Category: Politics

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.

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