I keep seeing posts from people who claim they will be blocking anyone who posts any content from the new Harry Potter show that begins airing in December.
So I wanted to say you’re all being ridiculous. You consume media all the time by actual rapists. You watch movies with actors who have killed people. You read books written by racists and homophobes. All. The. Time. And it is so unimportant to you that half the time, you don’t even know.
This business with JK Rowling is a witch hunt. She follows a different kind of feminism than you do. And sometimes she’s a little rude about it. (But we don’t tone police here.) She has never put hands on anyone. She has started charities with her own money. And she is an outspoken advocate for women experiencing domestic violence.
She has expressed acceptance for LGBT people, yes including trans people. She just does not believe a person can genuinely change their sex, that some ‘inclusive’ terminology dehumanizes women and that sex segregated spaces are necessary to protect women.
There is a reason that JKR is being derided the way she is, and it’s not because she’s the worst person in the world. And if you step back, if you read her words, you’ll see why.
Anyway, keep putting Harry Potter content on my feed.
The thing that fucks me up the most about the whole JK Rowling debacle is how fast people threw her talent and worth under the bus as soon as she did not align with their ideals.
And I'd love to say it's just a woke black and white mentality thing except they don't do it with men.
People can accept that Neil Gaiman is a great writer, Lovecraft and so on, and I agree, I like their work and think they're both terrible people. But JKR doesn't get that treatment.
Now the internet is flooded with bitter Harry Potter fans that are shitting on a children's saga that we all remember very well the impact it had on it's intended audience (children) when it came out.
We remember the lines outside bookstores every time a new book came out, the decade long obsession millions of children and then teens around the world had over Harry's adventures.
And I want to reiterate I didn't read the books or even kept up with the movies as a kid myself, it wasn't for me, and even then I could understand why the charming and original world she came up with was so popular, and I think that creativity plays a part on why they are so mad about it. A woman, creative? It can't be, I refuse.
No one is doing this tired revisionism of other children's books, comparing them to adult literature and breaking down even the smallest details so they can shit on the author. It's honestly so sad and so utterly useless and such a level of pettiness to spend so much time of your life to hate on a woman you disagree with.
So many male authors that are alive today are absolute creeps, abusers and overall horrendous people with bags of cash that they keep to themselves but they have to go after the one woman who donated a ton of cash to people in need and continues to do so because you disagree with her on one thing (a thing you don't even understand very well).
For every radical feminist JKR fan, did you know that she not only denies any oppression of asexual people in society but also literally asked a person "how do you know who you love if you don't feel sexual attraction to them?" and I'm just saying, I'm just saying that it's a slippery slope and the same logic cishet husbands use to force their wives to have sex by saying "you don't love me if you don't want me" I'm just saying, just saying.
In no way did she imply sex is mandatory or romantic partnership is necessary for a full life.
I know the teen girls of tumblr don’t want to hear this, but sexual attraction is THE defining feature of romantic love. It the thing that makes it romantic love, rather than platonic or familial love. Someone you love but don’t have sex with is a friend.
The sticking point for you guys is that current western society has put so much emphasis on the importance of romantic relationships that you cannot fathom having a profound friendship. You have to say it’s romantic, just not sexual, in order to make it fit into the current paradigm.
You do not need to redefine romantic love or romantic relationships. You just need to be okay with saying “sex isn’t important to me and so my most profound relationships are with friends, not a lover.”
And you do not need to claim to be LGB or oppressed to do it. Social stigma against people that don’t pair off with a romantic partner has never been lower. And it’s only becoming more common to never pursue a romantic relationship. Not every social stigma is also systemic oppression and there is a BIG difference.
"J.K. Rowling is an incompetent writer." Actually, you're just an incompetent reader who thinks a book is bad if the author doesn't spoon-feed the message to you. Perhaps Harry Potter should state the moral of the story at the end of every chapter like an episode of He-Man:
Absolutely fucking despise how the trans movement has co-opted the term conversion therapy. No, refusing to subject a child to unnecessary medicalisation is NOT the practice of homophobic psychiatric and/or sexual abuse directed at homosexuals. Every time I see it used I now have to check if they mean actual conversion therapy or “my counsellor politely asked me to do some critical self reflecting.”
