JK Rowling - Part Two

You know that thing, when you have something you're in the middle of, and you keep promising yourself you'll come back to it and finish it off, because it's only been a few weeks? Well, this is exactly how I felt when I came back to the keyboard to write the the second part of my blog article about JK Rowling--except that it's been over a year since the first instalment!

Mind you, this span of time has allowed me to think a little more about some of the issues raised in the previous part of the article. I've also been collecting quotes and snippets from around the web to inform this discussion, and of course, it's clear that JK Rowling hasn't mellowed in her views.

Ironic: Robert Galbraith

Moving on from the last two articles, the next thing which I think is pertinent is the publication of Troubled Blood, the fifth in Rowling's series of crime novels. While the book was published in September 2020, early reviews noted that there was a scene where a serial killer approaches a victim wearing a wig and a woman's coat. The Telegraph reviewer Jake Kerridge couldn't resist commenting on this:

Kerridge: One wonders what critics of Rowling's stance on trans issues will make of a book whose moral seems to be: never trust a man in a dress.

The thing is, the "man in a dress" passage is one paragraph long, in a book of 900 pages. One can hardly call this the moral of the whole novel! Predictably, however, there was a storm of hatred about JK Rowling on Twitter and other social media platforms, from people who could not possibly have read the book, because it hadn't yet been published. Nick Cohen reviewed the novel in the Spectator:

Cohen: The 'evidence' that provoked the malice was so flimsy, even Twitter should have been embarrassed to publish it. (...) No honest person who takes the trouble to read it can see the novel as transphobic. But then honest people are hard to find in a culture war. The men and women pouring out their loathing of Rowling online could not have read the unreleased book: not that their ignorance bothered them in the slightest, as no mob on rampage in history has ever stopped to read a novel. 

Does anyone else find it terribly ironic that JK Rowling is so opposed to trans people, what she considers men pretending to be women, and yet she herself has adopted a male nom de plume, Robert Galbraith, in her crime writing? Agatha Christie never did that!

Where Rowling is wrong

In the previous article, I point out some points that Rowling has made which I believe genuinely have merit. I do have concerns about the role and status of women in our society. I do worry about some people weaponising trans rights in order to further their own toxic agenda. And I'm completely in support of free speech, and open debate.

There's one more point she makes, in Episode 4 of The Witch Trials of JK Rowling:

Rowling: People are terrified, terrified of speaking up. So I really was starting to feel this moral obligation. I knew what was coming, but I thought other people, there are people who probably, if I’m honest, probably could speak and don’t want to speak.

This point resonated with me, and my views after reading Galileo's Middle Finger: that hardly anyone is pursuing good science about trans people, because if they dare to reach a conclusion which the trans activists find unpalatable, they will be mercilessly hounded for it, as Michael Bailey was. Rowling is talking here about women who oppose trans rights, but I think her point is broader: that there are people who are fearful of speaking out because of the consequences of doing so.

Orwellian views: Rowling

But let's start to pull apart where JK Rowling is wrong, because realistically there is plenty. It boils down to this view (quoted from here):

Rowling: I want trans women to be safe. At the same time, I do not want to make natal girls and women less safe. When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman – and, as I’ve said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones – then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside. That is the simple truth.

So ultimately, Rowling is saying that if you have a penis, even if you are a trans woman, you are at least a potential threat to "natal" girls and women. And this Orwellian tweet, from December 2021, really doubles down on that view.

The thing is, though, this theory doesn't stand up to any scrutiny whatever. If a predatory man really wants to get access to women, there's literally nothing to stop him putting on overalls and carrying a mop, and pretending to be the janitor. He's likely to meet far less resistance than if he puts on a wonky wig and a badly-fitting dress. And if he's really a predator, he's going to attack women in any place they may be vulnerable, such as coming out of the pub late at night.

Professor Judith Butler, a gender studies scholar, makes this point in The New Statesman:

Butler: The feminist who holds such a view presumes that the penis does define the person, and that anyone with a penis would identify as a woman for the purposes of entering such changing rooms and posing a threat to the women inside. It assumes that the penis is the threat, or that any person who has a penis who identifies as a woman is engaging in a base, deceitful, and harmful form of disguise.

Other commentators have rightly pointed out the absurdity of checking people's genitals before they're allowed into a public bathroom. Another issue is that, in many parts of Europe, public swimming-pool changing rooms are not segregated by gender, and in Scandinavia it's normal to enter the sauna naked, for men and women, and has been for decades.

Get your stickers here!

In Ireland, it became the law in 2015 that you could legally change your gender simply by filling in a form: no medical testing or declaration from your doctor is required. How many attacks on women have there been in Ireland, since 2015, by transwomen? None--that I could find. There are a few transwomen in prison in Ireland, and there is one individual in Scotland who raped two women prior to transitioning and was convicted in 2023 (causing the government to halt plans to allow legal gender transition in a similar way to Ireland). (And how many women have been jailed for sexual assault during this time?)

What that means, in my view, is that Rowling is purporting to be concerned about women, but is using this concern to mask her prejudices. The data simply do not bear out her concerns.

So how do we handle all this?

So what are we to do? Those of us who love the stories of Harry Potter, who admire the literary achievements of JK Rowling, and her philanthropic work, but can't agree with her views on trans women? I admit, it's really hard! Is it possible to both like Harry Potter and disagree with JK Rowling?

I think there's a genuine disconnect between the message that JK Rowling seems to have put into her books--

Rowling: The amazing thing about the Wizarding World is, you walk through that wall in Diagon Alley. And while human nature remains the same--and that’s something that I was setting out to depict, human nature remains the same--if you can do magic, the ludicrous things that we discriminate about in the Muggle world really are utterly immaterial.

