Death-Eater Rowling Doubles Down on Transphobia with New Novel

Diana Hignutt

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According to an early review in The Telegraph, Troubled Blood—the fifth installment in Rowling’s Cormoran Strike series written under the pen name Robert Galbraith—deals with the cold case of a woman who disappeared in 1974 and is believed to be the victim of Dennis Creed, “a transvestite serial killer.” (Transvestite is considered an outdated and derogatory term for cross-dressing, which is not the same as being trans.) The review goes on to say, “One wonders what critics of Rowling’s stance on trans issues will make of a book whose moral seems to be: never trust a man in a dress.”

https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2020/09/jk-rowling-transphobia-new-novel-troubled-blood-controversy

The lady who identifies as a man for business reasons, continues takes her TERFiness to the next level, writing a 900 page book about a murderous man in a dress. Classy move. This clearly is the worst timeline.
 

regdog

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I saw this yesterday. She is such a foul human being. Her repping agency and publisher are to blame for this as well, but due to her wealth and power in publishing no one is going to tell her to shove her transphobic bleating up her ass.
 

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I find it heartening, at least, to see how many former fans are taking a stand against her nonsense. When her bass-akwards, honestly evil views came to light, tattoo parlors across the board were swamped with requests to remove or alter HP tattoos. The Fandoms I follow posted a deluge of Trans-Positive content from personal stories to fanfics and it was beautiful to see.

She may be a miserable excuse of a human, but there's a big light that's been inspired from her actions despite her desires. It tickles me in the same way donating to the red cross for polio vaccines then having them mail the thank-you letter to my anti-vax cousin in law does.
 

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Way to miss the message of acceptance and diversity in her own books.
 

Diana Hignutt

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Also, from a couple of months ago where it was revealed that Rowling's pen name was also the name of a major proponent of conversion therapy:

After the Harry Potter author was met with near-universal condemnation for a series of transphobic tweets, some ingenious Twitter sleuths revealed that Rowling’s pen name, “Robert Galbraith,” also happens to be the name of an infamous conversion therapist. The connection picked up steam on Tuesday shortly after Daniel Radcliffe, who plays the title character in the film series based on Rowling’s books, condemned her anti-trans comments in a statement for The Trevor Project.

https://www.them.us/story/jk-rowlings-pen-name-also-name-of-anti-lgbtq-conversion-therapist

Coincidence? Looks less, and less likely.
 

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Way to miss the message of acceptance and diversity in her own books.

Not the first time an author's work has presented apparent viewpoints not shared by them personally, unfortunately... It always seems to hurt worse when it involves books aimed at children, who take such inspiration from what they read - then find out that, surprise, the author whose book gave them solace and the courage to stand up and be themselves actually considers their true selves inhuman.
 
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This is just beyond the pale. This stereotype, or trope, or whatever it is, is one of the most dangerous out there. It is a major source of violence and discrimination against trans women.

At this point, she clearly wants to be cancelled.

She could have stuck with whimsical stories about wizards, even allowed people in the wizarding world to change their bodies to match their souls if they wished, but no, she had to get all weird and paranoid and vicious and dark.

I do commend Radcliffe and others for standing up and denouncing her actions in this. It can be hard to bite the hand that fed you, so to speak.

Imagine having her kind of money and platform and doing this with it. What an awful thing to do.

Exactly. Why she chose this dark path is hard to fathom. She could have done so much good in the world, but instead she chose to hurt people who have never done her, nor anyone else, any harm.
 
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ChaseJxyz

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Way to miss the message of acceptance and diversity in her own books.

The problem is people like her draw a line in the sand to diversity and acceptance. Remember "I have no problem with gay people, I just don't want them sticking it in my face and getting married" that people used to always say? Rowling is the same "I have no problem with trans people, they just need to be ACTUALLY TRANS," whatever it is that means. Even in the trans community we have that argument (like "you need to fit my definition of dysphoria to be trans" or "nonbinary people aren't actually trans"). The more I think about it, the "Men want to pretend to be women because they want in on our safe spaces" reminds me of the "cis hets want to pretend to be queer because they want in on our safe spaces" argument about asexuals.