Man at this point terfs just make me sad for/pity them.
Like. Just imagine spending so much of your limited time on earth willfully being miserable and hateful. It would take less energy and effort to NOT be full of hate.
They’re choosing misery, and for what? To be ridiculed and hated in turn? To what end? They’ll never be happy, even if they did somehow get everything they wanted. They choose to be miserable, and they don’t even realize they’re doing it :(
It’s just really, really pitiful
(In reference to this post, in which a TERF wasn’t even able to go off-script when I invited them to, instead deliberately turning and attacking what they believed to be a softer target: https://www.tumblr.com/elodieunderglass/784511337380397056/what-to-do-well-terf-politics-are-fear-based)
Because one of the main tactics of their ideology is to promise safety from fear and uncertainty, by giving their recruits like-minded friends, it’s worth pointing out these friends seem like really low-quality friends, and the ideology hasn’t produced anything.
My apologies! Here is your response! You’ll note that you’ve forgotten what you “literally” said. You were talking about an “advanced biology class,” but now you’re saying something else.
And this was your second response, which is not a response. My apologies for not considering that this added to the discourse.
You didn’t answer the question of whether you were sure of your ground, you just said the same thing twice. Repeating the same point is not actually an answer to a question. But! Presumably that means you’re happy, and the entire development of your thesis is “there is no advanced biology class that says there are three or more sexes.”
With the two mentions of “advanced biology”, you appear to be having a specific emotional response to this picture:
For an image ID, this is a picture showing a person in an “advanced biology class” with a sign saying “sex does not equal gender” and below it, a distribution, appearing to indicate frequency. At high points of the distribution are markings reading “m” and “f,” presumably “male and female.”
2. Is the image ID accurate? Please re-write if you feel it is inaccurate.
3. What do you think the distribution represents?
4. Can you explain why this makes you think of “three or more sexes” ? Was it something about the picture? Why three? What precisely is making you think of the number“three” and why do you keep repeating it?
And finally
5. What kind of evidence would you accept to counter your belief that “there is no advanced biology class that says there are three or more sexes” ? This is a statement that can easily be researched, and you’ve declined to bring any evidence; if an “advanced biology class” is found that does so, your statement will be instantly incorrect. You’re the one who has said that it doesn’t matter if the class is good or respectable or reputable or anything like that - you’re the one who made the statement as if it was a fixed observation. You said there are “no” classes, and confirmed that this is your entire thesis.
What would you allow to change your mind? Would you accept a syllabus of a biology class? Peer-reviewed biology publications from reputable journals that state the exact phrase “three or more sexes” in a research context? A post from a respected professor of biology stating what they cover in their class? What will you accept?
What makes you think of this “three or more” thing? And what piece of evidence would you accept?
(Edit: oh I’m sorry I forgot to add. 6. Are you sure of your ground? (What makes you sure)?) )
I repeated what I said because you did not offer an counter argument, all you did was patronise me. I did not feel the need to engage with that
2. Gender is not biological so it should be irrelevant to any ‘advanced biology’.
3. What distribution? Of the sexes? What are you referring to?
4. Because the implication is there are more than two sexes. I say three because it is more than two
5. Presence of a third gamete. Which does not exist
6. Fairly sure as I have had plenty of people give me what they believed was ‘evidence’ of more than two sexes, ‘evidence’ which did not prove such a thing at all. If I ever came across new information that actually proved that I would of course incorporate it into my understanding. But I’ve looked far and wide and not found anything so I assume such evidence probably does not exist. Sex is still binary. Believe me, I’ve been on your side of the argument. Searched for answers that supported it because I wanted to believe it. Came back with no evidence supporting it so I had to come to a different conclusion, one with actual evidence behind it
Thank you very much for your time, attention, and for participating. I appreciate this, and that you have genuinely been a good sport.
As I stated, this was a demonstration of TERF scripts. Not an attempt to change your mind - which seems to be operating exactly as you intend it to! Changing your mind is not my business, or of any interest at all to me! - or to “win” anything, but a little party trick to amuse my friends. You walked into my house and agreed to play, and my friends said they were ready for a laugh, so here it is.
