It was no April Fool’s joke.
Harry Potter author-turned culture warrior J.K. Rowling kicked off the month with an 11-tweet social media thread in which she argued 10 transgender women were men — and dared Scottish police to arrest her.
Rowling’s intervention came as a controversial new Scottish government law, aimed at protecting minority groups from hate crimes, took effect. And it landed amid a fierce debate over both the legal status of transgender people in Scotland and over what actually constitutes a hate crime.
Already the law has generated far more international buzz than is normal for legislation passed by a small nation’s devolved parliament.
The bizarre thing about Rowling is her hatred for trans people only extends to MtF trans people. She has no problem with FtM.
*Apologies, I did have these mixed up, I typed this while walking and only just read it back now.
Oh no… She doesn’t like any of us. The transphobia she levies at FtM is just different. Rowling is notorious for Championing the works of Abagail Shrier who is famous for her work trumpeting the very discredited but viral “social contagion” theory that frames trans men and non binary trans masc people as being misguided lesbians and women fleeing from misogyny who spread transness to their friends who need to be protected from making terrible decisions and undermining the worth of femininity.
Transphobia is best described as framing trans people as a problem for other people. Naturally the problem framed is different for the two groups. In this instance trans men are still framed as being dangerous but rather dangerous by association…
"If we let them exist then they will tempt our perfectly healthy daughters into pursuing surgeries to make themselves into sterile parodies of men! We must stop them! Save the children! " Clutch pearls, repeat.
TERFs generally in fact do hate both, just in different ways. While I haven’t heard Rowling’s take, I’d be somewhat surprised if it wasn’t some version of the usual patriarchal agency denying thing where trans men are just confused by society telling them lies about escaping repression as women and how horrible it was that these poor girls were going to damage their bodies because they were just too dumb and weak-willed to know what they really wanted, which is a marriage to a good man and pumping out eight or nine kids. They want to take choice and self determination from all trans people, that version just plays better currently.
Incidentally, FtM and MtF are generally deprecated terms. Usually these days the terms, relative to my ordering in the prior sentence, are trans men and trans women, it’s less alienating than the older terms that tend to describe people as a segment of their life that isn’t them.
That’s the M. O. of terfs. They’re “feminists” who think MtF trans people are taking away or invading female spaces and achievements.
Don’t you have it exactly the wrong way around?
Also, since the hate itself is already irrational, any additional “quirks” in that hate shouldn’t be surprising anyone.
Yep, had it the wrong way around! Oops, was typing while walking.
Did you mix those up?
Yes I did, wasn’t paying attention while I typed it! Fixed now.
As mentioned, I think you have those reversed, but yes, as do all the so-called “anti-woke” brigade who are worried about crimes they’ve made up (which don’t happen), and have no real solution. There is, however, anti-trans hatred which they are riling up, resulting in violence and murders of transfolk at an alarming rate. If you ever ask about FtM people, they are suddenly quiet, because it completely messes with their logic.
Three dumbasses think alike.
professional haters don’t like a hate crime law? Color me surprised.
Calling those people professional haters is giving them far too much credit. Their hatred is amateur at best.
Disagree; I’ve met some pretty terrible professional chefs abd some pretty amazing home chefs.
They’re only “professional” because they get to bypass all the filters in society and skip to the front unlike us amateurs who drown in the background noise.
White supremacy in action.
nazis dislike law aimed at countering hate speech and harassment.
Yeah don’t use the word Nazi when describing opposition to censorship, however well intentioned the censorship is
this has nothing to do with censorship…
Well what is the law?
Attacking someone at random is wrong and illegal.
Attacking someone specifically because of their gender, sexuality, politics, religion, race, ethnicity, etc is worse and more illegal.
The new law adds ‘transgender’ to that list.
JK Rowling thinks that is a problem.
Attacking someone at random is wrong and illegal.
Attacking meaning what? Verbally?
Yes it is true I agree with both of those statements, I don’t know specifically about Scottish laws- but I remember hearing about this especially dumb case.
