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!

JK Rowling and Posie Parker

You can think of this article as JK Rowling part 1.5 if you like, but it involves a significant digression which I thought deserved an article of its own.

I've worked through the whole of The Witch Trials of JK Rowling, and there's a lot to talk about. My initial thoughts about the podcast are this:

1. Megan Phelps-Roper, the presenter, has an absolutely beautiful voice, which is a complete pleasure to listen to. Interestingly I had never heard JK Rowling's voice before I started listening to the podcast, and it wasn't quite the voice I expected.
2. The podcast has a very American slant to it. It presents many of the events of Rowling's life and career set against a backdrop of American cultural trends and events. There is some discussion of things which happen in the UK or the wider world, but not very much. This is understandable--but disappointing.
3. The Guardian reviewer (that I quoted in my previous article) is right: the podcast is too long and meandering. JK Rowling herself isn't actually in it very much--certainly not as much as I thought or hoped--and doesn't appear at all in Episode 6. I found myself wishing they would skip past what Americans all thought about Harry Potter and get back to what JK Rowling was actually saying. And I wished that they would stop cutting away from what Rowling is saying to put in little asides and quotes from other people. Thankfully there are transcripts available, which feature only what Rowling says, at the Rowling Library.

Posing as Parker: Keen-Minshull

New Zealand had a recent visit by a British woman who calls herself Posie Parker. Her real name is Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, and she is a mother of four who styles herself as a woman's rights activist, and an anti-trans activist. I had never heard of her before a couple of months ago. It turns out that her star seemed to start to rise in 2018. She's very active (and vocal) online, and also takes part in rallies and other events, in Britain and, increasingly, the USA.

Keen-Minshull announced in January of this year her intention to travel to Australia, and across here to New Zealand, in March. This stirred up some pretty fierce opposition, both from the Aussies (they let her in, and neo-Nazis came to her rallies) and the Kiwis. Various petitions were made.  Immigration Minister Michael Wood spoke about her “inflammatory, vile and incorrect world views”. Ultimately, however, it was agreed that Keen-Minshull was not considered a risk to “public order or public interest”.

Gender Minorities Aotearoa, InsideOUT Kōaro, and Auckland Pride filed for a judicial review in the High Court. They sought an interim order to stop Keen-Minshull from entering the country until the judicial review could take place, but the following day a judge ruled that it was unlawful to keep her out.

Keen-Minshull had planned two events: one was going to be in Auckland, in the large Albert Park on 25th March; the other in Wellington.

Keen-Minshull: They [the rallies] are outside because too many venues will cancel us.

Hounded: Keen-Minshull

Nobody was under any illusions about what was going to happen. She was going to get up on a podium, with a microphone, and make anti-trans speeches, and that's what she tried to do. However, there were large organised protests against her (some of my friends went in carloads to Auckland to protest) and they chanted loudly and blew whistles and trumpets before her appearance. While she had 150-200 supporters, the protesters were far more numerous, thought to be about 2000.

Ultimately she never got to speak. A protester called Eliana Rubashkyn poured tomato juice over her hair and she was escorted away by police and security officers. Watching the events on YouTube, the mood of the crowd was angry and hostile, and it definitely looked as if the protesters outnumbered the supporters. Keen-Minshull was jostled and jeered by the protesters, and the YouTube footage shows her security team had quite a hard time getting her through the crowd to the police and safety.

Keen-Minshull decided to cancel her Wellington rally the next day, and left New Zealand instead, announcing that it was the "worst place for women she has ever visited", and apparently vowing to return to NZ to "win this war". And JK Rowling voiced support, tweeting that a mob had "had assaulted women standing up for their rights".

There was general rejoicing here; certainly among the rainbow groups. A bad lady from another country had come here to spread hate speech and was sent packing with her tail between her legs. There seemed to be general congratulation aimed at an unrepetentant Eliana Rubashkyn, who was charged with common assault but is still awaiting sentencing. No other arrests were made; no injuries were reported and no property was damaged. My impression is that the general feeling is that no great harm has been done, as this cartoon from the Otago Daily Times suggests.