Any thing you use to define what a "real woman" is inevitably hurts cis women, too. Body parts, reproductive ability, hormones, bone structure, childhood, how they dress, even chromosomes, there is no one thing that makes a woman that all women have besides that they identify as a woman. There has also been literally 0 cases of a cis man dressing up as a woman in order to hurt women; the idea that a man would go through the financial, legal and medical hoops to transition just for nefarious purposes is absurd. Especially in the UK, where Rowling lives, it's much, much harder to get HRT and to legally change things. But the UK seems to be a hotbed of TERFs right now.

One of the things that helps me sleep at night is that these books sell nowhere near as well as Harry Potter did, even though everyone knows that she's the one writing them. And every time she feels the need to whack the hornet's nest, tons of people start sharing novels about trans characters or from trans writers, which I'm sure only makes JKR mad like nothing else. Also the fact that she blocked Stephen King because he said trans women are women powers me like nothing else can.
 

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Just a reminder, as Chase points out above, support trans writers!
 

regdog

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Robbie Coltrane defends her
“I don’t think what she said was offensive really. I don’t know why but there’s a whole Twitter generation of people who hang around waiting to be offended.

Nope nope nope. Being critical of transphobes is not "waiting to be offended" It is calling out hate.




Link
 

Alessandra Kelley

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She could have stuck with whimsical stories about wizards, even allowed people in the wizarding world to change their bodies to match their souls if they wished, but no, she had to get all weird and paranoid and vicious and dark.

Even in her wizard books there are bad signs.

I saw a disturbing argument that the archvillain Voldemort has too many parallels with Rowling's expressed attitudes towards trans people to be anything but an allegory for them.

Also, I hear (I never read the books) there's an AFAB nonbinary character who by the end of the books decides they're really girly after all and she is happy being a girl with a girly frilly wife status quo.
 

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Any thing you use to define what a "real woman" is inevitably hurts cis women, too. Body parts, reproductive ability, hormones, bone structure, childhood, how they dress, even chromosomes, there is no one thing that makes a woman that all women have besides that they identify as a woman. There has also been literally 0 cases of a cis man dressing up as a woman in order to hurt women; the idea that a man would go through the financial, legal and medical hoops to transition just for nefarious purposes is absurd. Especially in the UK, where Rowling lives, it's much, much harder to get HRT and to legally change things. But the UK seems to be a hotbed of TERFs right now.

Exactly. Thinking of all those objections to same-sex marriage on the basis of marriage being solely for procreation, not love, or companionship, or raising kids people may have via other means etc. This marginalizes so many heterosexual couples too. Are they seriously proposing that infertile people, women past menopause, people with blended families, people who simply don't want kids, shouldn't be allowed to marry either?

And if folks shrug it off and say, "Well obviously it's not about the outliers in the het community. We'll be okay," does so at their peril. But aside from all this, it's just ridiculous to deny people who are harming no one in any tangible way the right to live their lives as they choose, free of persecution and discrimination. This is America (and Rowling lives in the UK, another country that is supposed to be free). As every child chants from time to time, "It's a free country!" At least it is supposed to be. Of course some interpret freedom as the freedom to persecute and discriminate against others.

We may start seeing more of those velvet-gloved Terf types here too, now that Transgender rights are more codified. They will use the excuse of "men intruding on women's private spaces" the way some have in the UK. Right now in the US, there's still a heavy focus on restrooms and on the right of people to be free of employment discrimination and the right to have their health care needs covered, or hell, the right not to be killed.

I think back to when my mom was in a women's therapy group, many years ago, when the therapist asked if they'd be okay for a transgender woman (who had transitioned with surgery and hormones). Many in her group said they weren't, because they were dealing with issues related to growing up as female blah, blah, blah.

Even at the time I thought that odd, because I would very much want to learn from a person whose experiences as a female person had been different growing up, and what it meant to be female to them. Quite honestly, I struggle with what it means to be female, especially as a cis, het woman who finds many of the things my gender is expected to do and be to be a burden. But I still know I am female. Luckily for me, no one has ever challenged that seriously (aside from a few people, mostly guys, who tell me what women are really like in those debates about how to write male and female characters differently that come up sometimes in the writing forums). I feel sad for people who are told over and over they can't possibly be who they are and who have constant obstacles tossed in their paths.

I saw a disturbing argument that the archvillain Voldemort has too many parallels with Rowling's expressed attitudes towards trans people to be anything but an allegory for them.

Also, I hear (I never read the books) there's an AFAB nonbinary character who by the end of the books decides they're really girly after all and she is happy being a girl with a girly frilly wife status quo.
I'm having trouble thinking of examples here, and I did read those books a few times over the years.