The dumbness was on the part of the government. It was censorship then, and it is still censorship now. I am nowhere near a fan of celebrating someone’s death. Still censorship, expanding what is censored is expanding censorship.
Limiting any speech is censorship. Speech is censored in some capacity everywhere, to use that as a basis for redefining it to not actually be censorship is very disingenuous.
Yes. “Fighting words,” credible threats, and other such aggressive language are generally illegal, even in the USA.
If any language being illegal is automatically censorship, then I don’t think censorship isnecessarily bad in every case.
Yes it is censorship, and it’s fair think sometimes censorship is okay, I generally disagree but I’m sure you could think of a case where I would tolerate it. Censoring fighting words I definitely oppose though for example.
Someone already described the law but I think there should also be a good explanation why it’s not censorship. That explanation in short form is called the paradox of tolerance. If a society strives to be more tolerant they may also end up being tolerant of intolerance. That tolerance of intolerance then prevents society from becoming tolerant, that’s the paradox. So the only real course of action for a tolerant society is to be intolerant of intolerance.
Attacking someone based on their sexuality is intolerance. Thus to be tolerant those attacks cannot be tolerated, hence the law. Why people are calling it “censorship” is because those people want to be intolerant. They cry “censorship” because they’re being prevented of acting out their own form of censorship, the kind where they try for instance to censure someones sexuality. Calling this thing “censorship” is the wording of the right-wing and unless you want to associate with the right I suggest you stop calling it that. It’s not censorship, it’s being intolerant of censorship.
I understand you oppose allowing speech that could lead to the rights of others being trampled. And that is a fair belief to have- it is however still censorship. Even to censor people calling for total thought control would still be censorship.
Not being allowed to kill other people also infringes on your personal freedom, is that censorship as well?
Censoring is about speech, but that is a limitation on actions.
I think you’re onto something, but this still fits the definition of censorship. I feel like you’d have a better rebuttal if you argued that some censorship is actually good for society. I’d agree with you there, in this case. But no need try to dress it up like it isn’t censorship when it is.
It is censorship if you get into the philosophical weeds, but I don’t see the benefit of being philosophically correct when all it does is empower the right-wing vocabulary. I also don’t see how the philosophical definition changes my point which is what censorship of censorship is not censorship.
see the benefit of being philosophically correct when all it does is empower the right-wing vocabulary
To be honest
changes my point which is what censorship of censorship is not censorship.
Because censorship is a description of an action, not a judgement of it- think “killing” vs “murder”
Rowling literally did holocaust denial not too long ago
Idk if she did or didn’t, but censorship isn’t a liberal solution
Me shoving my rapist father into a woodchiper wouldnt be a pacifist solution. Thank fuck I aint a pacifist.
Rip
It’s telling that you stopped replying to the thoughtful explanations on why this isn’t censorship and decided to keep calling it censorship.
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“Its telling you stopped replying once I pointed this out”
I’m sorry but that was just a ridiculous thing to say- it had been a couple hours, and I was doing other things in my life- plus was half asleep as it was 2am. I think its important to try to understand the situations others could be in aren’t identical to your own- that is empathy.
Also just checked the thread, I did not get notifications for some of these replies
For a bunch of miserable whingeing bastards, the Scots are pretty progressive.
Lol
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
You just made an enemy for life!
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
This is such a complicated issue. Free speech is a human right but hate speech can incite fear in targeted groups effectively silencing their voices. The Scottish hate crime law is consistent with international human rights laws which protect freedom of expression but do not protect hate speech. But they may been better served keeping hate speech within civil law. It’s a balance between the freedom of expression of individuals and the freedom from harassment, discrimination and abuse of some of the most vulnerable individuals.
Hate speech can also incite violence against targeted groups. I’m fine with freedom of speech but there’s got to be a line somewhere. I’m not sure whether this legislation is over the line or not, we’ll see how it’s enforced.
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Except they probably don’t even understand the laws. At least the statements she made didn’t actually break the law. She’s either stupid or purposely using a straw man argument.
