe any person that they're trans, or if you say anything even remotely construable as questioning trans ideology, then you "hate trans people". And as you say, this simply becomes repeated until the point that no one questions it, and it becomes "truthy" (in the sense that Colbert used to talk about "truthiness").

Sometimes I think you just read posts, decide who's expressing the "conservative" (bad) position, and reflexively argue the opposite.

Well, someone has to, if this forum is going to be anything other than a complete echo chamber.

Also 'reflexively' and 'intentionally, as an intellectual exercise' are different things.

that JK Rowling "hates trans people," that she "wants to slander and eradicate them," etc.

First of all, there's a reason I said 'People like Rowling' and 'they' in that sentence. The whole post, if you read the rest of the post and not just that sentence, is about different factions on the conservative side of this issue, and the differences and disagreements between them.

While it's mildly true that Rowling plays a careful balancing act with her public image by not being too extreme in her own personal rhetoric, she is very much a part of a faction that does use rhetoric of that level of extremity (including onstage at national political conventions), and she very much supports and promotes (through valuable social media links and personal defenses and endorsements on her hugely popular accounts, through partnerships and collaborations, and by selectively endorsing and promoting the rhetoric of) people who famously do express those extreme views.

One could argue that in the early days of her involvement with this topic, she was just a useful idiot who didn't realize how extreme the people who were being nice to her and defending her were while other groups were attacking her for her views, and that she instinctively supported the people who were nice to her without realizing how extreme they were when not talking to her.

But this many years later, that's not a tenable position. She's not that dumb, at this point she understand who her bedfellows are and what their political program is about, and wholeheartedly assists them at every turn. At this point, the fact that she maintains a veneer of respectability in her own public statements is more cowardice and manipulation and intentional pipeline-creation than it is a sign of a mild position.

And, like, come on, you're obviously underselling what she says herself and what the implications of that are. She wrote a whole book about a serial killer pretending to be trans to prey on women in women's spaces. She says that she is glad trans didn't exist when she was growing up because she might have been socially infected with it and it would have ruined her life. Etc.

These types of things are the blood libel of the trans debate; they are all part of building a worldview in which trans women are just perverted men intentionally trying to prey on women and destroy them, and where trans identity is merely an infectious meme that needs to be stamped out before it takes more lives.

The fact that, after establishing that worldview and narrative, you don't vocally take the next step of saying 'and therefore we need to eradicate transgender people from the culture as a whole' is sort of irrelevant. You've spent decades carefully constructive a narrative in which that is the obvious and inescapable conclusion, if you convince people of your narrative then they will come to that conclusion without you needing to say it, that was the whole point of the narrative.

Anyway, if you want me to go find you links on all the Breadtube Rowling videos so you can comb through them for receipts, I guess I can. But I've done that a lot and people mostly say 'I'm not going to watch that'. Names to search would be contrapoints, shaun, philosophy tube, I don't remember probably lindsey ellis or big joel or someone talked about it, etc. Honestly I bet if you google 'JK Rowling anti-trans statements' you will find a comprehensive list pretty quickly, if you actually want to know it doesn't take me to do the googling for you.

  • -32

I think you were banned or on exile when I made this post back at home, but I find this to be a pretty common failure mode of internet-right arguments - signal boosting memes about how the essence of your oppositions souls are irredeemably corrupt and then denying the obvious conclusion.

"Nobody should rid me of these meddlesome priests!"

I’m going to jump in, mod hat on, to say that I specifically appreciate the contrarianism.

Policy debates should not be one-sided. If an issue comes up in the CW thread, it probably isn’t one-sided. There is nothing wrong with presenting positions which would otherwise be ignored. Steelman at will.

In fact, users simply love to ask for defenses of facially unpopular opinions. Sometimes this is rhetorical bait. Other times it’s an attempt to get around the “look what those people did!” rule. And there are times it’s genuine, because this community really is unusually fond of sensemaking.

But.

There is one glaring, obvious risk of playing the devil’s advocate. People may think you’re actually, wholeheartedly helping out the devil. And he’s not known for acting in good faith.

A lot of people are convinced that you will say anything to score points for Your Team, whatever that may be. I’m not sure that you can disabuse them of this notion, but I’d love to see it.

Best of luck.

You guys are still going to end up permabanning him at some point down the road. Same as Darwin the first time, same as Hlynka. The trajectory of the mod team's qUaLiTy CoNtRiBuToR charity cases is always obvious from a billion miles away.

Maybe.

But he will generate some actual value along the way, which is more than can be said for a number of less visible contributors.

Well, I hope you guys are also keeping track of the negative value he's generating as well, because to the extent his posts result in the kind of conversation you want to promote, it's only because others are biting their tongues. The only reason I'm not there wrestling in the mud with him, is that I'm finally, slowly, becoming wise enough not to jump in with people who do the "bring you down to their level, and enjoy it" thing.

Yeah watching him say shit like "well when I said people like Rowling I didn't actually mean Rowling herself" while getting downvoted fifty points through the floor on every post he makes at least contributes some humor value. Just try not to ban too many otherwise okay posters for getting frustrated with him along the way.

I used to be one of those "quality contributor charity cases". People make choices, and sometimes they choose to change.

Thanks. I try to be careful about specifying when I'm saying what I believe, steelmanning what some group or person on the left might say about the topic, or playing devil's advocate to stress-test a position. I do get the feeling that people are often not noticing this distinction, maybe I can be more explicit about it or maybe that's a lost cause.

I do feel like this community many years ago (like, back when it was part of /r/ssc and right after) was much more interested in stress-testing ideas against devil's advocate objections, and searching for steelman representations of the opposition to learn about and discuss, and trying to pass ideological Turing tests. And it feels like here and now it's more often about gesturing at the 'loony left' being dumb and then expressing incredulity of people disagree. Not that it is/was 100% either one then or now, just feels like the types of conversations I'm trying to have are not appreciated the way they used to be.

I've been around since the /r/SSC culture war thread days. I'm probably more centrist that most here and I have really always appreciated the contrarians who participate in this space like Darwin used to. Since the move to /r/themotte and even more since the exodus here, unfortunately it does feel more and more like the spirit has shifted to dunking, probably partially because of the friction need to find this forum and setup an account rather than just popping by on your normal reddit account.

I have been reading this discussion and all of your posts in it though. I don't agree with everything you're saying but I do appreciate the fact that it forces the conversation into words so that I can read arguments and rebuttals. Please continue.

contrarians who participate in this space like Darwin used to.

You are, in fact, still talking to Darwin.

Please continue.

Can you elaborate on what you're getting out of it? It's not exactly fun to debate the finer points of "when I said 'people like JK Rowling' I didn't actually mean JK Rowling", and being expected to charitably respond to a strawman of your position, and to smile and nod as your position is labeled a "blood libel".

To be fair I'm getting more out of the responses. Without the catalyst get generate those responses where people do try fairly hard to elaborate their points to someone who disagrees with them, it's not nearly as interesting. The way he's shifting around and stuff is annoying but at least it's generating a conversation that a bystander can skim through and find good nuggets in.

Thanks. I try to be careful about specifying when I'm saying what I believe, steelmanning what some group or person on the left might say about the topic, or playing devil's advocate to stress-test a position.

Because a common dishonest tactic is to take a position that's an exaggerated version of your normal one as a test to see what you can get away with. Anything you can't get away with, you then label as a "joke" or "just getting you to think" or "playing devil's advocate". If you want to play devil's advocate, do it for a position that you don't directionally believe in. You've talked about steelmanning the opposition above, but a leftist playacting as a more extreme leftist isn't steelmanning the opposition.

Also, your "devil's advocate" position seems to contain flaws that are best explained by you sincerely believing in the position. For instance, someone taking a devil's advocate position wouldn't misrepresent Rowling's book--there's no incentive to be careless about something you don't really believe in. But a true believer has an incentive to be careless.

Thank you for posting this, I really appreciate it.

Personally if I was in charge and there was a mod decision that required a subjective judgement call, I would err on the side of extending leniency to posters with viewpoints that are underrepresented on this forum. I especially value posters like @guesswho who have alternative viewpoints on the "classic" culture war topics. It makes these discussions a lot more interesting.