--and Rowling's deep-seated anti-trans views:

Rowling: I’m constantly told I don’t understand my own books. I’m constantly told that I have betrayed my own books. My position is that I am--absolutely I am--holding the positions that I took in Potter. My position is that this [trans] activist’s movement, in the form that it’s currently taking echoes the very thing that I was warning against in Harry Potter.

Again it must be really difficult for Rowling: she's created this beautiful thing, that so many people value so highly, and yet now she has a viewpoint which is at odds with it--or at least, with nearly everyone else's view of it-- and she's trying to double down to say that trans activism equates with the forces of evil in Harry Potter. How many trans children have read the books, and imagined what they would see if they looked into the magic Mirror of Erised?

What the Mirror of Erised shows

I would argue that, of course it's possible to enjoy Harry Potter while disagreeing with JK Rowling's views on trans people. I further argue that debates (especially ones on the internet) easily become too polarised: you're either fully in support of JK Rowling, or you are sending her death threats, no middle ground. The truth, of course, is that we're all capable of being more nuanced than that, and that is the central message of my article. Even Rowling herself is capable of nuance:

Rowling: I believe the majority of trans-identified people not only pose zero threat to others, but are vulnerable for all the reasons I’ve outlined. Trans people need and deserve protection. Like women, they’re most likely to be killed by sexual partners. Trans women who work in the sex industry, particularly trans women of colour, are at particular risk. Like every other domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor I know, I feel nothing but empathy and solidarity with trans women who’ve been abused by men.

Is JK OK?

I actually think JK Rowling is hurting. She was once the powerless victim of an abusive husband. Now she has become enormously powerful and influential in her own right. She's used her status to make a point, no doubt well-meaning, in defence of women, and it has blown up in her face, resulting in painful backlashes, not just from the radical trans activists on the internet, but from her beloved fans, the actors who were in her movies, and other writers. It must be very difficult to face up to that hatred, when you were only trying to help, and it must really hurt.

Now, of course, she's dug herself in. She can't back out now. And why should she (she may ask herself)? She's JK Rowling! She's far bigger and more important than these losers on the internet! And by engaging with the haters, and by digging herself in deeper, she has got herself into a position she cannot possibly win, and cannot get out of. And people who are hurting lash out, and say hurtful things, which is what she's doing. I envy her enormous success in the literary world, but I do not envy the position she is in. You cannot fight hatred with hatred.

Is there a way to fix this? The most obvious way would be for JK Rowling to back down, to recant some of her views. From everything I've read (and it's been a lot) about this topic, I do not believe she can, or will. In her most recent article, published only a few days ago in the Independent, she says that loved ones "begged" her to keep her views on trans women to herself. It's likely they predicted exactly the shit-storm that she now finds herself in.

The next-best way would be for JK Rowling to do two things: first, stop making statements about trans women completely (let things settle down), and second, stop engaging with social media platforms. Rowling is wealthy and privileged enough that she can absolutely afford to isolate herself completely from social media, and surround herself with people who love her. I think, for her own emotional health, that's what she should do. That daily barrage of internet hatred is just too corrosive; the trolls too hungry to not be fed.

But I think she won't do either of those things. She has come to see herself as a champion of oppressed women, a defender of voiceless and downtrodden victims. As long as she casts herself in this role, she won't step back without feeling she's abandoning her needy followers, however imaginary their number may be.

Trans students at Hogwarts?

Not quite real: Sirona Ryan

The immersive computer game Hogwarts Legacy, released in 2023, features the Harry Potter franchise's first openly transgender character, Sirona Ryan, voiced by trans actress Rebecca Root. Apparently this character was introduced without any input from JK Rowling, though it's not clear if she actually objected. I was disappointed that the reviews were affected (according to the Wikipedia article) by perceptions of JK Rowling's views, even though she plainly had basically nothing to do with the creation of the video game.

Sirona Ryan isn't a student at Hogwarts (we haven't come that far) but a character that the player can encounter in the game.

There are so many ironies here. JK Rowling was once poor, powerless and unhappy. Now she is wealthy, powerful--and still unhappy. She wrote a series of books about inclusion and acceptance and discovering your true self--and then goes on to upset many of her fans by denying that acceptance to trans women. A trans character has been put into a Harry Potter game without her involvement. She protests about people she considers men posing as women, yet has adopted a male pseudonym for her crime writing.

But the final irony comes from Rowling herself, in Episode 2 of The Witch Trials, where she talks about certainty (my italics for emphasis):

Rowling: There’s a huge appeal--and I try to show this in the Potter books--to black and white thinking. It’s the easiest place to be, and in many ways is the safest place to be. If you take an all-or-nothing position on anything, you will definitely find comrades. You will easily find a community, I’ve sworn allegiance to this one simple idea.

What I tried to show in the Potter books--and what I feel very strongly myself--we should mistrust ourselves most when we are certain. And we should question ourselves most when we receive a rush of adrenaline by doing or saying something. Many people mistake that rush of adrenaline for the voice of conscience. “I’ve got a rush from saying that, I’m right.”

In my worldview, conscience speaks in a very small and inconvenient voice, and it’s normally saying to you “think again, look more deeply, consider this.”

I wonder if JK Rowling could take a look in the mirror, and reflect on those words. No magic would be required.

While writing this, I've come across quite a lot more of JK's statements on trans people, and I'm certain they're going to be cropping up in future posts!