But regardless of whether she's been this way all along, or if she never gave transgender people much thought one way or the other until more recently, it's really horrible.
 
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Hell, I like those damn Galbraith books, buying this next has become untenable.

The BBC has been airing the Strike adaptations. Going to be interesting to see how the production company and the Beeb handle this.
 

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I think back to when my mom was in a women's therapy group, many years ago, when the therapist asked if they'd be okay for a transgender woman (who had transitioned with surgery and hormones). Many in her group said they weren't, because they were dealing with issues related to growing up as female blah, blah, blah.

Even at the time I thought that odd, because I would very much want to learn from a person whose experiences as a female person had been different growing up, and what it meant to be female to them.

One of the very Hot Topics in (online, at least) trans communities is the idea of "male/female socialization," i.e. a trans woman was "socialized" male for a period of time, so she might have toxic male traits, or she might never truly know what it's like to be a woman since she didn't have a female childhood. This assumes that everyone had a very gendered upbringing or that they only transitioned when they're older. But there is a grain of truth to it: my cis male friends and coworkers don't know what it's like to be talked over in meetings, or your period sneaking up on you, or being told "Oh, well, you just got into this college/major because you're a girl." But I also didn't do or enjoy female/girl things, either, so I didn't have a "female" childhood, either. Where the male/female socialization thing gets tricky is when cis people use it as a way to other transgender people. And like I said in my other post, the things they would say are part of being "socialized female" won't apply to every cis woman, either. The shit you deal with in STEM being a big, obvious one.

Trans healthcare in the US also used to be horrible. If you were a trans woman, you had to wear skirts, dresses, make up, if your doctor saw you not as super-duper female, well, then you're not really a woman, are you? You had to move someplace new, you had to get a new name, you had to hide that you were trans, you had to have all the surgeries. You had to assimilate as cis; anything less than that meant you didn't want to be a woman hard enough. The international standards of care is now "do whatever it is that makes the patient happiest and most comfortable in their body," but some places (esp. with socialized healthcare, like the UK, and some private insurance plans in the US) still hang onto some of these outdated beliefs. It's not a surprise that your mom saw this happen, especially if this happened a decade or more ago.

Trans people are the current target because the social conservatives "lost" the "war" with gay marriage once Obergefell v Hodges happened. But with the latest Supreme Court case, the precedent has been set. There are more visibly trans people than ever before, and as more people know that we exist, they realize that we're just like everyone else and we're not so scary anymore. Now, of course, it's gonna be a real pia to get the federal government to get non-binary genders recognized, but kids these days are totally aware of it and are cool with it. Every day things get a little better for trans people and the reason people like JKR throw public tantrums is because they know that they're losing. They can tweet as hard as they like but at the end of the day, they're just hurting themselves. I'm living a life where I'm more happy and comfortable than I've ever been, and TERFS are choosing to get themselves worked up over that. They're wasting their precious time and energy being mad, and for what? Some RTs from people within their inner circle, burned bridges be damned.
 

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I've heard of this, ChaseJxyz, and it sounds really frustrating for transgender people to be pushed into a given mold and told what their experience was like. And as you say, not all cis people have the same experience growing up as a female or male person either.

I'm much more interested in learning from people who have had a diversity of experiences anyway.

I think the norms have really shifted, and younger people are (usually) much more comfortable and accepting of transgender people than Gen X was, and also of non gender conforming people. I use a little card where students can indicate which pronouns they prefer, and I usually get 1-2 students, usually older ones, who go "huh?" about that, but the younger ones tend to get it. I haven't observed anyone being deliberately disrespectful of transgender or of non-binary students I've had in my classes. So far.

I have heard stories of instructors and doctors intentionally mis-gendering trans students or refusing to use pronouns like "they." Some older people still refuse to accept "they" as a gender neutral singular. Another frustrating issue I imagine, for folks who aren't he or she. A transgender male student I had a while back had a story about a nurse practitioner he had when he was still under 18 who refused to call him by male pronouns, citing some pseudo-biology crap about chromosomes being what make your gender. Fortunately, this student has a supportive family and they found him a new health care provider.
 
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I've read it (for work) and the journalist that broke the story about a transgender killer being in her new book was flat out lying to rile people. There's one sentence. About 10 words or so where one character says that they didn't get a good look at a man as they were wearing a poor wig and a women's coat at the time. That's all. The man isn't the killer and nor is it mentioned again.
 