I would err on the side of extending leniency to posters with viewpoints that are underrepresented on this forum.

I would not. It's the moderation equivalent of not putting BLM protestors in jail because they're on the side of the left.

Justice should mean equal treatment. If equal treatment leads to disparate impact because one side commits more crime, so be it.

In a world where you only had 3 BLM activists and wanted to hear their opinions then it becomes a bit more nuanced I think.

If we want this to be a place with multiple viewpoints represented then justice is not the only consideration.

Which isn't to say I agree with the proposal, just that i think justice is not a good argument on its own. Being just isn't one of the founding principles of theMotte.

I would argue against it from more of a broken window perspective, bad behaviour breeds bad behaviour and damages the level of discourse.

It’s already been acknowledged that longstanding posters with lots of AAQCs will be given a bit of extra wiggle room, and I would simply extend that to posters with underrepresented viewpoints as well, because the mere existence of a rare viewpoint is its own type of Quality Contribution.

If they get AAQC’s, sure that makes sense. If it’s standard Reddit fare mixed with weakmanning, no, it does not.

I think people are interpreting what I said too broadly. I'm not saying that you should have free license to break the rules just because you're a contrarian. I'm just saying that I think it would be appropriate to give them a gentle reminder or two about the rules before the mods start escalating to warnings/bans.

In particular I've noticed a pattern where people with unpopular viewpoints are more likely to get riled up during debates, which makes sense, because when your views are unpopular it's easy to feel like everyone's out to get you. So they're more likely to get provoked into breaking the rules on civility. For the sake of cultivating a wide array of perspectives, which is a goal I value very highly, I think it would be appropriate to keep this in mind and extend them a small amount of leniency.

If they just seemed like a very dense poster and they weren't contributing anything except standard-issue moral outrage, then I might be slightly less lenient, but again as I already said at the beginning, it's a subjective judgement call.

Well, someone has to, if this forum is going to be anything other than a complete echo chamber.

Also 'reflexively' and 'intentionally, as an intellectual exercise' are different things.

Please don't. A sincere conversation with someone who actually believes different things than myself is interesting. Disagreement for the sake of disagreeing as an "intellectual exercise" is not, and when it involved inflammatory comments about your outgroup, and repeating deliberate lies, it's indistinguishable from trolling.

While it's mildly true that Rowling plays a careful balancing act with her public image by not being too extreme in her own personal rhetoric, she is very much a part of a faction that does use rhetoric of that level of extremity

Dude, are you really fucking reaching for "Rowling loves Hitler" on this? Ah yes, X is part of an organisation that also contains Y who once liked a tweet by Z who is third cousin once removed to a descendant of slave-owners, ergo X is a racist!

And, like, come on, you're obviously underselling what she says herself and what the implications of that are. She wrote a whole book about a serial killer pretending to be trans to prey on women in women's spaces. She says that she is glad trans didn't exist when she was growing up because she might have been socially infected with it and it would have ruined her life. Etc.

Haven't read the book, from reviews I gather that the killer disguises himself one (1) time as a woman to carry out a crime. Clearly this means she thinks all trans women are serial killers. Can you interpret for me the dog whistles in Black Beauty? I mean, just that title, so problematic and clearly referencing the hypersexualisation of Black women!

These types of things are the blood libel of the trans debate; they are all part of building a worldview in which trans women are just perverted men intentionally trying to prey on women and destroy them

Well y'know, if there weren't cases of pervert men doing precisely that, I'd believe what you say. But I was assured years back that this would never happen, no boy or man would go to the trouble of claiming to be a woman or dressing up as one just to creep on girls and women in the locker room/bathroom. Until the multiple cases of "that thing that never happens just happened again", when it was No True Scotsmanned away. So which is it - if you say you're trans, you're trans or this person claiming to be trans is clearly lying about it?

Well y'know, if there weren't cases of pervert men doing precisely that,

This on it's own doesn't tell us anything though. Building a world view in which Catholic priests are just perverted child abusers intentionally trying to prey on children is also supported under this criteria. After all there are cases of Catholic priests doing precisely that.

That it NEVER happens is far too broad a criteria, because it will condemn almost every group where any single member is guilty of some vile behaviour. Police, clergy, trans people, women, men, lollipop ladies, politicians, scout leaders, teachers, French people, Irish people, Catholics, Protestants, German people, Muslims, Christians, Atheists, Humans.

There's plenty of people all too happy to say that the Catholic Church is nothing but an enabling network of abuse. The nuttier pro-aborts like to go on about how the only reason the Catholic Church is anti-abortion is so that the clergy will have a fresh supply of children to abuse.

It's a good analogy, though, since at the start there were people defending paedophile priests on the grounds that if we didn't, then the enemies of the Church would just use that as a means of attacking all clergy and the Church itself. I think the experience of the Catholic abuse scandals should break the pro-trans rights people out of that mindset for their own problems. Clean house, because sticking with "okay so X says they're trans and they're also crazy and indeed creepy but we have to defend them or else the bigots who hate all trans people will win" is not a winning strategy.

Why would you expect trans activists to do better than an organization dedicated to serving the highest moral agent?

Like you say, its the normal tribal reaction to your own side doing something wrong.

Which means it doesn't really tell you anything about the merits of the group using it. Presumably you think the Catholic church is more right than the trans movement, but if they both fell into the same trap (and I agree it is a bad look!) then using it as a weapon just looks like you are holding the side you don't like to standards your own side could not live up to.

I'm saying they should learn from the mistakes we made.

Ahh. An optimist! I think the problem is I am not confident the Catholic Church was initially wrong (or has actually made real change, but that is a different post).

As you point out the predictions were true, admitting the issue was indeed used as ammunition against the Church.

We evolved these social defense mechanisms for a reason. That many people are not good with base rates, that it really did damage the Church significantly. A better solution (from the point of view of protecting the Churchs mission) might have been to close ranks while internally trying to reduce the problem.

As long as you have a Catholic church some priests (and people pretending!) are going to do bad things. The only thing you can control is what level of bad things are worth its continuing mission. And the same applies to trans people. Some number of either real or fake trans people will do bad things. What people say, or have said is mostly irrelevant to the current situation.

If the pope said that no priests would ever abuse a child, the fact 0.000001% do, may not be a good argument for dissolving the clergy even given the pope was strictly wrong.

since at the start there were people defending paedophile priests on the grounds that if we didn't, then the enemies of the Church would just use that as a means of attacking all clergy and the Church itself.

And they were correct, trivially so in fact.

Clean house, because sticking with "okay so X says they're trans and they're also crazy and indeed creepy but we have to defend them or else the bigots who hate all trans people will win" is not a winning strategy.

Provided you can paper over the cracks with your political power, it is just as much a winning strategy as doing the right thing in the first place (and the fact that most people operate in conflict-theory modes means it's probably optimal anyway). And that power flows through groups as well- Stallman might be creepy and Linus might be angry but without them the open source software movement would not exist as we know it- and the same thing applies to Keffals, for the same reasons. Sure, they could cancel him, but then the trans pipeline wouldn't be as effective and their total political power would thus go down- and have to compromise their definition of "what is good, and what is acceptable collateral damage".

And sure, we could go back and forth on how selfish that is (since at the end of the day, conflict theory means you know in your heart of hearts you're doing something wrong), but I don't think people generally think about it that hard.

Well y'know, if there weren't cases of pervert men doing precisely that,

This on it's own doesn't tell us anything though. Building a world view in which Catholic priests are just perverted child abusers intentionally trying to prey on children is also supported under this criteria. After all there are cases of Catholic priests doing precisely that.

The issue isn't that some pervert men happen to be doing that, it's that this specific system is structured in a way that provides greater opportunities for such pervert men to exploit. The whole Catholic priest issue is a great example of this, actually, in how the whole structure of the way Catholic churches and communities were run gave greater opportunities for pervert men to do that while escaping justice. As such, people did and do argue that Catholic churches must be restructured to better prevent this.

