JK Rowling prefers two years in jail over using correct pronouns
Harry Potter author JK Rowling has said she would prefer two years in jail over using a trans person’s correct pronouns.
For a gender that less than 0.5% of the population identifies as (Wiki numbers, 355 people out of 100,000), we sure do argue about this a lot, don't we?
Never underestimate the will of bigots to obsess over other people’s genitalia.
Edit: I said the above to be facetious and poke fun at these wall-eyed transphobic lunatics. I realise that trans / NB issues encompass SO much more than that, and I was being deliberately reductive in order to make a point. I hope that comes through ❤️
It's just one of the culture war angles propagated by the rich to keep everyone angry with each other while they reap up as much of the world's wealth as possible before any of the forthcoming disasters- whether that is climate crisis migration, the next financial crisis, AI unemployment crisis, further war, food and water shortages worldwide, etc...
The writing is on the wall, a majority of people can see it too if you ask them, but unfortunately people can't help but get sucked in anyway. Probably because it's a distraction from facing the uncertain future we all have.
OR, this is just a tinfoil hat getting the better of me. It feels like a logical conclusion, so maybe that's the fallacy I've fallen for.
No, you’re right. Between 2009 and 2011, both the left and the right had their popular class movements with Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party. The risk of both sides coming together to attack the rich was too dangerous. Shortly after that we had Obama and other business and political leaders talking about “systemic racial discrimination.” Boy has that divided us. An incredibly effective tool to convince us idiots that race has ANYTHING to do with our differences. Poor people have far more in common with each other than they do with the rich. The trans issue has been injected to stoke the fires more, and everyone has been quick to jump on board.
You know what? If we’re too stupid to see through this obvious charade, maybe this is what we deserve.
Better that than throwing off the shackles of the oppressor and rising up against the oligarch class.
Those brown lads area after your crumbs! That man wants to be called "they"! Ooh look, Israel/Gaza, pick a side! Look at this jobless woman with her fancy flat screen television! Does eating Wotsits cure cancer? Distract yourselves with yourselves.
Even if they were only 1 in a billion. They still deserve to exist and live their lives how they like if it doesn't negatively affect others.
They do, and they should get on with that, and start ignoring people who don't agree with them, their lifestyle, or use of language. You cannot enforce your own ideas about your identity on anyone else, because they are also entitled to have their own ideas. All a person can do is just live. Celebrity opinions are not law, and should not be paid such attention as if they matter.
Fuck JK Rowling. What a bigot.
Always has been...
It's just the kids reading her books 20 years ago didn't recognize all the problematic shit she wrote till they grew up.
It’s just the kids reading her books 20 years ago didn’t recognize all the problematic shit she wrote till they grew up.
Adult here who was an adult when the books came out and recognized all the awful racist and sexist imagery. I have nothing new to add to the conversation, I'm just gonna vent. There were quite a few of us here and there who spoke up when the books were published, but we were significantly outnumbered and immediately drowned out by the "shut up and stop complaining" crowd. Yes, all this talk of "problematic" issues in the Potter books are old observations we've been rehashing for two decades...the goblins who run the banks are a horrifyingly obvious Jewish caricature, Chinese character Cho Chang's first name is actually a Korean last name, the one black guy in the whole fuckin series is named "Shacklebolt" (seriously wtf), the one Irish character goes by "Seamus Finnegan," the main female character Hermione is constantly referred to as "bossy"...just to name a few. JFC, what a shitshow.
Ok, one more example that got a lot of attention years back but sort of faded away from public consciousness: in the first movie there's a bigass six-pointed star on the fuckin floor of Gringotts, of all places. You know, Gringotts. The bank......where the undeniably Jew-like goblins work. No fuckin shit, it's right there, plain as day. That one still boggles my mind. I mean, what the fuck, man. https://i.postimg.cc/Jzx2hr31/happry-potter-1-star-of-david-gringotts.png
EDIT: Hey everyone, it's been abuot an hour now and I just want to apologize for all this negativity. I've given this a lot of thought, and I've come to realize all the anti-this and anti-that complaints are really unfair and show only one side of JK Rowling. So I feel compelled to balance this out and remind everyone that she is also pro-slavery. Especially the kind of slavery that forces its slaves to work completely naked, and no one in the book has a problem with it except for the bossy lib girl that everyone hates.