So sure. They can stand up for what they believe in. And they can also also get ridiculed for being idiots whose shitty opinions are not based in reality.
for being idiots whose shitty opinions are not based in reality.
Oh the ironing, lol.
Oh the ironing, lol.
Yes, so much ironing going on in that quote.
Jeez, troll harder dude. Pathetic attempt.
You just don’t like what’s being said so you want to conflate it with trolling.
No, it’s low-effort rage baiting so I conflate it with trolling. That’s why I said “troll harder” lol
No it’s not.
You’re just grasping at straws to avoid admitting you’re wrong, now.
Goodbye. Gonna block you.
You’re really bad at this - seriously, it’s sad.
back in my day trolls had to work harder but when mods don’t ban obvious flame attempts they get an easy out :|
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Haters gonna hate…
…up to and until they face real consequences for their behavior. Then they’ll just whine about being treated unfairly.
Rowling was literally on Twitter breaking the law and daring anyone to do anything about.
They likely won’t, because she’s rich as fuck.
So yeah, they’re being treated unfairly, just not how they think.
I’m not quite sure why anybody gives a fuck about what she tweets.
She wrote a handful of successful books (I can’t comment on the content, I never read them), made a fucktonne of money, wrote a few other plays and books under a rando name… and yet she’s being quoted and reported on every five seconds.
Taking a step back a bit - my entirely personal opinion is that 95% of the people ranting and raving about this new law are the people who are gobshites anyway. The other 5% are quite rightly asking the question whether the law is proportionate, whether the police service is the right way to enforce the laws, and whether this could have been delayed to launch with the misogyny bill.
edit while I’m on a soapbox: as for Musk and Rogan, who gives a fuck what they have to say? Musk has probably been in Scottish airspace more than he’s been on Scottish soil, and Rogan is so far removed from Scotland politics that he might as well be on Pluto.
wrote a few other plays and books under a rando name
A man’s name, at that.
Not even just a man’s name, but the name of one of the most infamous conversion therapy “psychiatrists” from the 20th century.
U wot.
Edit: I just went through the wiki of the book and I cannot see any mention of the fact she tried to pass her work off under a male name. Has this been washed of it so that she can continue her ridiculous campaign without apparent hypocrisy?
She didn’t write the Harry Potter books under her pseudonym, but a lot of her mediocre crime dramas are written under the name Robert Galbraith. The conversion therapy psychiatrist I’m talking about was named Robert Galbraith Heath.
Yes, and I checked the Wiki for The Casual Vacancy and it conveniently does not mention that she did that.
Have you heard of the paradox of tolerance? It states, “if a society’s practice of tolerance is inclusive of the intolerant, intolerance will ultimately dominate.”
Seems to me like something we all have to care about.
Yes, we have all heard about the paradox of tolerance, because it gets posted in every thread.
It doesn’t really add much to the conversation, because it’s really not that insightful - if you let the wolves amongst the sheep then eventually there won’t be any sheep left.
I have yeah, it’s a fine line where to draw the line though. That can equally be used to silence people whose views are entirely sensible but inconvenient to whoever is writing the rules.
The question I’m struggling to grasp is why her? How come she’s the lightning rod for these opinions when she’s just spewing nonsensical bollocks and bile?
She might be “just spewing nonsensical bollocks and bile” OR she might be publicly and seemingly proudly flouting Scottish law.
So why not her?
I mean in fairness it will probably end up being both. It would appear she’s danced along the line of being incendiary-but-not-enough-to-get-charged up to now, but I can’t see it being long until she talks enough shit that she ends up with a fine - which is a bit pointless in her position as it’s probably lost in the noise of whatever riches she sits on.
As for why not her, I’d argue that - based admittedly on some pretty big assumptions - what experience has she had of being marginalised in recent times? How have the struggles for trans rights recognition negatively (or positively) affected her? What has she done to constructively make life better for the LGBTQIA+ communities which may have averted the need for a hate crime law?