But was this the right outcome after all?

One of my correspondents expressed disappointment with the way Keen-Minshull had been treated, and said she should have been allowed her platform to speak. At first, I have to say, I disagreed. However, a few things made me reflect about it a lot more.

The first was that, while trans people and supporters were in great evidence at Keen-Minshull's rally, and officials seemed to be on our side (Finance Minister Grant Robertson wrote "As a country we need to keep our trans community close, and support them through this time"), there was a sharp rise in anti-trans hatred online in this country. Was this because she was perceived to have been maltreated here? Would the hatred have been worse if she had been allowed to speak? I cannot say.

Otago Daily Times cartoon

The second thing was something JK Rowling herself said, in episode 3 of the Witch Trials podcast (which was made before Keen-Minshull's NZ trip). The italics are mine for emphasis of particular points.

Rowling: I was starting to think about this a lot, subcultures that have their own rigid rules, acceptable beliefs, non acceptable beliefs, everything becoming very reductive. (...) And I was becoming really concerned.

I think the first time I became really interested in what was going on, sort of culturally, it was Milo Yiannopoulos. The alt-right provocateur, I suppose you would call him. And I’m watching from across the pond as he tries to speak on various campuses, and there are protests, riots. You know, "We want him de-platformed, we don't want him to speak at all". And I thought it was a terrible strategic error.

And my feeling was, you are giving this man way more power than he deserves by behaving in this way. It made Milo look sexier and edgier than he deserved to look. I thought it was a strategically appalling turn. Get on that platform and eviscerate his ideas. Get on that platform and expose him for the charlatan that he is. You push back hard, but you’ve given him so much power by refusing to talk.

(...) In fact, I thought they were serving his purposes, because he was able to walk away from that saying, “Look, they don’t dare debate me! This is how dangerous and edgy I am!". And I don’t think we want to cast the alt-right in that light. But inadvertently, [that’s what they’re doing].

And this is definitely true. Immediately after returning to the UK, Keen-Minshull gave an interview with (conservative-leaning) Spectator TV, where a very sympathetic interviewer (musician Winston Marshall) gave her a very free platform, and every opportunity to spin the narrative entirely in her favour without challenge. For example, they both speak of the "violence", when there wasn't any (nothing like what happened with Milo Yiannopolous's rallies in the US). They play a clip (starting at 0:44) of Keen-Minshull being jostled by the crowd, which was filmed by her own phone. In the image, you can see a hand firmly around Keen-Minshull's neck, appearing as if she is being choked--but the NZ Herald footage shows that the hand round the neck was one of her own security guards. It makes it very easy for her to claim that she was the victim, when to trans people and our supporters, she was the aggressor.

Keen-Minshull: I don't know if some latent trauma [from these events] is going to come along and bite me soon, but I'm OK. (...) 

What they inadvertently did, they did two things. Number one they whipped up a frenzy, but the other thing they did is they told everybody my name on a repeating--like so many times that people were like "Well, what is this woman? What does she stand for? How can I-- like, why are we stopping her from coming into the country?" And then they look me up, and then they agree with what I say, and what I stand for. So it had, em, you know, they did me many favours".

Oh dear! How could it have turned out like this?

How could we have done this better?

As always in my articles, a little discussion is in order.

Mysterious: Posie Parker

First, where does the name Posie Parker come from? I assume it's some sort of online identity, so that Keen-Minshull can't be identified, although since she has come out so publicly, everyone knows her real name and identity now anyway. So why keep it? Is it because it's plainly easier to say than Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull? Is it a play on the name Nosey Parker? The closest I can come to is a series of mystery novels set in the 1920's, written by L.B. Hathaway, which feature a female protagonist called Posie Parker. I can't imagine that either LB Hathaway, nor the actress Parker Posey are all that thrilled by the potential association with Keen-Minshull.

Second, I am forced to agree with Keen-Minshull (and JK Rowling): by not letting her speak, we have empowered her. We have given her publicity. We have given her an enduring image: looking upset, hair covered in tomato juice (symbolic blood!). As sure as eggs is eggs, she will display that image whenever she wants to appear like she is the victim of those violent, dangerous trans activists. In short, by not allowing her to speak, we've done her "many favours".

