Wednesday, 8 July 2020

Harry Potter and TERF war

I've just slogged through J K Rowling's incredibly long essay (see here) on why she's not a transphobe.  We could analyse all the arguments for and against young people transitions and the statistics on the number of people who detransition but I have to say of it all this is the bit I found most revealing...

"As I didn’t have a realistic possibility of becoming a man back in the 1980s, it had to be books and music that got me through both my mental health issues and the sexualised scrutiny and judgement that sets so many girls to war against their bodies in their teens. Fortunately for me, I found my own sense of otherness, and my ambivalence about being a woman, reflected in the work of female writers and musicians who reassured me that, in spite of everything a sexist world tries to throw at the female-bodied, it’s fine not to feel pink, frilly and compliant inside your own head; it’s OK to feel confused, dark, both sexual and non-sexual, unsure of what or who you are."

That's a bit close to saying you were actually trans but didn't transition because the technology was not available at the time.  That's to say ...is it me or is J K coming out of the trans closet?  If there is such a place and that's not homophobic ...

Now this may be cherry picking by me or an ad hominem attack but I just don't understand why people get so fixated by this issue.  I wandered over to Graham Linehan's Facebook page the other day to find out what goes on and there was a Girl Guide leader complaining about transitioning boys joining the Girl Guides who unlike the Scouts have not decided to let both sexes in but do allow trans girls.  You listen to this stuff for a while and maybe I'm an old mysinogist but in the end you just think "get a life" or "it's not a hill of beans".  I've never really understood why single sex organisations need to exist.  This is probably because I resented going to a single sex school.  Mind you I don't think they shouldn't exist but if one man gets into a group of 20 women how is that the end of the world?  I see why people who are minorities or oppressed would want to form groups that are mutually supportive and I think there's probably little or no harm in such gatherings...

...but if you stop shopping in Marks and Spensors or Primark because there are unisex changing rooms you're a bit silly given that there are rows of completely private cubicals ... I can understand that there might be more problems in communal swimming bath changing rooms but...

I'll shut up forever now before I start a twitter war.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Welcome to Britain and Destitution

  Last night I watched Panorama on Asylum Hotels.  Perhaps one of the reasons people feel so strongly about this issue is they feel the hote...

Least ignored nonsense this month...