This isn’t an easy piece to write, for reasons that will shortly become clear, but I know it’s time to explain myself on an issue surrounded by toxicity. I write this without any desire to add to that toxicity.
For people who don’t know: last December I tweeted my support for Maya Forstater, a tax specialist who’d lost her job for what were deemed ‘transphobic’ tweets. She took her case to an employment tribunal, asking the judge to rule on whether a philosophical belief that sex is determined by biology is protected in law. Judge Tayler ruled that it wasn’t.
My interest in trans issues pre-dated Maya’s case by almost two years, during which I followed the debate around the concept of gender identity closely. I’ve met trans people, and read sundry books, blogs and articles by trans people, gender specialists, intersex people, psychologists, safeguarding experts, social workers and doctors, and followed the discourse online and in traditional media. On one level, my interest in this issue has been professional, because I’m writing a crime series, set in the present day, and my fictional female detective is of an age to be interested in, and affected by, these issues herself, but on another, it’s intensely personal, as I’m about to explain.
All the time I’ve been researching and learning, accusations and threats from trans activists have been bubbling in my Twitter timeline. This was initially triggered by a ‘like’. When I started taking an interest in gender identity and transgender matters, I began screenshotting comments that interested me, as a way of reminding myself what I might want to research later. On one occasion, I absent-mindedly ‘liked’ instead of screenshotting. That single ‘like’ was deemed evidence of wrongthink, and a persistent low level of harassment began…
My article for the Sunday Times Scotland on why I oppose Gender Recognition Act reform
16 OCTOBER 2022
A few weeks ago, I posted a picture of myself wearing a T-shirt printed with the words ‘Nicola Sturgeon: Destroyer of Women’s Rights’ on Twitter. I did this to show my solidarity with women who were protesting outside the Scottish Parliament against the proposed Gender Recognition Act reform bill. Some of the women, like Maya Forstater and Helen Joyce, have public profiles, but most of the women protesting do not. They also knew they might be taking a risk in demonstrating. It takes guts for Scottish women to stand up for their rights these days – not, I should emphasise, anywhere near the same guts as Iranian women are currently displaying, but guts nonetheless. They risk being targeted by activists, police complaints being made against them and even the threat of a spell in jail for posting what are seen as ‘transphobic’ comments or images by their complainants.
Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, believes the protestors outside Parliament on the 6th October have nothing to complain about. The woman who calls herself a ‘real feminist’ said to the BBC that her proposed new Gender Recognition Act ‘doesn’t give any additional rights to trans people nor does it take any rights away from women.’
I disagree. So, to name just a few who were also protesting that day, do Rhona Hotchkiss, the retired prison governor with a Masters in Law and a qualification in Research Methodology; Isabelle Kerr, former manager of Glasgow and Clyde Rape Crisis, who was awarded an MBE for her international work helping rape and sexual assault victims; all-female independent policy analysis collective Murray Blackburn Mackenzie; and For Women Scotland, a grassroots feminist group that has emerged as a leading voice for Scottish women over the last few years….
West London restaurant ‘ransacked’ in middle of night after owner voices support for JK Rowling
RUBY GREGORY – 5 February 2022 – My London
… The 42-year-old restaurant owner was hosting a fundraising dinner for a Ukrainian children’s charity and had invited the two guests to the event at Pino. Chiavarini had been thanked by Rowling in a public tweet after the dinner took place. She wrote: “A massive thank you to James Chiavarini (@ilporticolondon) who hosted a fabulous fundraising dinner at Pino for @lumos’s Ukraine appeal last week, raising £18,500!”
However, days later, sister restaurant Il Portico, Kensington High Street, had been vandalised in the middle of the night. Chiavarini, who owns both restaurants, wrote on Twitter: “In the same week as the online accusations of (me) being a homophobe for sticking up for J.K. Rowling and Suzanne Moore, someone has smashed in the windows at Portico and ransacked the place. Could obviously be a coincidence, but what a few days!”…
Publishing needs JK Rowling to be a monster
The facts are irrelevant
Victoria Smith – 6 September 2022 – The Critic
he trouble with JK Rowling is that she has done nothing wrong. Back in 2020, she wrote a carefully worded, compassionate piece about sex and gender. It’s here if you want to read it.
In it, she described “a climate of fear that serves nobody – least of all trans youth – well”. At no point did she express the even mildest disapproval of gender non-conformity, let alone call for “trans genocide”. “Trans people,” she wrote, “need and deserve protection […] I feel nothing but empathy and solidarity with trans women who’ve been abused by men.”
The response to this piece was obscene. Some of it’s here if you want to read it. I am aware, however, that checking original source material is not the done thing when it comes to having an opinion on Rowling.
Shortly after the publication of her blogpost, countless op-eds appeared explaining what Rowling “really” meant. To summarise them all, Rowling was lying about not hating trans people and wanting them dead, and you could tell this by the fact she said she didn’t hate trans people and didn’t want them dead.
There then followed a succession of lengthy, meandering (and deadly boring) essays on what it meant to be a Harry Potter fan now that Potter’s creator turned out to be evil. Idiotic references to the Sorting Hat, which confused maintaining a strong sense of self regardless of external forces with getting to choose one’s biological sex, seemed to be de rigueur.
As for the rape and death threats, it was quickly established that taking issue with tweets such as “JK rowling suck my fat cock and choke on it” was transphobic. Indeed, when one group of literary figures signed an open letter condemning such messages, the response of over 200 writers, publishers and journalists was to sign a different one stating “trans rights are human rights”…
J K Rowling – #NoDebate – SoA
Interactions with SoA & Chair Joanne Harris
J K Rowling – #NoDebate – Harry Potter movies
Commentary from and towards some of the others involved
quidditch changes name
doxxing
media coverage
pink news
death threats