Third, where does free speech fit into all this? In retrospect, I think the decision to allow Keen-Minshull into the country was the correct one. She has a right to freedom of movement, and freedom of speech. That freedom exists, as several government officials have pointed out, even for people whose views we may disagree with. What she is not entitled to is a platform; she is not entitled to an audience; she is not entitled to not have protesters at her events (although clearly the protesters seem to energise her). NZ Prime Minister Chris Hipkins, would not respond directly to her comments, except to say that he thought they were the "comments of someone who just wants to get a headline", and I think he is right.

Self-made martyr

How could we have done it better? I'm not sure. In retrospect, it's always clearer to consider what we should have done. If nobody had made a fuss, and Keen-Minshull had turned up to a crowd of twenty people with placards, and given a speech, and then nobody would really have taken much notice. Instead, she got a large jolt of publicity in her favour.

I think it's right to protest against speech we disagree with. JK Rowling's solution is "Get on that platform and eviscerate his ideas. Get on that platform and expose him for the charlatan that he is." That sounds so easy; so reasonable. But Keen-Minshull didn't come here for a debate! She didn't come here to listen to opposing views, consider them respectfully, and potentially modify her opinions--and she certainly didn't plan to share her platform with her opponents. Instead, she came to stir up trouble. It was made very clear to her that she was not welcome, and she chose to come anyway.

And she's vowing to come back to "win this war"--a war that she, and people like her, are perpetuating, rather than suing for peace. Instead of listening, debating, discussing, they are on the offensive. We cannot simply ignore her: she is too vocal now; too well-known online; too active, and with quite a large following. How can one counter an adversary, civilly and with dignity, who isn't being either civilised or dignified? It's an election year, so it's very likely that the government--and the opposition--will be very careful to try to position themselves favourably on issues of both trans rights and free speech.

I have no easy answers; feel free to add your own in the comments. Click here for the final part of this series.

JK Rowling - Part One

The controversy around J.K. Rowling and her comments about the trans community is continuing to rumble on. There are passionate people on both sides, and the issue is not going away. The Independent writes that "The situation has now become a toxic brew of prejudice, misinformation and tragedy. How has it come to this?" It's finally time for me to take a proper look at the whole business. And, as I've often discovered when writing about a complex subject, there just isn't room in one article to put it all in, so I've decided to split this one into two parts.

The background

First, it's well worthwhile starting at the beginning. J.K. Rowling was (basically) a penniless single mother when she wrote Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. The book and its many sequels have gone on to be stratospherically successful, making her the most popular author ever. Along with this success, there have been several very positive externalities. Her books became popular with children, which encouraged them to read--many kids (including sadly, one of mine) will only read stuff on a screen, not on a page. Along with this welcome boost in literacy, the translations of the books into other languages (you can even get the first one in Latin) has improved linguistic skill too.

Joanne Rowling, the artist known as JK

Second, the popularity of Harry Potter affected the publishing industry too. The manuscript for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was rejected by twelve publishers (I bet they're all sorry!), before being picked up by Bloomsbury, who were, at the time, a very small publishing company. The success of Harry Potter has made Bloomsbury one of the largest publishing companies in the world. And many other authors, such as Philip Pullman, have experienced a welcome boost in their reading figures, as the newly-invigorated reading public started looking for other books while they were waiting for the next Harry Potter book. It's no exaggeration to say that Harry Potter has changed the face of publishing.

Third, adults have got in on the books too. They even started to print Harry Potter books with more "adult" covers, so that adults reading them in public places wouldn't be embarrassed by being seen reading what was ostensibly a children's book. I have devoured all seven of the Harry Potter books, and loved reading every page, and plainly I'm not alone.

Fourth, while Rowling has earned a huge fortune, she has also given away literally millions, to all sorts of charities and good causes. So her career as a philanthropist is not to be sneezed at either. And she's more than a little bit gorgeous, if I may say so. And I know two people who have interacted with her for a decent period of time and said she was thoroughly lovely in person.

