Author: Diane Griffin

Diane is a writer of Fantasy, an intermittent blogger, and a generator of nonsense.

I Have Thoughts About the Rowling Implosion

I won’t spend a lot of time recounting the public record about JK Rowling’s recent forays into gender identity politics, there’s a pretty good and reasonably unslanted account of the major and more recent events in the controversy here. This controversy is one of the most written-about dustups between an author and their fans ever; one of the most focused-on stories of any sort this year short of the Corona pandemic and the US Presidential election. I don’t know that there’s a lot left to say on the subject. Still, I’ve been asked for my opinion about this several times, and it’s taken me until now to feel like responding.

That’s because my feelings on the subject are complex and I balk at the idea of being any sort of spokesperson for trans folk, or anyone but myself. I am a contrarian by nature, so I’ve had to sit with this for a while, deal with my trepidation about what Harry Potter’s real mom might be saying about me, a trans woman who has always felt a strong affinity for Our Young Wizard and his gaggle of friends. I’ve finally taken the time carefully sort out the ways in which I might agree or not with consensus opinion.

Some of you may remember this piece by me, which I have referred to a few times, about distinguishing between an artist and their work. This should establish that I make a fairly clear distinction between whatever public statements Rowling’s made and the world she created, which I’ve spent so many pleasant hours in, and which I will yet almost certainly devote some hours to in the coming years. I won’t comment further on Harry Potter in this context. I feel it’s a separate issue from what Rowling has said about trans folk in the last few months (and the opinions which we trans folk were fairly certain she held for some time before she Came Right Out and Said Stuff.) I will not be pretending, as I see that many have, that her work was never good, or that I knew she was a transphobe all along. Neither of those statements would be true.

But to get to the point, Rowling’s basic premise in posts on Twitter and on her blog – that trans women make her feel unsafe, and that young trans people may be making a mistake – are both well-known canards. She’s a good writer, so she makes those arguments in fine, writerly form, but she doesn’t vary from standard, long-since-debunked tropes, no matter how well she writes them. She references sources but doesn’t cite them, nor does she offer any counter to her own assertions so that we can judge them for ourselves. Her best defense is that she “has transwomen friends” who agree with her. The more one looks into what she’s saying, the more you just see a lot of carefully-worded jingoism framed as concern.

There’s no evidence she can cite, or that any of those who have made these charges previeously can cite, that show that men pretend to be women to invade public restrooms and commit rape. It simply doesn’t happen.

And really, why would these supposed cross-dressing rapists bother? If a public restroom is going to be the venue for a sexual assault, there’s no need to jump through all of the hoops a transgender woman has to jump through just to commit it. Just break down the door and go be a monster. I would think that female dress would be the opposite of an enhancement of this experience for the sort who is willing to consider the crime to begin with. Rape is a crime of power, and to that end an assertion of the most toxic masculinity. The two notions of dressing as a woman and committing rape are extremely dissonant. My assertion here is supported by the evidence: again, there are virtually no incidents of sexual assault committed in this manner.

In fact, it is far more common for trans folk to be subjected to violent assault simply for being who they are. I could, if I were so inclined, post links to videos of trans women being subjected to assault for attempting to use the public restroom that aligns with their gender. I am not so inclined, sorry to disappoint.

As for youth being “seduced” into transitioning “before they’re certain,” examples of this are extremely rare, and once again far outstripped by tragic counterexample. The suicide statistics among trans folk are often quoted and don’t need to be restated here. (Here’s a link to The Trevor Project’s factsheet about trans suicide prevention so that you will at least go to The Trevor Project’s site. Consider supporting them, please.

Childhood development experts place the age at which children generally develop an understanding of themselves as gendered beings at between 2 and 5 years of age. A teenager knows who they are gender-wise. Incidents of post-transition regret and detransitioning are extremely low. The idea that people only know what gender they are at some arbitrarily created age of consent is ridiculous in the face of the best evidence we have.

So don’t be fooled by Rowling’s seemingly reasonable tone and claims of concern for the safety of cis women and vulnerable teens. They are, upon examination, unconvincing covers for shockingly standard anti-trans tropes, none of which are worthy of the person who created one of the most embracingly humanist pop culture worlds of the last half-century.

Transphobia is deadly to trans folk. The evidence shows that trans folk are NOT a danger to anyone else.

And that’s what I think about that.

[ND] [ED]

Add Title

It’s certainly a thing involving the people who are a parcel of distance away from the throbbing pulsebeat thinking they know when really they (we) don’t know much first-hand, and that’s the way they like it here in the free land that is actually the stupidly expensive land that was stolen and then parceled out and given to some who then turned around and resold it at a huge 100% profit unless they lost and went broke selling it at 100% profit, which happens at times.

Wickedness abounds and those without ready cash are of course the most wicked of all. You must own or be owned in the land of the expensive freedoms. It’s not about rich or poor it’s about optics and the ready cash in your pocket, which may or may not reflect your actual financial worth. It’s whether you are believed to be rich that makes you right or wrong. If you have money, your IQ is obviously much higher than if you don’t.

And if you don’t have the cash and you haven’t burned your financial district to ash then you are truly lazy and worthless.