My assumption is that the answer will largely be fuck all, where there are people - a set that I couldn’t possibly quantify - who are actively struggling with getting to grips with their own identity, or have lived experiences of marginalisation or ill-treatment that can actually speak on the issue of how the hate crime law is a net positive or net negative for those communities.
Those are the people I feel are the ones who are best placed to make for a constructive discussion on the matter, not someone who’s opinion is somehow disproportionately amplified because of her bank balance and status. That’s the argument I’m trying (and probably failing to do so articulately enough) to make - not just for Rowling, but for Musk and Rogan too seeing as they were named in the initial article.
Interesting stuff though, and I appreciate your input!
the answer to your question is basically that we’re just seeing the sort of, crystallized wisdom that anger is a great marketing motivator. musk, rogan, and rowling sell news headlines, not in spite of their brainlet idiot takes, but because of their brainlet idiot takes. people (broadly, also, said disparagingly), don’t want to hear from a well-spoken, humanized, smart trans woman who knows what the fuck she’s talking about, both because, on a meta level, that works to cut down on the propaganda driven controversy, but also because the things which she might say would not be as controversial as these dickheads.
free market news, and in free markets, everyone tends to race to the bottom, because, given an even playing field, the cheapest possible growth strategies tend to be the ones that win and accumulate mass quicker than the others.
I’m not quite sure why anybody gives a fuck about what she tweets
Well, in this case people care because she breaking a law…
I didn’t quite catch your username first time round, a happy co-incidence!
I was under the impression that her tweets weren’t illegal - even if she is being a bit of a bellend about it. I’m not sure whether it is outright legal, or whether it just doesn’t meet the threshold to secure a likely conviction.
Not 100% sure but:
The recent law is against “deadnaming” so Rowling keeps dead naming people on Twitter and daring cops to do something about it.
Which I don’t think they will, because she’ll throw millions of dollars worth of lawyers at them.
So she is (as far as I know) breaking the law
I don’t understand how throwing millions of dollars at lawyers will help if she’s indeed breaking the law. Wouldn’t that be something easy to prove for a regular lawyer?
Her hostile fixation with trans people is just bizarre at this point.
I understand she is concerned about biologically-born women (sorry, I don’t know what the correct term is) being at risk from a very small minority of criminal trans women assaulting them in bathrooms etc. But statistically that risk seems far out of context to the shouting she keeps making on it. And her ranting is just doing harm to the vast majority of trans people who just want to live their lives, because it sows animosity towards them and emboldens bigots and their hate crimes.
It’s basically an axe-grinding exercise on her part. And she probably keeps going due to the fact that people keep calling her out. So she then doubles, triples, quadruples down out of pride.
It’s just irritating. I wish she’d just calm down and either keep her opinions to herself or be more tactful.
Her hostile fixation with trans people is just bizarre at this point.
It makes perfect sense.
Bigots are rarely just bigoted about one thing. And this is the current “battleground”.
If they win this and this kind of discrimination becomes acceptable again, they’ll go back to homosexuals. If they lose they’ll move to another group.
It’s why you can never stop fighting them and the facsim they want, they’re never honest about their end goals
If you don’t defend the human next to you, there might not be anyone to defend you later. So we don’t even need people to get this for the right reasons, they should agree with it on a base instinct of self preservation.
The same thing the bigots exploit to gain followers.
Good points.
That kind of anger and fear towards people who are different from yourself just sounds exhausting. But I guess what’s exhausting to me and many other ‘live and let live’ people is invigorating to some people. Just seems like a really shitty way of wasting your life.
The term you’re looking for is cisgender. Trans = “on the other side of”, cis = “on this side of”
Thanks.
ThePowerOfGreek
Transphobia, more than any other bigotry, seems to rot the mind. It’s not obvious to me why it’s that way, but there are several cases where you can watch someone start at some vaguely terfy position, and end by losing their work and nobody wanting to hire them and getting divorced because they just will not shut up about how trans people, a subset of humanity roughly on par with genetic redheads in the general population, are destroying society and making everything awful and ruining their bodies and on and on and on.