It’s just the kids reading
herits books 20 years ago didn’t recognize all the problematic shitsheit wrote till they grew up.
Surely it can't have a problem with that wording, which doesn't refer to gender at all.
To be honest, there's not that much problematic shit in her books. Some VERY light commentary on slavery and its place in a civilized society, maybe some questionable themes of segregation, but largely the books are about good triumphing over evil and learning to work as a team including with people that don't look like you. They're just not overly well written books. She herself is the problematic person.
Sucks that's she's heavily involved in the new reboot, which means the stereotypes and troublesome characters are going to be even worse this time around
Has anyone in any country ever been incarcerated for misgendering a trans person? Is there even a significant number of people who seriously believe that would be an appropriate response?
Nope.
Just come out and tell us about your victimhood complex, Joanne.
Exactly! It's like going to jail for having someone presenting themselves as Joanne and you always call them Joanna. How will it ever be so much of a concern to throw someone in jail and destroy their future over it, Joanna? HOW??
It's about the influential power. She's presenting a potentially dangerous rhetoric. She really does have the power to create a new wave of hate if she really wanted to.
In fact it's the other way around. Plenty of people have been incarcerated and worse for simply being trans
Using the correct pronouns is an issue of respecting others, and seeing Rowling doubling down on her smug and bigoted views in public is a revelation, because during a re-read, you start seeing these views reflecting everywhere in her writing. It's a deeply prejudiced and irrational world, and it stayed that way all the way to the ending with nothing in that world really changed.
I think being an adult is realizing that I don't love Harry Potter as much as I used to, because (I can't believe I'm saying this) I've finally outgrown it. It's time to move on.
Being a grown-up is painful.
A big part of that is context, I think. When we were children, we didn't have the knowledge or developed brains to recognize these things. And the lossy nature of our memory leads us to skew towards remembering things in more idealized manners, probably because it is easier to recall things as "concentrates" of reality. The parts that we, as adults, recognize as problematic don't tend to be remembered as significant because, when making the initial memories as children, we lacked the context to flag them as such.
I think being an adult is realizing that I don't love Harry Potter as much as I used to, because (I can't believe I'm saying this) I've finally outgrown it. It's time to move on.
On other hand, this realization frees you in a way and may potentially inspire you seek out or create another piece of art to love (and potentially share with others). While I disagree with a significant section of the population and believe that art is inseparably and indelibly linked to the artist, it is important still to be kind to our past selves and not judge them for what they didn't know. That still doesn't entirely soften the blow of "breaking up" with a piece of art that one has loved but, it can help with accepting it.
Being a grown-up is painful.
It's also joyful, terrible, wonderful, enraging, sorrowful, and countless other feelings and possibilities. I think it's beautiful, even if not always comfortable. And the uncomfortable bits provide contrast to the positive, letting them seem to shine a bit more brilliantly. Though, that could also be the near-pathological optimism that I adopted to cope with depression in my younger years.
The world is fine (if flawed and sometimes generic). The real issue is there isn't a single good character in them. Hermione is alright, with her desire to free the elves and generally no accepting of the status quo. Even she seems to stop caring about this after they're free and capable of doing something about it. There's not a single progressive person in those worlds. There are only not totally evil (but accepting of banal evils) people. Being against Hitler doesn't make you a good person, it only makes you not a literal Nazi.
If someone doesn't want to respect others who cares?
Well, as others in this thread have said, misgender him back. Give him a taste of his own medicine.
The prosecution complex is real. No one's suing you for using the wrong pronouns you bigot.
In fact, I'm almost entirely sure that no one's ever asked Rowling to use specific pronouns because no queer person could stand being around her for longer than a minute.
*Persecution
Prosecution is a noun referring to the party bringing charges in a criminal case.
Resulting in sentencing, for example, to two years in jail...
Maybe prosecution was right this time!
Meanwhile she threatens to sue everyone within legal reach who calls her a transphobe.
Does she realize what a complete arsehole that makes her look? She'd rather go to jail than treat people like human beings?
He doesn't.
It's hyperbole and she is referring to being forced to think a particular thing. She's not wrong on the premise. But no one wants to analyze this because thinking and discord are hard.
