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Today I cam across two pieces of news, the first about J K Rowling (anyone on this site who is still defending her.... how?), and covers her view of what a trans woman is.
"a man revelling in his misogynistic performance of what he thinks 'woman' means: narcissistic, shallow and exhibitionist".
https://news.sky.com/story/jk-rowling-trans-newsreader-india...
And the similarly awful Maya Forstater's employer being asked to fight against her appeal of her dismissal, by 87 of the people who had had to work with her....
https://www.thepinknews.com/2021/06/30/maya-forstater-cgd-op...
Comments
It Seems Being Nasty
Comes easily to some people. I was a great fan of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books (and the movies) but it seems that her success didn't bring her any compassion or humility. Her subsequent utterings are nothing short of disgusting.
Hatestater
That article about her colleagues is, unfortunately, three years old. Reader, her former contracting company didn't fight.
In better news, the rabid bigot Graham Linehan was refused a visa for Australia, as he checked in at the airport for a hate tour. Last time his friends went there, they were supported by literal Nazis sieg-heiling on the Melbourne parliament's steps.
Harry Potter and the Passel of Plagiarism
When you realise just how much of the Harry Potter story is lifted from folklore or more modern authors, J.K. Rowling rather loses her shine. I mean, even if she'd kept her politics to herself.
There are things in the Harry Potter stories that are original and good. Unfortunately, the original parts aren't good and the good parts aren't original. A quick web search will reveal where she lifted her ideas from, if you care... but at the end of the day, she's rich. She won the game - but we don't have to celebrate her.
Sugar and Spiiice – TG Fiction by Bryony Marsh
Also...
One of JKR and Hatestater's biggest supporters was spotted on a train, reading large print (she has poor eyesight) child rape Harry Potter fanfic* which she has claimed was 'research'. She has demanded that the police do something about the person who invaded her privacy and harassed her by, er, reporting her actions in reading kiddy porn on public transport in a public place*.
JKR has so far failed to comment on the fabfic.
*In both cases, my observation isn't 'you couldn't make it up' but, sadly, that you don't NEED to make it up.
JKR has some credits ...
... if nothing else she got children reading in the way no-one seems to have done to such an extent since, perhaps, Enid Blyton when I was a child in the 1940s/50s in the UK. I don't think Ms Blyton escapes criticism, either - her stories were rife with both classism (perhaps a unique British trait?) and racism. I was reading adult literature by 10 or 11 (eg my fathers' Hank Janson and Dornford Yates) but I read a fair bit of Blyton, too.
Many past writers prove to have less than perfect backgrounds when looked at by modern eyes.
I hasten to add that I deprecate JKR's attitudes to TG issues as much as anyone here. Whilst I'm sure there are dubious TG/TS people (don't all groups have them?) the suggestion that the TS/TG community is made up of those wishing to invade single-sex spaces is preposterous.
separation
Difficult is it is, we need to separate Harry Potter from J.K. Rowling in our condemnations. While I didn't care for the books and only read the first one, I owe them a debt. Over many years of sending my nephews books for Christmas they were my first real success. That year I got a phone call in January from two giggling pre-teens who loved those books. Thirty some years later I am still exchanging book recommendations with them. It would be wrong to keep future young readers from that experience because the author is small minded transphobic fool.