Of course, Santa Clause could come and make you famous and pretty this Christmas. that would be the best outcome. Maybe you’ll have cancer, but if you are pretty while you die, many will cry for you. If the cancer is on your face, forget it. If the cancer is in your credit report, forget it. You may as well just die and save the rest for the rest.

In America, the land of the mortgage freedoms, there are no titles you can buy. You can be landed gentry, but you have to pretend that’s true of everyone to their face, as long as there is no cancer on their face. If there is cancer on the face of the person who is being considered, or cancer in any place that will affect cash flow, you can safely ignore them, or you could, if you like, exploit them. Offer them too little cash to help them with one of their problems, and Yes! Do, indeed, attach as many strings as possible.

Because this is the land of the cash-flow free, My Lord.

[RD]

Kamala Part II

This week, Kamala Harris will accept the nomination as Vice Presidential running mate for Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee.

I was unsurprised to learn that Kamala Harris had been picked as Joe Biden’s running mate. She’s exactly the right kind of corporatist puppet to pair him with.

I can find no moral center in her history or in the behavior I’ve observed from her, other than that of establishment hack and hardline enforcer of the status quo. She will say whatever it takes to gain personal advantage, reverse any policy position, change any alliance as long as her bread continues to be buttered. Back in early 2019, she signed on as a cosponsor of Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All bill.

In the very first Democratic debate, she raised her hand when the debate participants were asked if they would give up their private insurance and replace it with Mecicare for All (a provision of the bill she sponsored.) By the next morning, she was already walking back her support for M4A, claiming she had raised her hand because she had misheard the question, and that she only supported Medicare for All if it was supplemented by private insurance.

This is Kamala Harris. This is what she does — stand for nothing, shape change to fit her sense of the prevailing winds, cowtow to the monied powers. As of this moment, it’s working for her. While the country is in the throes of buckling to the will of a creeping autocrat, the Democrats, as represented by Kamala Harris and her running mate Joe Biden, are shifting to the right, and more than this, they are working as hard as they can to disenfranchise the left wing of their own supposedly-left-wing party, standing on policy that would have been considered mainstream Republicanism not so long ago.

At this point, it seems likely that she will be the next Vice President of the US. I can’t tell you that I’m thrilled at the prospect. People will respond to this by saying “yeah, but, she’s better than her opponent.” That’s probably true, but I can’t say that I am moved by that recommendation. The Biden/Harris ticket may slow the roll of creeping fascism, but they will not stop it entirely. In my view, they are instruments of the continued advancement of corporate globalism and no antitdote to authoritarianism.

Kamala Harris will not save you.

[ND]

Object 3: Heaven and Hell By Black Sabbath Deluxe Edition CD

My friend James began a project of writing about each Black Sabbath album in order, based on one quick listen to each from Spotify. He was going to do one a day. He’s stalled after their fifth album, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. I want to talk about Sabbath, but I can’t do a series on every Sabbath album because I would have the same problem as James, stalling out somewhere along the way. I’ll talk about a couple of their albums, though. I present this first commentary as part of my Objects series.

I have been having a bout of obsession with this band. A few months ago I rebought Masters of Reality for the song “Children of the Grave,” which has long been my favorite of their songs. Tucson punk band Just Us covered it, as I recall, bassist Paneen claimed it was “the greatest punk song ever written” and I have to agree with the sentiment if I can’t back it up as a statement of fact.

Around this time (early to mid 80s), I was listen to Heaven and Hell in relatively heavy rotation. I didn’t think abut it from a genre perspective, even with Paneen’s comment in my head, but lately it’s come back to me that there is a significant commonality between what Black Sabbath has always done and what every punk band I’ve ever played in did in terms of attitude and songwriting process. From my far-after-the-fact perspective, I must admit that Sabbath both elevated that ethos and served it well. Lately, I’ve come to think of them as the idealized version of the band I’ve always wished to play in.

Heaven and Hell was the first album the band made after firing Ozzy Osbourne. I was among the many who thought that Black Sabbath was probably over with as of his departure, but this album inpressed me. Reading the liner notes to this edition I learned that they wrote Children of the Sea at an afternoon jam session the first day they met with Ronnie James Dio. They sound like a band reborn. Guitarist Tony Iommi contributes some of his crunchiest riffs here. The material sounds timeless, whereas the two previous albums had sounded like a band working to “update” their sound. You can hear elements of the poppier direction the band had pursued on their previous album Never Say Die in a couple of the tracks on side two, notably “Wishing Well” and “Walk Away” – both of which are fine songs – but the meat here, the content of their rebirth, was the heavier material: all of side one and “Die Young” from side two especially seem to characterize the throughline from the band’s original sensibility and the new chemistry that came with the addition of Dio.

The live material on the second CD here bears that out. All five songs I point to are the material that made its way to the stage and these recordings.

I like having this album as an object again, and the live tracks, including original Sabbath drummer Bill Ward who departed before the band recorded and toured their second Dio-fronted album Mob Rules, are a welcome addition to my collection. The CD has been on my desk since it came out of the shipping package. I fidget with it, looking at the pictures and layout, reading the liner notes. It’s a token of a former time, a reminder of a dream I once held dearly and haven’t quite let go of.