In the case of the whole transwomen in women's prisons thing, I see a couple of good ways to argue in its favor. One is to say that some female prisoners being raped by male prisoners is a worthy cost to pay for transwoman prisoners having their gender identity validated by the criminal justice system; then we can discuss what the rates of these things would be and how much to weigh them against each other. Another is to say that we can place safeguards to prevent male-on-female rape in women's prisons while still getting the benefits of transwoman prisoners having their gender identity validated; then we can discuss specific protocols and effectiveness of enforcing these things. I think that's the tactic the Catholics have been using.

The whole Catholic priest issue is a great example of this, actually, in how the whole structure of the way Catholic churches and communities were run gave greater opportunities for pervert men to do that while escaping justice. As such, people did and do argue that Catholic churches must be restructured to better prevent this.

Sure, but Catholic churches don't really appear to have changed that much. My sister in laws kids still end up in one on one meetings with their priest and so on. And I would agree that there should be some kind of check on what prisoners go where, that is sensible.

As you say there are identity issues, and rape issues on each side. A trans woman going into a men's prison may be at risk and a trans woman going into a women's prison may put others at risk. Perfectly happy to stipulate that is entirely reasonable to take some kind of precautions there.

I'm just pointing out the argument I was told this would NEVER happen is just not a very good one. Pretty sure the Catholic church wasn't saying, and yes there is a chance your kids will be abused by one of our priests (which is the absolute truth) so please take that into account before you go to church. The rhetoric used is separate from what is actually reasonable. Holding either trans-people or the Catholic Church to a zero incidence framework is simply unreasonable.

My sister in laws kids still end up in one on one meetings with their priest and so on.

If this is true, it needs to be reported to the parish's safety coordinator (assuming she's in the US.) The only circumstances where that should be happening is during confession, and now the standard for children is to have confession in a place that is visible from the outside (like through a window or in an unblocked corner of the church) or completely physically separated, like an old-style confession booth. Now, the sister-in-law might be bringing her children to a normal (adult) confession time, but if there are no specifically-labeled confession times for children, it is within her right to schedule a child-safety-compliant confession for her kids.

"If there is a need for a confidential discussion or training session with a minor, it should occur in a location that is in view of other persons, and the minor should have first and immediate access to the exit."

She wrote a whole book about a serial killer pretending to be trans to prey on women in women's spaces.

This is a flat-out lie that instantly betrays the fact that you have never read the book in question. The serial killer in question is a marginal side character in said book (whose plot is about the investigation of a woman's disappearance decades ago and the police's prevailing theory being that she was a victim of said serial killer, who refuses to talk about it). And at no point did he ever pretend to be trans, or claim to be trans; nor does anyone in the book attribute transness to him. He was abducting women off the street and from bars and bus stations after drugging them surreptitiously, not "invading women's spaces". The plot point about him (on one occasion) wearing women's clothing is used as an example of how he was able to get away with his murders for so long because he didn't conform to what people's ideas of what a rapist and serial killer looks and acts like - seeming pudgy, effeminate and non-threatening rather than a bearded, scowling thug in a dark alley.

Most people talking about Rowling this way are simply regurgitating motivated talking points they've seen from trans activists, and could not be bothered to actually look into any of these claims themselves. I doubt you could tell me the name of this book or the offending character without Googling it, but you're absolutely sure she "wrote a whole book about a serial killer pretending to be trans" because Contrapoints or some other breadtuber said so.

You know man, you get reported a lot and even the other mods have a hard time with you because a lot of people think you are and always have been a bad faith borderline troll who just says things to get under people's skin, without regard to truth or accuracy. And I have always leaned towards leniency, maybe because I'm a quokka and too willing to assume people actually believe the things they are saying and are sincere in their argumentation, even if they're really annoying. But I have frequently argued against banning you because it's too easy to find things you say that are moddable when most of the forum is trying to get you banned.

I guess this is the point where I say "Goddamn, I get it now," because frankly, you are either being astoundingly clueless or just flat out disingenuous.

(Let me also be clear, this response is with my mod hat off, and I am not threatening you with mod action for the above post, because I found it merely aggravating, but not in violation of any rules.)

You have actually spouted a ton of bullshit about something I know a lot about (for my sins), so let's go through this.

Well, someone has to, if this forum is going to be anything other than a complete echo chamber.

Also 'reflexively' and 'intentionally, as an intellectual exercise' are different things.

Just for starters, and not strictly on topic, we get accused of being an echo chamber so often it's tiresome. You are right that you're an outlier here, as an unabashed leftist. You are definitely not some unique snowflake with views unrepresented by anyone else. And "intentionally taking a contrarian position" is pretty close to trolling. I mean, if you really believe the things you are saying, fine, argue them, but if you're just doing it as an "intellectual exercise" (or to "own the righties") you should know that most people do not like feeling like they are being treated as NPCs in your roleplaying game, and this is perhaps a reason why you generate so much resentment and hostility.

First of all, there's a reason I said 'People like Rowling' and 'they' in that sentence. The whole post, if you read the rest of the post and not just that sentence, is about different factions on the conservative side of this issue, and the differences and disagreements between them.

Okay, that's a hell of a waffle. If you say "People like Rowling want to eradicate trans people" and I rebut that by pointing out that Rowling emphatically does not want to eradicate trans people, it is not a credible defense that "You meant people like Rowling." I mean, I could say "People like guesswho want to literally guillotine landlords, redistribute the property of all rich people, and disenfranchise whites." (Because some of your fellow travelers certainly do.) If you objected, reasonably, that you want no such thing and have never endorsed that, I don't think you would be satisfied if I said "Well, there's a reason I said 'people like you.'" You'd find it disingenuous and evasive. We are talking about JK Rowling, not everyone who has ever expressed an anti-trans sentiment.

While it's mildly true that Rowling plays a careful balancing act with her public image by not being too extreme in her own personal rhetoric,

It is not "mildly true," it is absolutely true. Her personal rhetoric is not "extreme" by any reasonable definition. Again I will ask you to cite an example if you think otherwise.

she is very much a part of a faction that does use rhetoric of that level of extremity (including onstage at national political conventions),

What do you mean "part of a faction"? If you mean "Everyone who is gender-critical/trans-skeptical," well, that's a hell of an umbrella and she would reasonably reject it, as would I. I have in fact seen absurd allegations online that she literally donated to the Texas GOP (!!) just because they are anti-trans, an accusation that makes no sense on multiple levels. If you're trying to lump JK Rowling with the Texas GOP just because they are both critical of trans activists, your idea of what constitutes a "faction" is just frankly ridiculous. I believe IQ is a real measurable thing and there are racial differences in IQ; by this standard, I guess you would put me in the same "faction" as white nationalists and holocaust deniers, because they also believe that.

and she very much supports and promotes (through valuable social media links and personal defenses and endorsements on her hugely popular accounts, through partnerships and collaborations, and by selectively endorsing and promoting the rhetoric of) people who famously do express those extreme views.

Show me. Show me her endorsing someone who literally wants to "eradicate trans people." The most extreme example I can think of coming anywhere close to this is Maya Forstater, a gender critical feminist whom Rowling has famously supported. Forstater's public statements are mostly pretty mild (you could more legitimately accuse her of carefully curating her public statements than Rowling) while she has occasionally, in public and private, gone full mask-off with rather derogatory language about trans people. But even Forstater has never, to my knowledge, said anything remotely close to advocating violence or eradication of trans people. It's probably fair to say she thinks they are all perverted AGP men. Maybe Rowling actually believes that herself in private too. She famously got in a spat with Ben Shapiro because Shapiro endorsed her trans-critical views and Rowling was quick to point out that mildly agreeing about one thing does not make them allies.

I don't think you can actually show Rowling endorsing the views you claim she does. Even with this wide net you are casting where anything she has ever touched, by transitive property, is endorsing any statement by anyone else who is touched by it.

But this many years later, that's not a tenable position. She's not that dumb, at this point she understand who her bedfellows are and what their political program is about, and wholeheartedly assists them at every turn. At this point, the fact that she maintains a veneer of respectability in her own public statements is more cowardice and manipulation and intentional pipeline-creation than it is a sign of a mild position.

Again: show me. No, one person on the Internet who says something nasty about trans people who is also a Harry Potter fan does not by transitive property mean Rowling is endorsing anything they say. This is the kind of nutpicking that LibsOfTikTOk does. LoTT regularly finds some trans person being accused of rape or child abuse and blasts it to the Internet, the implication clearly being that this is typical trans behavior. I'm pretty sure you don't appreciate LoTT's tactics and would consider it offensive and disingenuous for them to say "But these are their bedfellows, this is the faction they are part of." So no, you don't get to do this either.

