Using the word 'muggle' is now transphobic

submitted by JulienMayfair from self.LGBDropTheT

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[–]julesburm1891 42 insightful - 4 fun42 insightful - 3 fun43 insightful - 4 fun -  (13 children)

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

[–]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?