Using the word 'muggle' is now transphobic

submitted by JulienMayfair from (self.LGBDropTheT)

As the now formerly gay men's group I used to belong to slides ever further down the TQ+ rabbit hole, today's furor is about someone's use of the word 'muggle' because JKR is a "huge TERF."

The post read thus:

"J.K. Rowling is a huge TERF and I welcome everyone to stop using her terminology, particularly the world 'muggle.'"

There are now 250 comments on the post containing this sort of hyperbolic nonsense:

"I cringe a little each time someone blithely uses that term [muggle] you mention. Because I know that someone who hates me and thinks I'm less than human has such a huge cultural effect that her words are deployed unthinkingly all around me."

Look, honey, JK Rowling doesn't hate you. JK Rowling doesn't know you. At best, JK Rowling doesn't care about you as much as you wish she cared about you. The word 'muggle' has entered the lexicon, and people using it are not using it to be "transphobic." You're just unhinged.

I find myself wondering how such people find the energy to function in the everyday world.

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[–]julesburm1891 42 insightful - 4 fun42 insightful - 3 fun43 insightful - 4 fun -  (19 children)

I’m still waiting for someone to show me where JKR said trans people are less than human.

[–]JulienMayfair[S] 38 insightful - 3 fun38 insightful - 2 fun39 insightful - 3 fun -  (4 children)

She didn't, but to pathological narcissists, the world is divided into black and white. Everyone validating my self-image = good. Everyone refusing to validate my self-image = bad.

[–]julesburm1891 30 insightful - 1 fun30 insightful - 0 fun31 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Oh, I agree. It just baffles me that these people will crucify anyone who politely asks questions or points out contradictions. It’s an unsustainable attitude that will make people hate you. The absolute freakout over JKR has peaked more people I know irl than anything else.

[–][deleted] 25 insightful - 1 fun25 insightful - 0 fun26 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It's because most trans have built this very shaky house of cards and they get incredibly perturbed when anyone even thinks of maybe poking it, because they know it's a very shaky house of cards, publicly and personally. It can unravel at any moment. Bad foundations in an earthquake-prone area.

[–]NeedMoreCoffee~=[,,_,,]=^_^= 17 insightful - 2 fun17 insightful - 1 fun18 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

It's a ridiculous cycle.

EdUcAtE yOuRsElVeS!!!!

Alright, i have questions. What about x, y and z?

BiGoT TeRf TrAnSpHoBe!! BlOcKeD & RePoRtEd!!

¯_(ツ)_/¯

[–]lavender_menace 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Did it really?

[–]8bitgay 22 insightful - 1 fun22 insightful - 0 fun23 insightful - 1 fun -  (12 children)

Frankly I have no opinion about JKR either way because I don't follow her, I didn't read everything she said, at best I read snippets of it. I can only say I agree with some opinions I've read in isolated tweets, like when she said "If sex isn't real, there's no same-sex attraction".

I'm not enlightened on the subject of JKR and I don't pretend to be.

But that's the difference. I've seen many people condemning her while they are even less aware of her ideas than me. People aren't criticizing her because they've personally read something offensive that she said, people are criticizing her because they were told second hand that she said something bad. Most people only heard others putting a label on her and started hating her based on that.

[–]GoValidateYourselfuseful lesbian 32 insightful - 1 fun32 insightful - 0 fun33 insightful - 1 fun -  (11 children)

Read her essay fully, I highly recommend it. She basically talks about all the stuff we talk about here, but far more polite and respectfully. She was actually extraordinarily respectful, logical, and fair in the essay, and any man who wrote the same thing would've been at best ignored by TRAs, or had like 3 cranky tweets against him. The only reason ppl say her words are "literal violence" and she's a "massive terf" and other hyperbolic bullshit, is because she's a woman. Every male comedian in the world has said worse, and less tactfully than she did.

[–][deleted] 11 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 0 fun12 insightful - 1 fun -  (10 children)

Or is it because she's a (generally) beloved rags-to-ritches public figure who has brought millions of people joy through her work and subsequently her opinion carries weight?

[–]GoValidateYourselfuseful lesbian 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

So b/c she's a generally beloved rags-to-riches children's author that explains why she got thousands of death threats? That explains why MtFs sent her dick pics en masse, along with rape threats? B/c last I checked men who are beloved public figures don't get rape threats en masse the first time they step out of line.

On top of the rape threats and dick pics (sexist abuse) she got "Death to JK Rowling" hashtag going crazy, with ppl posting pictures of knives and guns next to it!