For those unfamiliar with TERF chatbot scripts, this one is expected to go like this.l:
TERF: biologically, there are only two sexes.
Well-meaning person who knows about biology, and thinks this is an invitation to talk about biology: actually, there are more than that in all sorts of organisms! such as -
TERF: those aren’t humans.
Well-meaning person: but you said “biology,” you said “biologically, there are only two sexes,” and we’ve just said -
TERF: I am talking about human sperm.
well-meaning person: but - but no, we weren’t?
TERF: I am. You people can never produce evidence of three types of human gametes.
Well-meaning person: but that isn’t - even remotely - your first statement? Nobody was talking about “three” anything, or sperm, or humans, that’s not -
TERF: you never have any evidence.
That’s how this is supposed to go. You’re supposed to try to be helpful and educational while they think about sperm.
Instead, I played a little game. I pounced on the fictional “advanced biology class” and placed a few traps around it.
Me: What kind of evidence would you accept to counter your belief that “there is no advanced biology class that says there are three or more sexes” ?
This guy: Presence of a third gamete. Which does not exist.
WAHEY! Mission achieved.
We have now achieved my purpose of being Funny as Fuck, because, like I said, I’m not super interested in this guy - I was prodding for fuel to do various bits, and this one is 🫶
SCENE: a college advisory office
Prospective Student: hello, I’m wondering what we would cover inAdvanced Comparative Analysis of Moby Dick that’s different from the other similar literature classes in the course catalogue, but there’s no longer any information about what classes cover online. Do you have a copy of the syllabus?
Advisor: (hands them a cup of thick liquid)
Prospective Student: what is this?
Advisor: whale sperm.
Student: how is that relevant?
Advisor: sorry, gametes are our course catalogues and syllabi now. The new administration didn’t like people being able to interpret information, so…
Student: I guess it’s pretty cool that you have whale sperm on hand for Moby Dick? Whale sperm, sperm whale… thematically appropriate.
Advisor: yeah - please don’t ask for any other information about other classes, though.
Student: uh… well unfortunately for my major, it’s down a decision about this course, or the one about ALL the author’s works…
Advisor, wearily: are you really gonna make me do this?
Student: I’m sorry!
Advisor, pulling on leather gloves: CARINA! Yeah, we gotta go out back and milk Melville. YEAH I KNOW. God, it was better when we could just do this on paper.
(End scene)
Anyway, thank you for your time and sportsmanship. I appreciate your consideration, and thank you very much for the prompt. You can go, with my best wishes.
Everyone else if you could stay back and join me behind the cut real quick.
Oh my goodness guys. Did you see how I was pointing to the binomial distribution, asking if they understood it, and if we both agreed what it represented, and they were like “what distribution”.
Like this wasn’t even getting into the “are these ‘three sexes’ in the room with us right now? And where on a BINOMIAL DISTRIBUTION did you think you saw three things? And what precisely were you reacting to on that graph?”
It was straight up a case of looking at my finger saying “what distribution” oh my goodness. Oh my goodness they didn’t know it was a binomial distribution or that - I POINTED RIGHT AT it.
I’m making a mental whistling noise. PLEASE hold my hands and do a calming circle with me. I literally need this.
"It was straight up a case of looking at my finger saying “what distribution” oh my goodness."
That's probably 'cause you keep saying binomial when you mean bimodal.
Binomial distribution in biology isn't used to refer to a spectrum with two maxima (that's bimodal), it's used to refer to opposing, mutually exclusive results in trials. Other uses of "binomial" in biology and statistics don't refer to distribution models.
Regardless, a bimodal (or multimodal) distribution denotes two or more expressive statistical spikes within a dataset, indicating a discernible variation from average.
On a supposed bimodal distribution of human sex, there would still need to be three or more gametes to supply the dataset on which the distribution would be predicated and where male (sperm production) and female (ova production) would be the discernible, but not exclusive, data points.