And, like, come on, you're obviously underselling what she says herself and what the implications of that are.

This is not obvious to me, as I think I am very accurately describing what she says herself, and the "implications" seem to be irrational projections you have made up.

She wrote a whole book about a serial killer pretending to be trans to prey on women in women's spaces.

You are referring to Troubled Blood and you are taking her most hysterical critics' claims about the book at face value, most of whom never read it and just repeated what other people said in a game of Chinese whispers, until it became "a book about a serial killer pretending to be trans." That's not a remotely accurate description. I can post a whole damn book review if you want, but a serial killer who in one scene disguises himself as a woman is not something any reasonable person would read as some sort of metaphor for trans people. The killer never "pretends to be trans" (I don't think trans people are ever even mentioned in the book, but I can't remember for certain) he does not "try to get into women's spaces," and the cross-dressing scene is a single incident that's there as a red herring.

My point here is that you haven't read Troubled Blood, and you're just repeating the bad faith accusations of Rowling's haters who also haven't read it, and this is how you arrive at nonsense claims about Rowling being a literal fascist who wants to genocide trans people and Jews. (I mean, you didn't say that. But people "like" you have! You know, people in your faction.)

She says that she is glad trans didn't exist when she was growing up because she might have been socially infected with it and it would have ruined her life. Etc.

This is possibly true, and while you may find it offensive, the belief that trans social contagion is a real phenomenon and that many troubled girls today are embracing trans identity as a way of escaping what they perceive to be an unpleasant existence as a female, and that other kids adopt it because it's "cool" and trendy and rebellious, is one I share. So does that mean I also want to eradicate trans people?

These types of things are the blood libel of the trans debate; they are all part of building a worldview in which trans women are just perverted men intentionally trying to prey on women and destroy them, and where trans identity is merely an infectious meme that needs to be stamped out before it takes more lives.

"Blood libel" would be something that's wholly untrue (like "Jews drink the blood of Christian children").

My personal belief is that the "blood libel," as you put it, does accurately describe a significant number of trans women today, especially the ones who are going out of their way to be public activists. I also believe many trans women are sincere in their gender dysphoria, and even if not, they are sincere in wanting to live as women and be left alone, and they should be allowed to. I can't speak for JK Rowling but I am pretty sure that's reasonably close to her position. This is a far cry from spreading "blood libel" because you believe trans people should be "stamped out."

The fact that, after establishing that worldview and narrative, you don't vocally take the next step of saying 'and therefore we need to eradicate transgender people from the culture as a whole' is sort of irrelevant. You've spent decades carefully constructive a narrative in which that is the obvious and inescapable conclusion, if you convince people of your narrative then they will come to that conclusion without you needing to say it, that was the whole point of the narrative.

Nothing I or JK Rowling have said (that trans women are not the same as women, that they shouldn't be in women's prisons, that social contagion is real, that children probably shouldn't be put on puberty blockers and SRS) leads to the "obvious and inescapable" conclusion that we need to eradicate transgender people.

Anyway, if you want me to go find you links on all the Breadtube Rowling videos so you can comb through them for receipts, I guess I can.

Yes, I do want you to do that. But before you go to the trouble, let me be clear that the "receipts" I want are JK Rowling actually saying or endorsing any of the things you've claimed. Not shaun or contrapoints (whom I've watched) constructing a fallacious argument like you have that her statements "imply" or "inevitably lead" to this, not guilt-by-association where someone whose tweet she once Liked might have said something extreme. You seem to think I am unfamiliar with the charges against her and why trans activists claim these things about her. I am not.

Honestly I bet if you google 'JK Rowling anti-trans statements' you will find a comprehensive list pretty quickly, if you actually want to know it doesn't take me to do the googling for you.

Sure, let's play!

Top result: A Complete Breakdown of the J.K. Rowling Transgender-Comments Controversy.

Reading through that post, I see a rehash of all the statements I am already familiar with (from her snarky "people who menstruate" tweet to her long "TERF Wars" blog post in 2020). And this example of her "hatred of trans people":

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.”

She continued, “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.”

Most of the other links are similar collections of snarky tweets and her trying to defend her views while emphasizing the same things I have said above.

GLAAD's summary is predictably uncharitable, if not outright dishonest. They repeat your bad faith summary of her books, and say things like:

07.05.2020—Tweeted false information equating trans-related medical care with mental health care, writing: “Many health professionals are concerned that young people struggling with their mental health are being shunted towards hormones and surgery when this may not be in their best interests.” In the same thread, falsely equated transitioning with a “new form of conversion therapy for young gay people” and suggested that gender transition is “driven by homophobia.”

So "Many health professionals are concerned that young people struggling with their mental health are being shunted towards hormones and surgery when this may not be in their best interests" is false information? Or just something you and GLAAD disagree with? Likewise, you may disagree with her about trans social contagion and homophobia, but that does not substantiate the extremism you claim is so obvious and well-documented. GLAAD's page is full of "Falsely claimed" accusations, followed by a tweet by Rowling simply asserting something they disagree with (but nothing that resembles "blood libel").

The Cut's Here's what J.K. Rowling has Actually Said About Trans People is mostly just repeating everything GLAAD said, and statements like:

No, she simply doesn’t seem to believe that trans women really are women — an attitude that denies the validity of their existence.

I mean, that's just describing how their viewpoints differ. Where is the extreme rhetoric, the "inevitable conclusion" that trans people must be eradicated?

I scrolled through a lot more results, and got the same thing. Nowhere did I find any quote of Rowling actually saying anything more extreme than what I've mentioned, implying it, or endorsing it.

So, got anything else? Bring it.

You put a lot of effort into this reply and he ghosted you because he got bored of trolling. So he won, and you lost because you allowed him to troll you... Again. For what, the 7th year running now?

Did he?

Perhaps for you, discussion is about "winning" and "losing." Who gets the most wicked dig. Who gets humiliated. Who succeeds in shutting up the other guy. (Which I suppose I did, at least for now.)

I consider this place to be an ongoing dialog and those engaging in good faith can build upon previous conversations. Take note of whose position has shifted. What arguments resonate and what arguments are weak.

I can refer to this post in the future when someone brings up "JK Rowling literally wants to genocide trans people" again. And Darwin had to stop trolling because I took the time to give him an unanswerable challenge.

This was not a one on one duel between me and Darwin. I admit I did lay into him pretty hard because he annoyed me, but I wasn't writing just for him.

You might do better to personalize things less yourself. You became so irate at me that you tried to block me, then unblocked me just to come and gloat that I wasted my time trying to get a response from Darwin. If I'm supposed to be upset that you think I "lost" or that you stick your fingers in your ears when people argue with you, I am not. I just wish you were more interested in engagement than whatever game of points scoring is going on in your head.

If you insist on tallying winners and losers, I think the winner is the one who carries on with his day and the loser is the one seething as the other guy lives in his head.

Consider worrying less about other people and more about what you can contribute.

The rest of us get a really good post out of it, though. And when enough of these good posts accumulate, you have receipts for a broader discussion.

Of all of the comments that @guesswho can respond to, I really want them to respond to this. I'm fairly ambivalent about the whole JKR thing but I'm getting convinced that the @Amadan position is closest to the truth and this post in particular needs to be dealt with to swing me back.

It's in my queue, but I've gotten like 90 replies since yesterday and the long ones take a long time to do justice (and I do have a job and a family). At this point most comments aren't going to get a reply, realistically.

I will say that 'carefully litigating every word JK Rowling has ever said to determine whether it is about X of just mentions X' is exhausting and frustrating.

Frustrating because it's really super irrelevant to my larger point about the rhetoric and factions involved here, which is the relevant thing I actually care about, which few have bothered to respond to (and which I'm trying to prioritize responses to). So many of the comments are nit-picking about whether I'm being 'fair' to Rowling, and I frankly don't give a fuck about one person like this and what they did or didn't say, the interesting issues are the larger factional concerns.