Also, wouldnt some biological women also assault women in bathrooms?
Great point! I doubt Rowling, Musk, or Rogan would ever bring up that inconvenient point.
Oh no someone disagrees with me. Better ban political dissent.
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Do you have any other groups you don’t respect that you’d like to disparage?
If the only thing I knew about a given law is that those three complained about it I would immediately and wholeheartedly support and endorse that law. It’s probably awesome and badly needed.
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Removed, civility.
However, in this particular, case the law is wildly criticized and these 3 are just part of the crowd. And even a broken clock shows the correct time twice a day.
In fact, do you know who should make you mad? Politico.eu. This “news story”/“opinion piece” uses those names just to generate views and bring money. The subject is not being handled in any meaningful way. Your time is just wasted and you’re being used as a product to be sold to their advertisers. And you should be mad at yourself for continually falling in this trap of forming opinions on baseless information.
Casual reminder that Politico is owned by Axel Springer SE, the german Fox News
The problem with your attitude is that, by definition, free speech is only a useful right when it protects unpopular speech. The law at hand here isn’t a surprise (the UK hasn’t got free speech as an enshrined right), but it is certainly a particularly glaring red flag that there is absolutely nothing stopping them from e.g. passing a nearly-identical law copying Thailand about the royal family and putting in prison anyone who calls Prince Andrew a pedophile.
The vast majority of important free speech cases throughout history have involved the most deplorable people making the most deplorable kinds of speech, but e.g. American free speech would be nonexistent if the KKK hadn’t won their landmark case.
(the UK hasn’t got free speech as an enshrined right)
In practice, does the US?
Categories of speech that are given lesser or no protection by the First Amendment (and therefore may be restricted) include obscenity, fraud, child pornography, speech integral to illegal conduct, speech that incites imminent lawless action, speech that violates intellectual property law, true threats, false statements of fact, and commercial speech such as advertising. Defamation that causes harm to reputation is a tort and also a category which is not protected as free speech.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exceptions
It seems to me there are a lot of exceptions to free speech in the land of free speech. I wouldn’t see any harm in adding hate speech to the list given how large it already is.
e.g. passing a nearly-identical law copying Thailand about the royal family and putting in prison anyone who calls Prince Andrew a pedophile.
That seems more of a problem with flawed democracy or autocracies, than to do with free speech. Any awful thing could become law under a flawed democracy/autocracy. The UK has plenty of undemocratic elements and they’re abused to pass horrible laws right now, and we need to fix those elements - the laws are just the end result.
Yeah but what about, just… you know the whole vibe of the thing. I mean these people are really loaded and successful and they just do what they want and I’m drawn to their gravitas because my own life seems so hopeless and just don’t seem to be able to control my own television let alone an entire government so whatever they think and say is just an amazing breathtaking righteous truth bomb.
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Anyone who disagrees with the tribe is “trolling,” that’s how bad it’s gotten.
That would be bad enough if they didn’t then also advocate incarcerating people for disagreeing with them.
I think Denolition Man should be required viewing for any conversation about good vs bad laws. It’s worrying how few people seem to be aware of the ideas in that movie.
My dude. The person you’re replying to said nothing about whether or not they should be able to say what they want. They simply stated their opinion about what they said.
Log off for a bit and work on your reading comprehension.
Huh? The parent commenter said that without knowing anything else, they would support a law that (if you know something about it) would impact whether or not they should be able to say what they want. Now, that commenter may or may not support such a law knowing more about it, but the response addressed the danger of blind support for it.
How did you get to your interpretation of the parent comment?
It’s not blind support. It’s an educated guess based on the fact that those 3 people tend to froth at the mouth in rage against laws that are good for society and support laws that are TERRIBLE for society. So far their track record has been good enough that if they’re mad about a law, it’s probably a good law.
I don’t know why this needs to be explained to you. I’m going to log this as a donation to aid the mentally impaired on my taxes.