Rowling and Gender

Rowling's first (publicised) encounter with gender was the name on the cover of her books. Bloomsbury decided that her books would be most popular among boys, and it was felt that they would be less likely to read a book if they thought it was written by a woman. Therefore, she was asked to put her initials on instead, to conceal her gender. Unfortunately, Rowling has no legal middle initial, so she chose the initial K from her paternal grandmother Kathleen, and the name J.K. Rowling was born.

...and stand well back.

But the big problem began on June 6th, 2020, when Rowling read an article on Devex which spoke about "people who menstruate", and took to Twitter with her response.

She's clearly using (clumsy) humour to drive home her point. This tweet was the blue touchpaper which led to the massive explosion of anger from (it seems) almost every quarter; not least many of her loyal fans, who had found great resonance in the story of Harry Potter, a lonely, unloved outcast boy who finds his true identity and place in the world. At that point, Rowling doubled down, again in a series of tweets:

Rowling: If sex isn’t real, there’s no same-sex attraction. If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isn’t hate to speak the truth.

The idea that women like me, who’ve been empathetic to trans people for decades, feeling kinship because they’re vulnerable in the same way as women—i.e., to male violence—‘hate’ trans people because they think sex is real and has lived consequences—is a nonsense.

I respect every trans person’s right to live any way that feels authentic and comfortable to them. I’d march with you if you were discriminated against on the basis of being trans. At the same time, my life has been shaped by being female. I do not believe it’s hateful to say so.

Putting it in a nutshell: Rubin

I'm interested by the statement "I know and love trans people". This statement sounds a bit like the vague "some of my best friends" statement that people make when they are unsuccessfully trying to pretend they're not prejudiced against another group of people.

Since then many prominent people, including many actors from the Harry Potter films, and several large fan groups, have made statements either in opposition to Rowling's position, or in support of trans people. These are people who owe their own success and fame (and wealth) to Rowling's work, so for them to come out so publicly in opposition to her views is not trivial.

I don't need to spell out all the ructions blow by blow. There's a lot of detail on the Wikipedia page, and also excellent summary articles on Glamour.com and The Scotsman which go into much more depth.

"I don't believe it's hateful to say so"

While all this was unfolding, I wasn't too troubled. I admit, as a fan of both her stories and the woman herself, I was disappointed to hear her make these statements, but I wasn't angry or hurt. It's worth picking them apart a little. First, what she was saying was clinging to the old idea that biological sex denotes gender and that this situation is immutable. Some of the tweets she received, as quoted in The Scotsman, point out that there are plenty of women who don't menstruate.

Tweeter: I, a 37 year old woman with a uterus, have not menstruated in a decade. Women are not defined by their periods.

Not a joke: death threats

But, she isn't directly attacking anyone. It's worth re-reading her statement above, that she recognises that trans women are vulnerable to male violence, and that she supports their right to live in any way which feels "authentic and comfortable"--except she goes on to then say "but I'm female; you're not the same as me".

"I don't believe it's hateful to say so". Actually, I don't either. I think she's expressing an opinion. I think that opinion is wrong (and surely this blog has plenty of material to back up why I think that!), but the opinion is hers to express, and I believe she should be free to do so.

Of course, I don't know what was going through Rowling's mind when she met that backlash. I genuinely think she meant well. I think she probably has had sympathy for trans women. I think she meant to support women like herself, who have been the victim of male violence (and she has). I think she has been surprised, and probably hurt, by what has happened. People have showered her with hate messages; made death threats; burned her books (!). But when you're hurting, and you're one of the wealthiest, and most influential people in the world, then it must be really difficult not to hit back--and this is where she started digging in, and making things worse. She wrote this essay on her website, and it's worth a read.

Rowling: Immediately, activists who clearly believe themselves to be good, kind and progressive people swarmed back into my timeline, assuming a right to police my speech, accuse me of hatred, call me misogynistic slurs and, above all – as every woman involved in this debate will know – TERF. (...)