Given even rare and extreme examples of irregular sex development still result in strictly either one or other functional gamete (functional as is the organism is oriented towards its production, not that production is viable, aka regardless of fertility), even in the exceptional circumstance of ovotestes, where the ambiguous gonad will still invariably develop towards ovulation or spermatogenesis, there isn't additional data points to populate a dataset for a distribution model.
That's why the picture is incorrect, which every progressively unhinged response to gendiebrairotnreceipts' entirely emotionally appropriate reaction to it failed to even remotely address.
I'd just like to point out that every graph I've seen a TRA post that supposedly proves that sex is a bimodal distribution includes neither a labelled x axis or a labelled y axis. For people who are so confident in their own intelligence it is impressive that they don't even know how graphs work.
How it feels to never have stopped being a JKR fan because like her i always put women first and also she has never done anything wrong, and never have been a Gaiman fan because he was always fishy if you had a little experience with men who call themselves feminists but also publically endorse BDSM:
I’m seeing lots of posts about JKR and Neil Gaiman lately. I have no idea why JKR is even being brought up in this whole Gaiman discussion. She has nothing to do with that rapist and yet TRAs are somehow bringing her into the conversation as if she was involved in what he did🥴
They are so obsessed with her it’s insane. A man did something horrible and they’re still finding ways to direct their hate at women instead.
When I was a teen, the way to rebel against your mommy was to dye your hair pink and let her subtly know you had smoked a cigarette when she told you smoking is dangerous. I guess children these days rebel by supporting creepy men's access to women's spaces because mommy is a bigot who does not think that the strange panty-nicker next door is just really in touch with his feminity.
How many gendies I have argued with online, who have really stupid and illogical takes, have actually just been groomed children?
The fact that people go on saying that Rowling and Gaiman are equally awful is deeply connected with main character syndrome.
For none of their haters what they have done is meaningful per se. The problem is: I have based my entire character and my entire wellbeing on a piece of media and now I cannot speak about it without people thinking badly of me.
Gaiman raped women? I'm wounded because I loved good omens and now the experience is ruined to me!
Rowling has controversial opinions? I'm wounded because I loved Harry Potter and now the experience is ruined to me!
That's why for them they're the same. It's not "he raped women" and "she has controversial opinions", it's "I cannot stay in this fandom anymore and I'm the victim".
Add the misoginy to Rowling's case and the Rowling derangement syndrome, and the sole difference is the fact that everybody will forget about Gaiman in a minute, while spreading stupid lies and memes about Rowling.
White transwoman in plain English: I'm sexually attracted to misogyny. I think being raped is the epitome of femaleness and if I'm being perfectly honest, it would be extremely validating. Sexual degradation not only affirms my womanhood but my sense of being as a woman. When I get catcalled or disrespected for my feminine appearance I get an erection. To be honest this compulsion of mine to feel small and powerless is what drove me to start identifying as a woman.
Libfems using every coping mechanism imaginable to suppress their common sense: TERFs wouldn't get what she's saying, she's a feminist philosopher venting about the complexities of womanhood. When she says the thought of being raped makes her cum the hardest she's saying exactly the same thing Andrea Dworkin and many feminists once said about gender-based violence. What she's saying is SUPERRR DEEEP and complex and is basically the essence of feminism but terfs are too stupid to see. Sad really. She's basically the female Socrates that's why people can't get what she's saying.
Radfem- While I think trans people should get the support they need, it's not acceptable to deprioritize the role biological sex has played in female oppression for thousands of years in every corner of the globe. Validating individual gender identities cannot be the #1 feminist priority.
Libfems: See sounds innocent on the surface but what this person really means is they want all trans people dead. They're also implying every woman is just a walking-talking vagina. And if you look closely the subtext of what they're saying is that the only way to be a woman is to be a Christian trad wife who has nine babies and that every woman's name should be Caucasian Uterus.