That's not devoted fans "feeling betrayed", that's entitled men seeing an opportunity for sexist abuse of a successful, beloved woman, and taking it.

[–][deleted] 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

So on the reactionary part I completely agree with you. I don't believe the nature of vitriol would be the same if it were a man. Women don't send rape threats en-masse, and certainly not dick pics.

I still don't think that rape threats is what drove this to the extent that it did however. Hit the main-stream news anyhow. None of the articles I saw do I recall mentioning the abuse against her, just how she was supposedly a bad person. I think the articles I saw were written by women. The news would not have picked it up if she were a nobody. Her fame played in, and that's my point.

Maybe it's important to separate the phases of the backlash against her. The twitterati vs the rest.

[–]GoValidateYourselfuseful lesbian 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Most of the news articles posted about her, calling her "transphobic" and other bullshit, were copying each other! That was what shocked me the most about the news coverage, is that so much of the articles from separate newspapers read almost exactly the same, and almost none of them cited her essay, or explained what or how she was "transphobic". The "anti-trans" and "transphobic" labels were just taken as a given, and not questioned whatsoever. She was absolutely smeared and libelled by false coverage, to the point that she hired libel lawyers and made one of the newspapers publish an apology and redaction!

The main problem, as I see it, is that the damage from false coverage is done: more people will have read the original false story than the redaction. They just copy and repeat what they've heard others claim, and others copy them. It's like a vicious game of telephone, but through the news.

The first news stories though, that spread the libel, were written by Twitterati types, or people who erroneously believe Twitter is a "reflection of public opinion".

The fact JK was denounced so widely, to the point otherwise intelligent people bought the lie, and the fact that the transactivists who threatened to rape and kill her were not denounced, is a prime example of modern propaganda.

[–][deleted] 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Agree with everything here. When I saw the news that I did, I had to go back and check her statement, which I had read prior. Something smelled really fishy to me, and I'm already familiar with how far trans activists like to bend the truth, which is to put it mildly. Someone who isn't aware of TRA behavior or had not read her essay would probably just buy the headline that JKR is a transphobe.

Yeah, it did seem like a coordinated hit. Either that was planned, or TRA all think exactly alike. It's also a warning to the common person. If they can do this to JKR, they'll just as well do it to you, someone who does not have "fuck you money." JKR could at this point just be chilling on her own private island.

Redactions should not get to be buried in the footnotes.

people who erroneously believe Twitter is a "reflection of public opinion".

This is journalism today though. They all sit on Twitter and think it's gospel. It's amazing. Makes their jobs pretty easy, they just report what happened on Twitter and nobody has to do any real hard work of interviewing people, checking facts, doing research... maybe because Twitter hits first these days, journalism is all about not being scooped? But to your point, they pick and choose what they report from Twitter, right? JKR is a supposedly a transphobe, they can take that seriously, but the large number, thus important aspect, of people sending her death threats isn't also newsworthy?

[–]GoValidateYourselfuseful lesbian 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

maybe because Twitter hits first these days, journalism is all about not being scooped?

I think you hit the nail on the head with this statement, and it explains how a blatant lie that can easily be fast-checked can get around so quickly! This seems like a serious problem with social media. I don't know what the answer is to fix this. Maybe Twitter should just be deleted? The very nature of the character limit format seems especially prone to distortions. It's possible the only reason why it has not become a full-blown propaganda mill is the ability to link to other sites.

Redactions should not get to be buried in the footnotes.

100%. [REDACTED] needs to accompany the headline when stories have been proven false, and it needs to accompany citations to that story.

[–]fuck_reddit 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Under US law, redactions and corrections are supposed to be given equal prominence to the original story... which has been interpreted to be an unannounced footnote at the end of an article that was the TOP story for days the week before...

[–]fuck_reddit 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

That’s how it’s been for a while. There are montages of TV news reports all the way back in the Bush era of dozens of reports saying the exact same thing when reporting.

[–][deleted] 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I think any public figure of that size would have gotten the similar backlash (unless they were already a known conservative, then it's just another day ending in y). I think the unusual thing about JK is that the backlash against can very clearly be characterised as male aggression (cf. female aggression), and has a lot in common with the sort of violence men perpetrate against women (as opposed to the violence women perpetrate against men). I don't know any women who have sent each other or even to men death or rape threats or who have sexually harassed people. I know that men will do this.

I used to volunteer in a domestic violence setting (I won't be specific) and there is a difference between male and female aggression the way men and women are violent to each other. I'm not trying to say that women aren't aggressive or violent, I'm trying to say that they're violent /aggressive in ways different to men.