But accusations of TERFery have been sufficient to intimidate many people, institutions and organisations I once admired, who’re cowering before the tactics of the playground. ‘They’ll call us transphobic!’ ‘They’ll say I hate trans people!’ What next, they’ll say you’ve got fleas? Speaking as a biological woman, a lot of people in positions of power really need to grow a pair (which is doubtless literally possible, according to the kind of people who argue that clownfish prove humans aren’t a dimorphic species).

Here she goes again, using clumsy ridicule to put down her opponents. Of course nobody is suggesting that people are like clownfish--but it's clear she's unwilling to consider that her position may be wrong, or at least that she shouldn't use biology to attempt to back it up. Otherwise, her essay is articulate (of course!) and reasoned.

Where Rowling is right

I need to say that, from my perspective, some of what Rowling says is right (which is to say, that I think it is right!). I just want to unpick some of that just now.

Got a point: Rowling

First, I do have concerns about the position of women in our society. I see, for example, that hospitals have renamed their facilities from things like Labour Ward to things like Birthing Suite; the former term emphasising the medicalisation of an unpleasant experience; the latter term being more positive and welcoming. Departments of Obstetrics and Gynaecology have been renamed things like Women's Health, again to stress the positive aspects of what they are trying to do: to promote the health of women. This isn't just a trivial rebranding: it's the outward manifestation of hard-won gains in the status of women over the decades. It's partly a recognition that pregnancy isn't a disease, which needs to be treated in hospitals, but a natural (and positive!) state for women to be in.

But now, with the rise of transmen becoming pregnant (this is definitely a future subject for this blog), we're having to change our language. In my hospital, we're now talking about "pregnant people" rather than "pregnant women", so that we don't inadvertently exclude those who are pregnant but identify as men. We're doing this to include a tiny percentage of our patient population, but I do worry that we may be making these concessions to the few, at the expense of the many; robbing them of our overt recognition of their status as women. If we want to include everyone, that needs to come without a cost to existing groups.

Second, I do worry about how some people (including some trans people) are weaponising what should be a welcome progression toward a more open and inclusive society, in order to further their own toxic agendas. There are examples here on this blog.

I definitely think the response to anything which is vaguely transphobic is pounced upon, and it is widely circulated on social media, in order to stir up hatred. A core group of hardliners seemingly just waits to find something--anything!--to hit out at. I have absolutely encountered this personally. Whenever I dare to disagree with a trans person on social media or Quora, on any topic, their knee-jerk response is to call me transphobic--when in fact the complete opposite is the case. It makes it very difficult to actually have a dialogue, because people see any statement which is not wholly supportive of their position as an out-and-out attack.

Misinterpreting: Wiens

One personal example comes from Quora. The question was How do you feel about the rise of pre-teen children coming out as transgender? and my answer begins "Surprisingly uncomfortable, even as a trans person myself. Why? Because the right research hasn't been done. It hasn't even been done in adults." This statement was pounced upon by a Quoran called Tamara Wiens, who called me "infuriating" and "deeply transphobic". Eventually, however, she gave up. The upper part of this screenshot is Tamara's words, although you can read the whole conversation if you're a Quora member. (Be warned; like all social media, Quora is pretty addictive!).

I'm using this example for several reasons; first, as an illustration of how a mild statement ("uncomfortable") can be misinterpreted as hatred or transphobia by someone who is looking for an argument. Second, to highlight my own view that we do need to be pretty careful about how we treat transgender children. This is something that JK Rowling has expressed concerns about. Third, because it actually remained a conversation, rather than degenerating into a slanging match (I don't participate in those). Some people become very offensive, or block me completely.

The third point I want to make is that I'm absolutely in support of free speech. In this, Rowling and I are completely aligned:

Rowling: The third is that, as a much-banned author, I’m interested in freedom of speech and have publicly defended it, even unto Donald Trump.

She's referring, of course, not just to banning her books before the gender furore, but because her books were banned in some parts of the US because some people believed that children's stories about magic being cool are un-Christian. I wish I were making this up.