I'd be happy to just say 'sure, whatever, Rowling is a perfect angel who has never done anything wrong, if that's what you want to believe; can we please talk about my actual point though' if I thought that would get anywhere, but I doubt it.

  • -32

Any updates?

nit-picking about whether I'm being 'fair' to Rowling

Is that a nitpick?

You started out by complaining about slander. Was that because you think slander is a serious, non-nit-picky thing, or was that just rhetoric targeting all the people here who do care about slander? Hopefully it's the former, but then since making untrue accusations of Rowling is slander, shouldn't you be horribly upset by even the possibility that you've committed it unwittingly?

Amping up the level of seriousness, you continued by complaining about blood libel ... but let's go back and look, and ah, there it is, "eradicate trans people". Either Rowling does want to eradicate trans people, or you personally have just committed blood libel. It is in fact a very important thing to determine whether you have done something so horrible or not - not a nit-pick! If it still feels like a nit-pick, which does seem like a potential consequence of the attitude of "frankly don't give a fuck about one person like this", that's not an excuse for evil, that's a confession of evil, but whether or not you strongly care about blood libel, you really shouldn't be surprised when other people do.

Even if you haven't committed blood libel, if there's some hot mic recording where we can hear Rowling talking about how she totally wants to murder all the transpeople, it would still be wrong to make the accusation against her in the awful, no-evidence-except-false-evidence way you have. The Boy Crying Wolf is not actually acting to protect people from the wolf! The next time your readers see such an accusation, even if the new accuser provides better evidence behind it, you've made "dive into the evidence, that won't be a waste of time" a slightly less safe conclusion for them to reach.

sure, whatever, Rowling is a perfect angel who has never done anything wrong, if that's what you want to believe

Has anyone actually said they believe that, or are you now putting words in their mouths too? Wasn't this a big part of the vicious cycle that eventually got Hlynka permabanned? When you find that making up strawmen is the only way to feel like you've brought your interlocutors down to your level then it's time to consider climbing up to theirs instead.

if I thought that would get anywhere

This is another confession, though framed as an attempt to blame the victims. You aren't supposed to avoid telling falsehoods because you expect to gain something out of unnatural self-restraint, you are supposed to avoid telling falsehoods because avoidance of evil is worthwhile for its own sake! And then, if you are incapable of that, the blame is entirely on you, not on any people who might not have rewarded you as much as you would have wanted otherwise.

the interesting issues are the larger factional concerns.

There's a naive-utilitarian inside me that's tempted to agree! On the meta level alone, this thread is a fascinating microcosm of them, even! We can see how factionalism gets exacerbated by outgroup homogeneity bias. We can see how our faction's noble goals get used to excuse harsh tactics while our enemies' dirty tactics reinforce our disdain for their hypocritiical goals. And when we zoom out far enough, we come to perhaps the most interesting question: isn't it at least sometimes okay if we "don't give a fuck about one person"? If with such an eagles-eye-level view we learn something helpful to a hundred other people then we're still ninety-nine in the black, and that sounds like a win, doesn't it?

And yet ... do we actually have an eagles-eye-level view, just because we'd really like to have one? Here you are, purportedly trying to get people to care about slander and blood libel, while you're in the middle of committing it and trying to make excuses for it. You don't help even the victims you do care about by trying to normalize the crimes being committed against them! Letting this kind of rhetoric slide wouldn't clearly be sacrificing one person's reputation to save 100 others, it might just as likely be sacrificing one person's reputation to harm 100 others!

Since we're this bad at trying to figure out all the second-order and third-order effects that a non-naive utilitarian would need to consider, maybe it's just time to back off and look at virtue ethics instead?

There's a quote from Dostoyevsky dialogue that comes to mind here:

"...the more I love mankind in general, the less I love people in particular, that is, individually, as separate persons. In my dreams, I often went so far as to think passionately of serving mankind, and, it may be, would really have gone to the cross for people if it were somehow suddenly necessary, and yet I am incapable of living in the same room with anyone even for two days, this I know from experience. ... I become the enemy of people the moment they touch me."

From a moral standpoint, it's very dangerous to lose love for individual people but then hope to make it up to humanity in volume. A lot of people who decided to care about fighting "principalities and powers" at the expense of mere "flesh and blood" just ended up shedding a lot of blood without actually improving any balance of power - we easily promise to repay today's certain nearby moral debts with interest after tomorrow's vaguely-expected distant moral credit comes in, and yet that ends up being an excuse to increase the debt, not a real plan to make good.

But even from just an epistemological, pragmatic make-my-ideology-win standpoint: a "faction" isn't a smooth undifferentiated mass that you can stuff a bunch of people into to avoid having to look at each one's particular flaws and virtues. The more details you ignore, the more mistakes you're going to make! If you do the rhetorical equivalent of air-striking a wedding party because you're certain there are terrorists nearby, don't be surprised if you end up creating more enemies than you neutralize!

I appreciate you coming here and representing locally-unpopular points of view, even when you're getting dogpiled for it, but can you imagine the damage if your readers started to assume that everyone who might be considered part of your "faction" or "people like" you was guilty of the same logical and moral flaws you've exhibited in this thread? At least try to imagine, and then consider what you could change to moderate their future reactions accordingly? Outgroup homogeneity bias is a common human failing, and I doubt I've managed to even cure you of it in the space of a few paragraphs, so I surely haven't cured most of the people with that failing who don't see themselves in you and don't realize how much of these warnings might apply to them too. Now might be a good time to show them that their outgroup can admit mistakes and do better. The psychological foibles that sadly lead us to factionalism and division are indeed an interesting object of study, but if you really want to be sure you know a subject, then the most important part of studying isn't the reading, it's working the exercises at the end.

Look, I do appreciate you arguing on here with us and you're getting hammered with a lot of negative replies, but to be extremely basic about it: you started it.

You're the one said "Rowling said x, y and z that is anti-trans". You then quoted things which are inaccurate and known to be inaccurate. When pushed, you then tried logic-chopping with "I didn't say Blorgs are cannibals, I said people like Blorgs are cannibals" which is one of those differences that make no difference; if a cannibal is like a Blorg, then a Blorg is like a cannibal, so you are in effect saying Blorgs are cannibals.

Then you went with the blood libel bit, which whoa Nelly.

And now you're pulling "anyways it doesn't matter if she said it or not". Well if it doesn't matter, then why did you bring it up in the first place?????

We're pedants and nit-pickers and obsessives on here, if you say "It is known that beeps are boops", you are going to get nine million names of "how is it known and by whom is it known and where is it known and how is it that a beep may be a boop?" in response.

(and I do have a job and a family)

Fascinating how you have seemingly limitless time to expound your opinions, but the second you get any pushback on them, all of a sudden you're far too busy to spend time on something as trivial as defending the opinions and factual statements you voluntarily chose to make. And it's not even the first time you've fallen back on this excuse: "I've responded to about 20 long replies in the last 6 hours, and I also have a job and stuff."

Anything to avoid taking the L and admitting "you know what, maybe my synopsis of this novel I haven't read didn't accurately describe the plot and characters, mea culpa" or "actually I really was misinformed about the state of the evidence regarding the structure of trans women's brains, thanks for disabusing me of my misconceptions" or "oh, people actually have been criminally convicted for misgendering, thanks for pointing it out".

I frankly don't give a fuck about one person like this and what they did or didn't say

If you didn't give a fuck about Rowling and what she did and didn't say, it sure is weird to dedicate no less than six entire paragraphs in this comment and two in this one to her opinions and the motivations behind them. Like seriously, this comment is 650 words long, and 480 of those words are specifically about Rowling and hardly mention the broader gender-critical movement. Then multiple people point out that several of the factual assertions you're making in these comments are provably, demonstrably false, and you change the subject: "it doesn't matter what Rowling said, I'm talking about the broader faction - the point I was making wasn't even about Rowling actually". This is the same kind of facile goalpost-moving as "it doesn't matter if this specific hate crime was staged, it started a conversation!"

Oh no, you don't get to duck out that easily.

You started this, and you started it with multiple, very specific, very damning statements about a very specific person (JK Rowling) which you claimed were obviously and provably true. And when I took on the challenge and went down the list of every one of your accusations, you suddenly play "Oh well, that wasn't my point, I don't actually care about Rowling"?