[–]panderichthys 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Possibly. But why should it (in their view)? 999‰ of them have never and will never meet her or become a friend of hers. The outrage and bEtrAyaL is incomprehensible

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Betrayal, well, I guess Harry Potter, the character, is the story of the underdog, isn't it?

[–][deleted] 21 insightful - 1 fun21 insightful - 0 fun22 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

You won't find anyone to show you, trust me.

[–]fuck_reddit 19 insightful - 6 fun19 insightful - 5 fun20 insightful - 6 fun -  (2 children)

"This word you used is about ME, it's ME you're talking about, why are you so obsessed with ME, why do you HATE ME????"

[–]ChunkeeguyTeam T*RF Fuck Yeah 14 insightful - 1 fun14 insightful - 0 fun15 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

It would be interesting to undertake a study on the overlap of narcissism and trans identity. I think the outcome would be very predictable.

[–][deleted] 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Also publicly available by the author on the internet, don't mind the link:

https://sci-hub.se/https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18431633/

[–]Three_oneFourWanted for thought crimes in countless ideologies 18 insightful - 6 fun18 insightful - 5 fun19 insightful - 6 fun -  (2 children)

Who the fuck uses the word muggle outside of the context of the Harry Potter franchise?

I suppose I might start using it just to piss people off

[–]JulienMayfair[S] 22 insightful - 1 fun22 insightful - 0 fun23 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Who the fuck uses the word muggle outside of the context of the Harry Potter franchise?

I'm going to say: people who live their lives through young adult fantasy novels.

[–]Constantine 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It's kind of become a meme where people use it to indicate they're boring in a self-deprecating way, or someone else is boring or unenlightened. It's dumb. Kind of like these people.

[–]ChodeSandwichtender and moist 20 insightful - 1 fun20 insightful - 0 fun21 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

They don't. Half of them are lying about how bad it makes them feel to get attention and impress other TRAs, the other half are unemployed shut-ins.

[–]homosomes 14 insightful - 12 fun14 insightful - 11 fun15 insightful - 12 fun -  (0 children)

"J.K. Rowling is a huge TERF and I welcome everyone to stop using her terminology, particularly the world 'muggle.'"

I dunno guys. Sounds like something a muggle would say.

[–]Femaleisnthateful 17 insightful - 5 fun17 insightful - 4 fun18 insightful - 5 fun -  (0 children)

Reality must be very difficult for some people.

[–]GoValidateYourselfuseful lesbian 12 insightful - 7 fun12 insightful - 6 fun13 insightful - 7 fun -  (0 children)

welcome everyone to stop using her terminology

Woke to English translation: We will call you a terf by proxy and shun you if you don't comply with our language controlling.

PS: If you ever decide to leave the sub, tell them you identify as a muggle, and they are literally killing you!

[–]MarkJeffersonTight defenses and we draw the line 13 insightful - 2 fun13 insightful - 1 fun14 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

She has already won in the sense that she and the HP lexicon live rent-free in their heads 24/7.

[–]deliciousdogfoodmy name isnt a puppyplay reference i swear 10 insightful - 4 fun10 insightful - 3 fun11 insightful - 4 fun -  (0 children)

Whoa

JK Rowling made her fake slur into a real slur. It's a power over the fabric of reality that should be feared and respected.

[–][deleted] 9 insightful - 3 fun9 insightful - 2 fun10 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

It needs to be added to "everytthing is transphobic" list.

[–]oyasuminasai50 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Imagine letting someone's opinion of you regularly impact your own happiness and sense of self. I take a shameless glee knowing that these people are so hurt by one person's opinion.

[–]GreykittymommaMagical lady 💜 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I have been trying to find something to put on my profiles for support, that's perfect! Muggle and proud 😂

[–]hetisachoice 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

"Tr-nsph-b-" is the PC equivalent of f-g, d-k-, and b-tch all rolled into one. Typical het male hate speech. The UK criminalizes such speech if I am not mistaken, and if anything they do not go far enough in doing so if it is not treated as a capital crime.

[–]nbailey73 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

These people are so fucking whiny it’s annoying. It’s a literal book series. Grow a pair and stop whining.

[–]chazzstrong 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I find myself wondering how such people find the energy to function in the everyday world.

Sadly, because most western societies are now ran by politicians who cater to these delusions because it makes the masses easier to control.

[–]jjdub7TERF (Trans Exterminating Reactionary Fascist) 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

You're just unhinged.

LGB-nuke-the-TQ-from-orbit-because-its-the-only-way-to-be-sure

[–]DollMeat-eating Vagitarian 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Stupid. Stay the fuck away from Harry Potter.