[x] Doubt
Even if you disagree, using a pronoun is just polite. She'd have to go out of her way to do this.
He'd have to go out of his way to do this.
Start misgendering him and see how frustrated he gets.
He really does know how to keep yall pushing their SEO score higher
As some say "freedom to swing your arms around ends where someone else's face begins"
Although that's maybe not such a good phrase after all, as swinging your arms around to intimidate is also not acceptable.
Yes, she is free to be a giant asshole with a persecution complex. And we are free to call her one.
What a worthless comment. "Your freedom of speech is protected so long as it hasn't been outlawed".
Who knew.
This is why people say that Europe doesn't have freedom of speech, because unlike the US there is nothing stopping legislature from simply banning any speech.
Yeah, freedom of speech is not freedom from criticism for what you choose to say. The government can't lock you up solely for saying things it doesn't like but other people also have freedom of speech and they are absolutely free to call you a shitcunt for being a shitcunt.
keep your shit to yourself
Like... my name?
Or the bare-minimum stand-in for my name?
Seriously living in the worst timeline.
It really doesn't get any worse than people downvoting our posts or saying they don't agree with us when we post things on the Internet for other people to read. So much bullying! I say we should go back to the good old times when people who felt insulted, whether the insult was real or imagined, would challenge you for a duel at sunset in front of the saloon.
Just use they/them. It's universally understood and was in use long before you ever knew about LGBTQ at all. It's really not hard. Whatever you think about gender or sex, this is a neutral acknowledgment that is a person. We can all at least agree on that.
Cute that you think she's go to anything resembling a normal prison and not a white collar cell where the worst she deals with it eating freeze dried food sometimes
Some people are just ugly on the inside, deep down where it counts.
To be fair, she's ugly on the outside too....
Wait... is that really on the table? If so, then I grudgingly have to take her side insofar as objecting to prior restraint or compelled speech. Being an asshole is a fundamental human right.
No. It isn't on the table. This is another in the long line of scenarios that only exist in TERF imaginations.
It was not on the table.
Some rando posted on her Shitter account "vote for Labour, get two years" and Rowling responded with the quote in the headline.
If you read the article, they clarify that the Labour party wants to crack down on LGBTQ hate crimes, and nowhere is it said that they would make it illegal to use improper pronouns for others.
As fundamental as not having to put up with assholes.
You wanna do it? Go do it over there where no one else has to put up with your shit
That makes her the second gigantic prominent shithead in as many days expressing that they're willing to go to prison for their beliefs. And also the second whom I wouldn't believe for even a millisecond that they're telling the truth.
Enjoy jail then I guess. It's a pretty stupid hill to die on, especially when you're filthy rich and the conservatives already hate you over the whole witchcraft nonsense. I cannot fathom conservative doublethink.
what a weirdo lol
Deal.
Was my exact reaction when I read this this morning before moving on.
She's just jealous Glinner's got a book out and she thinks she needs to raise her TERF game.
The twitter thread where they fantasise about being in prison reminds me of this meme:
Jesus. The second hand cringe on this one feels first hand.
What a shitbrick. I am glad I never got into her books in the first place. I saw the first movie and had no interest in seeing the others. I read half the first book to my daughter and she got bored with it, so we stopped. My wife got really into her and is disappointed neither of us are, but fuck her. I don't want to spend a dime on her.
Edit: Weird part- she's always been an atheist and she loved the Narnia books.
Did she get bored of it? Or were you so disinterested in the book you read it like an asshole to her and that's why she lost interest? Generally speaking, the HP books were like crack to children.
A good public speaker can make a math textbook seem like Dickens.
She was bored of it. I used to do VO for a living. I know how to read a book to a child.
I've never read the books, but I did enjoy the movies, and it's really disappointing. I have the DVDs, so I guess I could still watch those knowing it won't signal any continued demand the way streaming them would, but still.
That can be arranged/realized you cunt/cunt
Didn't it write about a rigged election in the America harry potter series? It's a fucking joke. History well look on it's career in question of its existence.
Alice Caldwell-Kelly: "What can I say besides, inshallah?"
She always looks like a miserable cow. With her money you'd think she could crack a smile.
She's too bitter and twisted though.
PS. Never did like HP, all those twee names and what have you. The only good thing that came out of it was it got a whole bunch of kids reading.
She can do one though.