No, dude. You clearly do care about Rowling.

I will say that 'carefully litigating every word JK Rowling has ever said to determine whether it is about X of just mentions X' is exhausting and frustrating.

If we're talking about JK Rowling (and we are), it actually matters what she actually said. I mean, if you were accusing me of being a Holocaust-denying white nationalist who also thinks we should abolish the age of consent, and you based that on my saying some things that Holocaust-denying white nationalists who also think we should abolish the age of consent say, you can bet I would care a lot about carefully litigating the words I actually said, because if you are accusing someone of holding reprehensible views, it matters whether they actually said the things you are accusing them of! You don't get to just accuse them of believing all the things the very worst people in their "faction" say!

Frustrating because it's really super irrelevant to my larger point about the rhetoric and factions involved here, which is the relevant thing I actually care about, which few have bothered to respond to

I directly addressed your entire "This is what her faction believes and this is what her rhetoric inevitably leads to" argument! If you disagree with me, go ahead and point out where my reasoning is flawed, but don't claim I didn't bother to respond to it!

I find it frustrating that you make specific, provably untrue statements (for example, repeating bullshit about how Troubled Blood is about a serial killer who pretends to be trans and tries to sneak into women's spaces, as evidence of how much Rowling hates trans people) and when this is contradicted by people who actually read the book, you don't even acknowledge it, you're just all "Oh, I don't actually care about Rowling."

So many of the comments are nit-picking about whether I'm being 'fair' to Rowling, and I frankly don't give a fuck about one person like this and what they did or didn't say, the interesting issues are the larger factional concerns

I mean, we can all agree Rowling has FU money and immense popularity and can't actually be harmed by anyone saying mean and dishonest things about her. The reason we're arguing about Rowling is because people much less wealthy and powerful than her who say similar things (the people in her "faction" as you keep calling it) are suffering tangible harms, harms which you apparently believe are justified. So yeah, if you claim that JK Rowling wants a trans genocide, or that her "faction" does and she's abetting it, then that has implications for people who are not JK Rowling and that's why you are being challenged, not because everyone here is a JK Rowling fan.

I'd be happy to just say 'sure, whatever, Rowling is a perfect angel who has never done anything wrong, if that's what you want to believe;

Transparent straw man. Stop this kind of disingenuous whining.

can we please talk about my actual point though'

Yes, let's. It's your turn.

If you say "People like Rowling want to eradicate trans people"

Even simpler than that.

"People like Rowling want to eradicate trans people". That means Rowling is like people who want to eradicate trans people. That means Rowling wants to eradicate trans people. After all, if these people are like Rowling, then it means Rowling is like these people. And what do these people want to do? Then what does that mean Rowling wants to do? Yes, that's right! Eradicate trans people!

I can appreciate nifty rhetorical hair-splitting as much as anyone, but this is a bit disingenuous. Suppose I said something like "I never said Jews were money-grubbers, I said Jews were like people who are money-grubbers", would I get away with that?

This is possibly true, and while you may find it offensive, the belief that trans social contagion is a real phenomenon and that many troubled girls today are embracing trans identity as a way of escaping what they perceive to be an unpleasant existence as a female, and that other kids adopt it because it's "cool" and trendy and rebellious, is one I share.

I mean, when I was eleven and going through unexpected puberty (it took my mother by surprise because she thought it would happen later, as it did for her, so she had never had any kind of The Talk with me to explain it and prepare me for it), I was very distressed by the weird changes my body was going through. I hadn't consented to any of this! I didn't like it! Why couldn't my body stay the same as it had been?

And yeah, I was thinking "boys have it easier" because suddenly there seemed to be a lot of restrictions on what I could now do and couldn't do that hadn't been there before, and a lot of the explanations I got were along the lines of "because you're becoming a young woman now".

I also had interests that differed from the run of the other girls in school, and looking back with hindsight, the family tendency to autism spectrum behaviour may have influenced me there as regards social development, inclination to science, etc. and 'male-brained' interests.

If trans ideology had been in full flow in schools back then, I do honestly think there's a good chance some over-enthusiastic supporter, in all good faith, would have steered me along the "consider that maybe you're a trans boy" path.

EDIT: I was never a 'girly-girl' and part of what annoys me about trans narratives, even as I can see that they're grappling with how to express their feelings in childhood and this is an easy way to signal their departure from expected gender norms, is that they're are all about "well I never liked typical boy things, I was always more interested in playing with the toy kitchen and pink and fluffy bunnies" stuff. That annoys me since "if that is what makes you a girl, then I was never a girl, because I had and have no interest in pink fluffiness". But I'm pretty darn sure I am a girl. The worst part of the whole trans debate has been the slamming down of rigid gender roles once more, this time as arbiters of "how do I know if my kid is a boy or a girl?", when I thought we'd finally gotten over the "pink for girls, blue for boys, the woman is the nurse, the man is the doctor" shit.

Well, someone has to, if this forum is going to be anything other than a complete echo chamber

No, no one has to reflexively argue the opposite. A principled leftist would do more than just spitefully fight for the sake of fighting and as such turn mottezians further against leftism by providing examples of the ideology they despise. He would lead with empathy while providing legit counterpoints that open up people's hearts and minds and make them think.

A principled leftist would do more than just spitefully fight for the sake of fighting

Isn't that why we're all here on this site though?

My opinion of leftism is fairly set in stone, we're many years past the point where further "examples" could change my mind one way or the other. Which also means that I attach relatively less emotion to the debates than I did a decade ago. Now I'm just here to argue out of pure love of the sport.

Isn't that why we're all here on this site though? My opinion of leftism is fairly set in stone, we're many years past the point where further "examples" could change my mind one way or the other.

Personally, I'm here because I like reading fresh ideas, or fresh reframings of old ideas — "insight porn" as it were. Fresh ideas do not usually come from leftists, because it seems to me that one of leftism's greatest underlying personality traits, at least in our time, is conformity to group doctrine. (Perhaps this is correct doctrine, but it's not fresh. I can, almost without fail, predict not only a leftist's position on an issue, but exactly how they'll frame the argument.) Neither do fresh ideas come from offline conservatives, who are usually quite incurious and have stopped their ears to any new idea they did not learn by twenty.

Compared to leftist spaces or conservative spaces, online rightist spaces (as The Motte de facto is) are rent with interesting controversy. I suspect that's because there are many ways to be a heretic, but only one way to be catholic. The austrian economist and the populist, the fascist and the burkean, the vitalist and the christian, the hoppean and the neoreactionary, the sexual degeneracy watchdog and men-should-marry-teenagers poster: are able to discuss politely at present, but they're bound purely by the friend-enemy distinction, and their 'side' would burst into a million fragments the moment it sniffed political relevance.

That said, some people in the leftist coalition do have fresh ideas. It's extremely unlikely they'll change my opinion on the fundamental correctness of leftism, but that's not really the point for me. If you can make me re-frame an old opinion with your hot take, that's great.

Isn't that why we're all here on this site though?

How To Convince Me That 2 + 2 = 3 seems relevant.

The problem from that perspective isn't that guesswho's arguing; it's that he's awful at it. It's bad enough when posters provide weakmen of their enemies. No one's going to change minds by providing weakmen of the position they claim to be defending.

Well, if that's the case, then it really is an echo chamber, and there's no point in anyone playing Darwin2500's role and arguing the counter point. Also we should probably also change the banner on the side of the site.

Realistically, you're probably right to some degree. But I do believe it's possible for people to change their minds, even if just in small ways. Then small mind changes lead to bigger ones. But people don't change their mind by being nagged, mocked, and provoked by an enemy. They do it when people make great points and relate to each other.

I think all we need to not be an echo chamber is for posters to have a diversity of viewpoints, and to be comfortable expressing them. I don't think that the propensity of the average poster to change their mind has much to do with being a not-echo-chamber. Otherwise everywhere is an echo chamber, because it's rare for people to change their minds.

I also agree that it is possible for people to change their minds, it's just unlikely, and it takes a very specific set of circumstances that is unique to each individual.

But I do believe it's possible for people to change their minds, even if just in small ways. Then small mind changes lead to bigger ones.