The problem with your attitude is …
No. That’s your problem with my attitude.
“Free speech” absolutists don’t convince me with their hypotheticals.
Believe it or not: absolute free speech is not the end goal and not as valuable as you all believe.
Forbidding some kind of speech can be okay.
Because not forbidding it creates an awful lot of very real and very current pain. Somehow the theoretical pain that a similar law could create is more important for your argument, than the real and avoidable pain thatthis law is attempting to prevent.
but e.g. American free speech would be nonexistent
And I say that the specific American flavor of free speech is not very valuable at all.
That’s how Trump people work.
that’s how you know scotland’s hate crime law is good.
Except for the fact that Scottish police already came out to say that she wouldn’t be charged for recent comments.
Because it doesn’t mean what the screeching idiots think it means.
that’s never stopped them. Jordan Peterson got famous by misinterpreting a canadian law to mean people would get jailed for misgendering trans people.
because she didn’t actually say anything that should could be charged for. jk rowling just was desperate to be a martyr.
Israely bombs sometimes hit Hamas, not just civilians. Does not make them good. Just like (supposedly) doing a good thing in this one case does not make it a good law.
And it was confirmed Rowling won’t even be prosecuted. Because of course these kind of laws don’t apply to the rich and famous hatemongers. They apply to the poor schmuck making a bad taste joke.
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Really says a lot about you that you would immediately try twist my words this way.
I was talking about this: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-43478925
What the fuck are you on about?
Please stop advocating for trans people, you’re only hurting their cause.
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I am not advocating for anyone. I’m just telling you that you shouldn’t either.
To be honest it’s not. It’s extreme and the content of the bill itself breaks the very law it describes.
Basically if you say any comment about a singled out group and anyone over heard you and takes offence you can br prosecuted.
So you’re in your own home, on the phone, talking about how all black guys have massive dicks. A neighbour overhears, gets offended and reports you. Even if you don’t get arrested, prosecuted or go to jail that incident goes on your permanent record.
that’s literally not what the bill is…
free speech tho
Aint America tho
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They can go fuck themselves.
How dare people disagree with me!?
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The fact that your comment is not deleted by moderators but the comments of the other guy are… man… this network is losing tha basic principles of what reddit signifies.
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I don’t know what he said or what he is cause its deleted by the mods… but I see what you said ! You insulted him! No mod cared about it!!
Imho This is what the worst Russia looks like . Bullies and no freedom of speech. Hate first, talk later. Corrupt police.
Full disclosure: I can’t agree with the latest JK but I fully understand how she got there… you fabricated her.
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Money transformed her. She got those royalty cheques and figured out she can say whatever the fuck she wants cause litigation against her is impossible. She is just another Pharisee parading her obscene wealth and influence. Also, free speech is made the fuck up. No speech is free. What you speak into the world transforms it. Especially with their reach.
Give her some credit. She had donated a lot of her money. At least she puts her money where her mouth is.
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Man… it isnt like I agree with you but the mods are deleting your comments like… automatically. I really though Lemmy was a better place than that… I guess I’m going back to the cavern (or reddit)
When people disagree with me that humans should have some basic human rights, then yes, fuck those sub-humans who disagree.
Nothing good in all of human history has ever come from conservatism. Not one single thing. Yet nearly every act of racism, xenophobia, homophobia, misogyny, transphobia and other bigotry ever committed has been by conservatives.
It sounds like what we disagree on most is if there is such a thing as a “good conservative” anywhere on planet earth. I’m not convinced there is.
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Your account is one day old and, of your 50 comments, nearly all of them are downvoted into oblivion. I don’t think the progressives on Lemmy are falling for any of your weird conservative takes. You might want to try out Truth Social instead. They might be more receptive.
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He says, clearly salty that somebody disagrees with him.
Wrong, but ok lol. Believe what you want sweetie.
Lol you really are defending Joe Rogan, Elon musk and Rowling. They’re not worth it. One is an obnoxious podcaster, one is a conman and one is a mediocre writer. A damn weird hill to die on.
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