"I refuse to listen to women talking about their lived/ observed experiences because they challenge my world view and identity as an 'ally'. also I am literally incapable of not proving the point of the original post."
anyway here you go bozo:
correction, the writer's name is Jacob Tobia and the article has since been removed from Playboy's site, but here is an excerpt:
"Yet, here’s the rub: if sexual objectification is so categorically awful, then why do I want it so badly?In my academic and feminist training, I’ve been told over and over again that sexual objectification is bad. The thinking goes like this: women around the world have been treated as sexual objects instead of people. Women who, in the course of trying to run a board meeting, have been hit on by their colleagues. Or, during a job interview, have been sexually harassed. Women who have had their brilliance diminished by solely placing value on their bodies. Women whose day-to-day experiences have been marred by unwanted sexual attention, catcalls, leering looks and once-overs. This type of sexual objectification is seriously dehumanizing; it reduces women and feminine-of-center people to objects, flattening out who we are and taking away ownership of our own bodies. As such, my feminist training taught me that sexual objectification is categorically undesirable, categorically patriarchal. Therefore, we must fight against sexual objectification in any form and create a world where no one is sexually objectified again. Yet, here’s the rub: if sexual objectification is so categorically awful, then why do I want it so badly? The idea that being seen as a “sex object”–at any time, ever–is universally a bad thing is too simple, like many tenets of straightforward, non-intersectional feminism."
hell, there's an entire subreddit dedicated to "ewphoria". please be serious.
"Oh look at these eight examples I googled! This proves that all trans women are bad!"
How do you even know if any of those were real? They could've been joking, or troll accounts, or terfs like you trying to poison the well.
Charitably, let's assume that all of those are real and 100% legitimate. So what? There are eight trans women out there who've taken misogyny and turned it into something that supports them. What does that change? It certainly doesn't prove anything.
bestie I didn't have to google anything; these were readily available on twitter and the most popular trans subreddits. like I said, it took me all of 10 minutes of searching to find these.
did you watch the video? they're both transwomen who are readily admitting exactly what the op was referring to. did you read the comic? it's from Kylie Wu, who happily talks about porn addiction and experiencing euphoria boners from misogyny in almost every single comic. did you read the other writings of Jacob Tobia? The excerpt quoted wasn't a one off by any means.
I know you're incapable of acknowledging even the mildest of criticisms lest you realize these behaviors aren't anecdotal at all and are, in fact, the norm, but being presented with proof straight from the horses mouth and continuing to plug your ears tells everyone exactly 1. you so obviously lack the critical thinking skills to engage in any sort of debate (but wont let that fact stop you from trying) and 2. don't give the slightest fuck about acknowledging the implications of an entire movement that is foundationally based on misogyny, even when members of that movement tell you exactly that in plain English.
Four tweets, a couple memes, and a playboy article don't make it so that the entire trans community is now magically founded on misogyny lmfao.
You only ever linked back to the reddit comic, but I think it's especially telling that one of the top replies on it throws your whole point out of whack.
Look, I can use anecdotal evidence too!
And once again, hand-picking a few sources that make trans women look bad and using them to make sweeping generalizations about an entire population is just being willfully ignorant. None of those people speak on behalf of the entire trans community, and you and I just know that.
I'm sure you've already skimmed through this and are typing some snarky comeback about how you think I can't read or something, but none of that is going to change that you have nothing but anecdotal evidence to support your claim. You claim that none of these are anecdotal actually, but the norm, and you provide no proof of it.
If you want more intellectual sources: Pulitzer Prize winning critic and author, Andrea Chu Long:
Not that you'll ever stop denying and coping because as an apologist it's your job to act like you're blind and act like women pulled this out of their ass but for people silently reading: It's clearly an opinion that has more than enough cultural saturation for it to be critiqued. This essay was published by major media organizations.
ALSO Hunter Schafer, the most successful working transwoman actor of her generation-shared publicly to her IG page of now several million followers (now deleted):
More academic intellectual sources of this sentiment:
Pioneering trans author Julia Serano, his works are considered essential reading for an introduction on trans perspectives, he has published several books and currently works at UC Berkeley:
Forced feminization, sissification, bimbofication- female degradation as identity validation and sexual pleasure within trans womanhood is well documented.