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I've read it (for work) and the journalist that broke the story about a transgender killer being in her new book was flat out lying to rile people. There's one sentence. About 10 words or so where one character says that they didn't get a good look at a man as they were wearing a poor wig and a women's coat at the time. That's all. The man isn't the killer and nor is it mentioned again.
Why is it mentioned at all? Particularly if it's a new book, that seems like an unnecessary trans = bad and also unconvincing thing for a writer to throw out there for no reason.

Welcome to AW, by the way. :e2flowersDon't forget to make a thread on the Newbies page - it's not a rule, but it helps us to get to know you, and community works better when we get to know each other.
 

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I live in Massachusetts and using the argument, men will dress as women to go into women's spaces to attack them, infuriates me. We had a horrific murder here years ago. Alexandra Zapp was driving home after a boat race and stopped at a fast food place and went into the rest room. An employee, a paroled sexual predator, pushed her back into the bathroom and murdered her in an attempted robbery and possible rape.

He was not dressed as or pretending to be a woman when he shoved Zapp back into that Ladies' room. It is a true reach and desperate grasps for TERFs and transphobes to use the pretending to be a woman to attack women argument.

Link
 

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I've read it (for work) and the journalist that broke the story about a transgender killer being in her new book was flat out lying to rile people. There's one sentence. About 10 words or so where one character says that they didn't get a good look at a man as they were wearing a poor wig and a women's coat at the time. That's all. The man isn't the killer and nor is it mentioned again.

Even if that's the case, it doesn't erase everything else she has said and done. That trans women are just men who want to hurt women, and trans men are just women who are too weak to deal with misogyny and want an easy way out. It doesn't change the fact that she's parroting TERF rhetoric that literally gets us killed.

- - - Updated - - -

I've read it (for work) and the journalist that broke the story about a transgender killer being in her new book was flat out lying to rile people. There's one sentence. About 10 words or so where one character says that they didn't get a good look at a man as they were wearing a poor wig and a women's coat at the time. That's all. The man isn't the killer and nor is it mentioned again.

Even if that's the case, it doesn't erase everything else she has said and done. That trans women are just men who want to hurt women, and trans men are just women who are too weak to deal with misogyny and want an easy way out. It doesn't change the fact that she's parroting TERF rhetoric that literally gets us killed.
 

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Welcome to AW, by the way. :e2flowersDon't forget to make a thread on the Newbies page - it's not a rule, but it helps us to get to know you, and community works better when we get to know each other.

Oh thanks but I'm not new. I've been here absolute years. I used to post on an older account but accidentally locked myself out, I never posted on this account as I'm quite shy and anxious, and just read through posts. Just thought I'd chip in as I've read it and what I know might help soothe some hurt feelings.
 

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Oh thanks but I'm not new. I've been here absolute years. I used to post on an older account but accidentally locked myself out, I never posted on this account as I'm quite shy and anxious, and just read through posts. Just thought I'd chip in as I've read it and what I know might help soothe some hurt feelings.

We have a firm policy about one account per user. You need to PM me immediately about the username and/or email address associated with the prior account.

The TOS you agreed to when you joined clearly states our policy.
 
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lizmonster

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Oh thanks but I'm not new. I've been here absolute years. I used to post on an older account but accidentally locked myself out, I never posted on this account as I'm quite shy and anxious, and just read through posts. Just thought I'd chip in as I've read it and what I know might help soothe some hurt feelings.

I...think Ms. Rowling is past the "hurting feelings" stage and well into "actually harming other human beings."

And she was long before this.
 

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I...think Ms. Rowling is past the "hurting feelings" stage and well into "actually harming other human beings."

And she was long before this.

Exactly. Transgender people are far more likely to be victims of violence and hate crimes than cisgender people are. Rhetoric that trans people are lying or using a fake identity to trick or harm people contributes to this.

We should spend a lot less time worrying about the parts someone might or might not have under their clothes and a lot more judging people by the way they treat others.
 

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Netflix has a really interesting documentation about the transgender and the media, transgender actors and art creators. It had a section about the trope of the killer man dressing as a woman to approach women to kill them (most notorious Silence of the Lambs) and how it has helped over the decades perpetuate and comfort some people into the idea that transgender women are just men wearing dresses. I have to admit as a cis person I never thought of it until it was pointed out under that light. That's why it's so important we have #ownvoices.