It's happening, just centered around the local Overton window. I admit to having my mind changed on a number of issues, although most weeks this place is a parade of events that make the left look bad while events that paint Red tribe in a bad light are largely ignored. If you want to see the future of the Overton window, look at the two recent threads on natural selection and epistemology. They actually generated discussion and genuine disagreement in ways that posts about Trump, trans issues, gun rights, police violence, immigration etc. never do anymore.

Cthulhu swims ever farther right. I have to say, it is interesting to have watched it happen over my last five odd years here.

But this many years later, that's not a tenable position. She's not that dumb, at this point she understand who her bedfellows are and what their political program is about, and wholeheartedly assists them at every turn. At this point, the fact that she maintains a veneer of respectability in her own public statements is more cowardice and manipulation and intentional pipeline-creation than it is a sign of a mild position.

If Rowling fully endorses any statement made by these allegedly awful bedfellows, then she's just like them.

If she doesn't, it's not that she is deliberately trying to maintain her own distinct personal stance (and avoid distraction via more extreme rhetoric) while still fighting for a cause (recognizing that adult politics often means coalitions)...it's that she's just a coward hiding her power level?

There seems to be a real "bitch eating crackers" element with JKR where people be waiting for The Thing, the big Transphobia that'd convince everyone to ignore everything she said, and steadily got more aggravated when she wouldn't give it to them. At which point, we got more...scattershot accusations.

Besides, I think maybe we should ask to what degree people are "radicalized" (by refusing to abandon biological sex?) not because Rowling created a pipeline but inherently by this topic or, at least, how TRAs act around it (perhaps because of inherent features of this form of activism which separates it from others).

After all, if JKR was radicalized she didn't go through her own pipeline.

But I've done that a lot and people mostly say 'I'm not going to watch that'.

Luckily, I have no life so I actually did watch one of Contras videos on this topic and the Motte did discuss it

My take was: absolute sophistry. The ridiculous length is more of value to Breadtubers than anyone else, since it'll naturally turn off anyone not interested in the dramatics and meandering musings, and so they can claim no one really wants to know the truth.

This is content for the elect, not newbies. It's actually surprising to me that people legitimately seem to believe that the best way to reach someone asking you for basic evidence of bigotry is a feature-length Contrapoints video. I would say you couldn't make it up but, well...

she is very much a part of a faction that does use rhetoric of that level of extremity (including onstage at national political conventions), and she very much supports and promotes (through valuable social media links and personal defenses and endorsements on her hugely popular accounts, through partnerships and collaborations, and by selectively endorsing and promoting the rhetoric of) people who famously do express those extreme views.

Could you give some specific examples of people with extreme transphobic views who've been supported or signal-boosted by Rowling?

they are all part of building a worldview in which trans women are just perverted men intentionally trying to prey on women and destroy them,

All of them? No, of course not. Some of them, particularly bad actors taking advantage of the laughably short-sighted policy of self-ID? Yes, indisputably.

She wrote a whole book about a serial killer pretending to be trans to prey on women in women's spaces.

This is a complete falsehood. She wrote a book (Troubled Blood) featuring a cisgendered serial killer who disguises himself with a fur coat (and sometimes a wig) in order to appear unthreatening from a distance. The novel never suggests that the serial killer is trans, or a transvestite, or pretending to be trans. Nor does he dress as a woman to gain illegitimate access to "women's spaces": he abducts drunk women on the street and bundles them into the back of his van. The book isn't even about him: he's just one of many suspects investigated by the protagonist, and the real perpetrator is someone else. Even the Guardian acknowledged that this description of the book was inaccurate.

For years my assumption is that most of the people calling JK Rowling transphobic have just heard about it secondhand in a game of character assassination Chinese whispers. The fact that your descriptions of her writing are patently false is doing little to persuade me that this assumption is inaccurate.

if you actually want to know it doesn't take me to do the googling for you.

This sounds like you're worried you won't find what you're looking for.

Could you give some specific examples of people with extreme transphobic views who've been supported or signal-boosted by Rowling?

Here you go, to get started.

The novel never suggests that the serial killer is trans, or even a transvestite.

As I said, and you quoted:

She wrote a whole book about a serial killer pretending to be trans

Sometimes I think people just pattern-match me to a strawman of their opponents that their media bubble has crafted for them and don't bother to carefully read my actual words.

The narrative of 'people claiming to be trans are just perverts presenting as women in order to prey on women by getting them to let their guard down' is very much a major blood libel against trans women in general, and it's exactly the situation you describe as appearing in the novel.

This sounds like you're worried you won't find what you're looking for.

The person I was talking to already said they refuse to watch those videos to learn what the other side has to say. I'm not the one avoiding the other side's position here (notice where I am right now). I'm just the one whose sick and tired of taking the time to provide links that people will disdainfully and ostentatiously ignore.

BTW, thrilled to see whether you and the other people who reply to this will actually watch that video I linked earlier in this comment, or will offer some excuse not to.

  • -16

As I said, and you quoted:

She wrote a whole book about a serial killer pretending to be trans

Except she didn't, the episode in question was the killer using disguises to avert suspicion. So you are incorrect here, and maintaining your mistaken reading despite being corrected. If you're not willing to be convinced by argument against your fixed notions, how well do you think your efforts will go over?

I have to say, I appreciate that you're holding fast in the face of all the opposition you're getting, but if you were willing to go "Okay, I was mistaken there" on points like that, it'd get the discussion less heated and more radiant.

Using a term like "blood libel" - so now the trans special snowflakes have tired of using the Civil Rights analogy, they're moving on to appropriating specifically Jewish persecution? What next, 'the Holocaust was nothing, twelve million trans women were burned at the stake by Hitler in conjunction with TERFs'?

What next, 'the Holocaust was nothing, twelve million trans women were burned at the stake by Hitler in conjunction with TERFs'?

We're already there.

And I thought the nine million witches in the Burning Times was the pinnacle of self-importance. If they're reaching for "The Nazis set up the Final Solution because they were going after trans people" then the present-day supply of oppression must be sadly deficient in both quantity and quality. "I'm so oppressed that if I had been alive eighty years ago I would have been persecuted" is somehow lacking in the urgency of maltreatment right now.

BTW, thrilled to see whether you and the other people who reply to this will actually watch that video I linked earlier in this comment, or will offer some excuse not to.

We're here to have actual discussions, a multi-hour long video that can't continence objections is not at all what this place is about. If there is a smoking gun it can be shown with a single link and doesn't need three costume changes to express.

Linking a contrapoints video is not evidence, it's pointing to a whole different interlocutor.

As I said, and you quoted:

I edited the comment after posting, the relevant sentence in my comment reads "The novel never suggests that the serial killer is trans, or a transvestite, or pretending to be trans."

The narrative of 'people claiming to be trans are just perverts presenting as women in order to prey on women by getting them to let their guard down' is very much a major blood libel against trans women in general, and it's exactly the situation you describe as appearing in the novel.

Take the L. Your description of the content of the novel was inaccurate in many ways (it wasn't "about" a serial killer pretending to be trans, and the serial killer in question doesn't dress as a woman to gain access to women's spaces). It would be nice if you could acknowledge that.

Breadtube Rowling videos so you can comb through them for receipts, I guess I can. But I've done that a lot and people mostly say 'I'm not going to watch that'.

Yeah, because watching video of people I hold in contempt is not something I'm going to subject myself to. That's your hobby, not mine.

These types of things are the blood libel of the trans debate; they are all part of building a worldview in which trans women are just perverted men intentionally trying to prey on women and destroy them, and where trans identity is merely an infectious meme that needs to be stamped out before it takes more lives.

If this is blood libel, then jews really do drink the blood of Christians. You can't say that the rapist isn't a pervert, that he isn't trying to prey on women by being imprisoned among them instead of other men, where he belongs. We know he raped a little girl. We know that he doesn't actually believe he's a woman, and he's doing it cynically. ou can't just say something true is blood libel, when I can see how true it is with my own lying eyes. You have to do more to actually convince me that these trans men aren't perverts, because they sure do look like it to me, and simple denial doesn't move the needle.

The fact that, after establishing that worldview and narrative, you don't vocally take the next step of saying 'and therefore we need to eradicate transgender people from the culture as a whole' is sort of irrelevant.