When I was twenty using social media for the first time, I followed a popular trans woman. One day he makes a vent post about how sick he is of women complaining about the nonissue that is catcalling. And because he and other trans women enjoyed catcalling, it was wrong for us to condemn it. He wrapped up his vent by saying he feels nothing for the women who hate catcalling as he cannot relate. So many trans women in the post were agreeing with him…that was my first exposure to how trans women fetishize women’s struggles.
My old transwoman roommate used to rant to me at length about how much he wanted to experience misogyny because he imagined how validating it would be for his gender identity. He used that Reddit term "ewphoria" constantly. You can call all of these "anecdotal", but you'd be lying to say this isn't clearly a pattern of behaviour within the MTF community.
They always do this, it goes from "no one says that", then when you show them people saying it they go "that's just a few examples, you can't generalise from that" then you show them a high profile member of the community being platformed to say the thing and they say "actually they are correct, and I agree with them." Then if you press them on why they agree with what is being said they fall back to "why do you care? how does this affect you personally?" instead of actually reasoning out how they came to their conclusion. It's not even a motte and bailey it's some sort of multi tiered defence in depth of increasingly more incomprehensible talking points.
white people are really just sitting on this website saying “black women are innately different than white women” uncritically and with zero idea of how stupid and racist they look. and other people reblog it… without saying anything. at all.
from the people who brought you "biological sex is a social construct with no basis in reality" now comes "race is a 100% biological reality that explains why black women are ugly and manly lol"
Anyone with a “complicated” identity is valid. It doesn’t matter if your identity is uncommon or includes multiple labels or is something you can only explain in a paragraph. Your identity is still valid. Your identity is not “unecessary” or “too complicated” or “annoying”. It’s valid, and so are you.
The entire concept of Valid/Not Valid necessitates a third party judgment. If you want to stop being judged, stop submitting parts of yourself for social review via the concept of “identity”.
As long my judgement is being solicited because my reaction to your declared identity is somehow an important part of your experience of yourself, I will reserve the right to reject as I see fit.
I’m the Validity Officer at the Valid Headquaters and my Approved and Rejected stamp is ready and it’s hammering down on all submissions.
Only invalid identities are the ones that think they have the right to judge what’s valid/invalid for everyone. Nobody has the right to judge and those who claim that they have are inviting the others to judge them.
A social identity means the part of yourself that’s essentially a group project. The part of yourself that relies on others’ participation. AKA the social aspect of your existence.
That’s why this conversation on what’s valid and invalid is even happening. Because you’re submitting parts of yourself to be socially recognized and regarded as important in others’ imagination.
The problem is, social categories and identities exist to help us organize and make sense our world. Not to make people feel good. In fact, most of the salient social identities were invented to enforce social hierarchies and reinforce oppressive structures. The opposite of making people feel good.
Hence the reason why something like skin colour and racial features is an important social identity but big toe size isn’t. Because humans have decided to enforce social hierarchies based on skin colour as opposed to the size of people’s big-toe.
Creating a social identity based on Big Toe Size means submitting the idea that Big Toe Size is a socially relevant category. Anytime you take a piece of your existence/personality and make it part of your social identity- you’re soliciting judgment on the social relevance and importance of said thing.
The endless expansion of social identity is not a good thing. You’re feeding into a system that’s mostly based on judgement, seperation and enforcing inequalities.
The expansion of social identity as a form of “social justice” is a con. A con to make you:
1. Waste your energy chasing validity
2. Expand the range of capital goods that can be sold to you as people invent more and more identities that need to signaled to.
3. Obfuscate how existing social identities like race and sex reinforce oppression. When social identities are thought of as a harmless expression of your “authentic self”, the social identities that were invented to oppress and maintain hierarchies get invisbilized.
4.Distract you from meaningful pursuits that would actually improve your material life. Instead of demanding a higher quality of life (better food, better air quality, less violent communities), people become high on superficial and fleeting forms of validation (being called Toe-Self).
The endless expansion of social identities and validity we’re witnessing is just capitalism’s antidote to meaningful resistance to social injustice.
Surely, the right side of the history crowd is now going to start burning Neil Gaiman's books, harassing his fans, and sending death threats like they did with JK Rowling. Thinking that men can not be women can not be a greater crime than being a rapist, right?
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