That’s cool, nobodies going to give in to her persecution fetish tho lmao.
Just stop being an asshole, nobody believe your “on the premise of freedom” arguments, it’s super simple.
They’re like that kid in grade school who calls the male teacher mrs. such and such and think it’s still hilarious
How much time is she willing to do to avoid minding her own fucking business. I'm guessing it's a lot
Let see how she fares after a year has passed in jail.
I'm all for social experiments on those unwilling to adapt to society.
I read "I'm all for imprisoning people who don't call me by the names I want them to."
That's a dangerous line of thinking, friend.
What even IS the importance of sex?
Women bear children, so are materially disadvantaged when it comes to sex. They can be raped and get pregnant as a result. This can't happen to men. This is compounded by sexual dimorphism meaning women are weaker on average, though the tails definitely overlap.
This means special laws are needed to protect women wherever sexual dimorphism has the potential to disempower - for example, the right to safe abortions, certain economic protections for mothers, and perhaps even some protected spaces.
I don't have the answers, but that's the basis of the argument. We've come so far in the West it's hard to see the material inequality written into our DNA. With modern contraception it can be especially hard to recognise the reality of our bodies, and certainly natural to resent it.
It's almost like people are looking for a reason to talk about how much they hate JKR, and in turn promote her.
The Streisand effect is in full display here.
Everytime people bring out the three minute hate drum, the righteous come around and sneer, so there is a echo chamber, but there's always somebody new, somebody who's never been introduced to the debate before, who now pays attention to this person... And they might end up agreeing with this person.
So giving all this attention to one person over and over again, is creating them more converts than it's costing them. It's just promoting the personality at this point. It'd be more effective to ignore them, and just promote your own viewpoint. There wouldn't be any controversy, there wouldn't be free media attention....
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/16/opinion/jk-rowling-transphobia.html
Because she has asserted the right to spaces for biological women only, such as domestic abuse shelters and sex-segregated prisons. Because she has insisted that when it comes to determining a person’s legal gender status, self-declared gender identity is insufficient. Because she has expressed skepticism about phrases like “people who menstruate” in reference to biological women.
Her take isn't crazy - it's not supportive, but not phobic either, and she clearly enjoys the media attention and public debate. She thrives in it.. so she wins everytime people give her attention
It's almost like Rowling is always looking for a reason to talk about how much she hates trans people.
No matter where you stand on it you have to admit it's kind of sad with all her wealth and fame this is how she spends her energy
Lock her up
I'm sorry, you can go to prison for "using the wrong pronouns"? What dystopian hell hole do we live in?
It could be classed as a hate crime. Don't worry you ain't going to get jailed for accidentally using the wrong pronouns.
I still think it's idiotic, and I say that as a trans person.
Off with her/she head!!!!
ITT: “fuck free speech because I don’t like what she has to say.” I guess this community is just a bunch of left wing authoritarians. Good to know!
Oh please, go fuck yourself lmfao. The UK does not have free speech like the US. Hate speech is a crime. They are proposing including unfounded anti-lgbtq+ rhetoric under the definition of hate speech.
No one's going to prison you baby. Free speech is us being allowed to criticize Rowling for being a hateful bigot with a persecution complex.
Not all trans are like this...
Then why even bring it up?
We don't judge demographics by the actions of individuals. If we did, both cis men and cis women would be banned from every aspect of society.
But for trans women, it seems to be fair game to dig for crimes and then make this sort of two-faced statement where you are definitely saying that we should view trans women with suspicion, but won't come out and just be transphobic openly.
I get that its hyperbole. Its basically too much hyperbole though in my opinion. Its not worth that much to be respectful in conversation.
Also fuck you for that last part. "God damn all males are a danger, have you never heard of x serial killer" is how you sound.
Being a psychopath and being transgender are two completely different things.
Wow if one guy gets you all up in arms you are gonna lose it when you hear about the Catholic Church
Why won't everyone else align with my hateful views!
Yes, that's called being a TERF. And when anyone calls them out on it, someone goes "oh but they're standing up for all those poor women and girls." Gtfo.
That's some twisted reasoning by the judge. Children shouldn't get into a stranger's car regardless of their gender.
The notion that this girl would have acted differently to a man is ridiculous. Hopefully this is just bad journalism.