Eradicate? No, fix. But you're right that in an ideal world, the number of trans people is 0. It's a perversion, too, and not one that I like to see spreading.

Eh, that’s the motte-and-bailey, isn’t it?

a worldview in which trans women are just perverted men intentionally trying to prey on women and destroy them,

gets watered down to

You can't say that the rapist isn't a pervert,

No shit, the convicted rapist of this example is a pervert grasping at any opportunity to keep hurting women. His credibility went out the window because of the crime.

Is the least sympathetic rapist representative of the broader category of trans people? Keep in mind that many of them are aggressively disinterested in sex, perhaps on account of the long-running hormone therapies. Are the dreaded trans youth all rapists, desperate for an excuse?

I don’t think so. You’re making the same judgment as the woman who, after a bad date, concludes that men are scum. Not all men. Not all transwomen.

Side note: I agree with you that YouTube videos, especially those made by your opponents, are incredibly unappealing. No matter how succinct and reasonable it is, the argument would be better served by a text document. And there is zero incentive for wannabe documentarians to make their work short.

The problem is not "all trans women are male pervert rapists", that's definitely not true.

The problem is "you must not misgender the rapist, so when the victim describes the alleged crime, you must edit the coverage to be they raped me not he raped me".

Another reported a trans woman physically forcing her to have sex after they went on a date.

"[They] threatened to out me as a terf and risk my job if I refused to sleep with [them]," she wrote. "I was too young to argue and had been brainwashed by queer theory so [they were] a 'woman' even if every fibre of my being was screaming throughout so I agreed to go home with [them]. [They] used physical force when I changed my mind upon seeing [their] penis and raped me."

Sure, sure. No objections here. Rape bad.

You and KMC are not arguing the same issue as guesswho. He insists that making hay about prison rapists is an excuse to build outrage against a law-abiding majority. I don’t think you’re going to convince him otherwise by making more hay about prison rapists.

I understand that you are genuinely concerned about the rapist situation, which makes further concessions very unappealing! And guesswho shouldn’t expect to convince you otherwise by dancing around the issue.

It’s not a very productive conversation. Y’all are both producing the wrong kind of evidence.

From my side of this debate, what I perceive is all the demands for concessions from us, but no concessions on their side. The prison rapists are a stupid case, but it's precisely because of activism forcing lawsuits that "if I say I'm a Real Lady, you have to put me into the women's prison" is even possible in the first instance. I'd love to forget all about those, if only the trans rights bunch would admit "okay, yeah, there in fact are certain standards about what is a woman and what is not and who is trans and who is not". But they line up behind the chancers and scammers who take advantage, and won't purge them or distance themselves from them, so I don't trust the activist side an inch on "we only want to be able to use the bathroom".

Is the least sympathetic rapist representative of the broader category of trans people?

Is the edge representative of the axe? No, of course not. But it is part of the axe, and the most dangerous part.

Is the least sympathetic rapist protected by the broader category of trans people?

Are the dreaded trans youth all rapists, desperate for an excuse?

No, but their demands for rights and respect are directly impacting the criminals, and the women who have to deal with them. Trans women are not women, have never been women, and will never be women. Saying they are, combined with saying that anyone who claims to be trans is trans, directly leads to this outcome. It obviously directly leads to this outcome, so much so that it was dismissed as a straw man before these policies were implemented. Well the scarecrow came to life, and we're not in Kansas.

Trans women are not women, have never been women, and will never be women.

Transwomen aren't even transwomen. In their quest to deconstruct gender in order to grant themselves accommodation within that same genderscape that they disavow they have inadvertantly demonstrated that it's transgenderism itself that carries no semantic water. That is to say; there's no such thing.

Nevermind the old chestnut of "what is a woman?". That one has multiple satisfactory answers from the simple to the scientifically robust. Try out "what is a transwoman?". The sole universal quality of every possible rational answer begins with "a man who...". A man. Because without that there's no binary boundary to transit. A woman cannot be a transwoman.

Either it's real, and they're not it. Or it's not real, so there's no it to be.

[Obligatory olive branch that I don't care two iotas (iotes?) about men rendering themselves maximally feminine. Obligatory post script that this all applies vice versa too.]

Nevermind the old chestnut of "what is a woman?". That one has multiple satisfactory answers from the simple to the scientifically robust. Try out "what is a transwoman?". The sole universal quality of every possible rational answer begins with "a man who...". A man.

This is literally assuming the conclusion. You can't build an argument to support your opinion that starts with your opinion.

OP does go on to say:

Because without that there's no binary boundary to transit. A woman cannot be a transwoman.

Seems to me the argument is not circular, just compact: without a concrete definition of man and woman, there is nothing to be "trans" in comparison to.

This sort of argument is not new - a common variant is to argue that trans and non-binary are inherently in tension for this reason.

Fair enough. But then isn't this just answered by "man and woman are not actually clean natural categories"? With transpeople being exactly the cross-boundary cases, and then still, the "a man who" argument fails to be convincing. The extended form of the counterargument then is just "you're concluding group membership by using as an argument your choice of group criteria", which is still just as circular.

(This is not a "pro-trans" view: "trans women are women" were just as silly, for the same reason, if it were an argument and not a cudgel.)

More comments

eah, because watching video of people I hold in contempt is not something I'm going to subject myself to.

Right, and since you hold those who disagree with you on this in contempt, you'll never learn whether your beliefs are accurate or not.

That's why I stopped bothering top provide links on this topic, no one ever used them. Everyone knows how to use google if they care to learn.

If this is blood libel, then jews really do drink the blood of Christians.

This is actually a pretty stunning example of taking a quote out of context to lie about it. I reference two specific types of statements she's made in one sentence, and discuss their import in the next sentence. You take the second sentence and pretend it was referring to a completely different statement, then spend a paragraph stridently mocking how dumb it would be as a discussion of that different statement.

I'm going to be charitable and assume that you couldn't bear to read my whole post carefully because o the contempt thing and just got honestly confused, rather than concluding that this is intentional slander. But it sure doesn't make me hopeful about the EV of this conversation going forward.

Eradicate? No, fix. But you're right that in an ideal world, the number of trans people is 0.

I have someone you should talk to.

  • -16

And, like, come on, you're obviously underselling what she says herself and what the implications of that are. She wrote a whole book about a serial killer pretending to be trans to prey on women in women's spaces. She says that she is glad trans didn't exist when she was growing up because she might have been socially infected with it and it would have ruined her life. Etc.

These types of things are the blood libel of the trans debate; they are all part of building a worldview in which trans women are just perverted men intentionally trying to prey on women and destroy them, and where trans identity is merely an infectious meme that needs to be stamped out before it takes more lives.

The things she's saying are blood libel. That's what you wrote. There was nothing disingenuous about my response to your hysterical escalation. If you think I'm not being fair, then you need to explain how Rowling's previous comments are blood libel, but her current ones aren't, and therefore how my interpretation is disingenuous.

But that's not what you wrote, and that's not the meaning of what you wrote. "These things" can very reasonably be read to include Rowling's most recent comments, and in fact it requires that it be read that way because otherwise it is irrelevant.

I'm standing by my commentary on this:

Literally nothing Rowling has actually said or done indicates she believes anything other than bog-standard third-wave feminism, applied to the current social environment. The current 'threat' to women, as she sees it, are those who are eroding the biological definition of 'female' and thus allowing biological males to invade women's spaces and likewise pose an emotional or physical danger, to the detriment of biological women.

It is not on any level a surprise that an ardent feminist who maintains a stricter definition of 'female' would see this as a bad thing, and speak out against it.

It does not require her to have a single bit of animus towards trans people as a class, or any individual trans person.

It just requires her to continue applying the same pro-female beliefs she's applied for decades. Nothing is inconsistent or hypocritical there.

The version of her words that is being presented by the activists who hate her is leading me to conclude they are not convinced that she's a danger to trans people, but rather she's an impediment to their broader social agenda who must be removed at all costs, and they are increasingly distressed and annoyed that she will not cowtow and has the platform and wealth to fight back.

i.e. they want to squish a dissident and every year that passes where she resists them makes them ever more determined to do so, and thus employ ever more aggressive methods.

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