Alamogordo, New Mexico, 2001

That's why, of course, I'm arguing that JK Rowling should be free to make her points. They are hers to make. She does not deserve hatred; she does not deserve death threats. And in the magnificent words of Henry Jones, Sr: "Goose-stepping morons like yourself should try reading books, instead of burning them".

This article is already quite long enough, and there's lots more to talk about! The interesting (recent) development is that Rowling has teamed up with podcaster Megan Phelps-Roper, to produce an extended interview to put her points across: The Witch-Trials of JK Rowling. I've already listened to the first episode (there are seven). I must say I thought the podcast would be an extended, fawning hagiography of Rowling; after all, she's not going to grant a lengthy audience with someone who is really going to challenge her, or to present her in a bad light.

The Guardian has it absolutely right:

Guardian: The Witch Trials of JK Rowling is a strange podcast. Rowling’s careful, crisp mind contrasts with host Megan Phelps-Roper’s mushy Christian desire to be as kind and evenhanded as possible. That’s not to say that the podcast isn’t interesting – it is – just that it’s uneven and reeeally streeetched out. It needs a far tougher editor.

But my full thoughts on all of that will need to wait for next time. Click here for the next thrilling instalment!

The Medical Profession is Female

A man and his son are terribly injured in an accident. They are taken to hospital requiring surgery. A surgeon is called, but looks at the boy and says "I can't operate on this boy: he's my son!" How is this possible?

Does this riddle perplex you? If so, you may be demonstrating your innate gender bias, that surgeons ought to be male, and therefore you expect the surgeon to be the boy's father. Of course, the common answer is that the surgeon is the boy's mother (though it's becoming increasingly possible that the boy is the child of a gay couple).

My media feed this week sparked my interest with its announcement that the "Medical Profession is Female", and I followed the link.

Professor Elizabeth Loder is a professor of neurology at Harvard, and the head of research at the British Medical Journal. She writes (my italics):

Loder: Soon, most doctors in the US, the UK, and Europe will be women; this is already the case in many countries (...) The stereotype that doctors are men persists at a time when almost half of physicians are female—and it has been internalised by women physicians like me—so it’s a problem that needs to be fixed. How to do this? It would help to retire “he,” “him,” and “his” as the default pronouns for doctors and make a deliberate switch to “she,” “her,” and “hers.” Pronouns are in flux, and it’s possible that “they,” “them,” and “theirs” will become standard. Until that happens, I have a proposal: when in doubt, and the gender of the doctor is unknown, let’s use female pronouns to send a message and open minds.

Professor Elizabeth Loder

There is no doubt that she is right. Women outnumber men at admission to medical school already, and my own belief is that more than half of all doctors are already women.

Loder's piece was prompted by a paper recently published in the BMJ which shows that female scientists are less likely to use positive terms to describe their research findings compared to male scientists. The men tend to use positive-sounding words like novel, unique, or unprecedented, and papers with this more positive language get cited more often.

Academic papers are usually cited in a way which masks the first name of the authors. They are usually given by their initials only: (Lennon J, McCartney P, Harrison G, Starr R), which makes it pretty hard to infer anyone's gender. I had always considered that this made academic publishing encouragingly gender-neutral, but the BMJ paper shows that there is a measurable male-female difference.

As an amusing aside, those of you who are familiar with British English will know the expression "old Uncle Tom Cobley and all", meaning "everyone imaginable". I was delighted to discover that there are several listings in academic journals where Cobley UT has been listed as a co-author!

Loder: Using female pronouns for doctors would force everyone, on a regular basis, to remember that women can be doctors. Soon the default use of female pronouns will make sense for the same reason we’ve defaulted to male pronouns: it will be the best reflection of reality and the new gender makeup of the physician workforce. Furthermore, in situations where most doctors are male (surgical subspecialties, for example), it’s then even more desirable to use a default pronoun of “she” to expand people’s ideas of who can be a doctor.

I'm already doing this very deliberately in my Quora answers, and at work I am careful to deliberately avoid assuming male pronouns for doctors (instead I tend to use they). The very first post I ever wrote on this blog, back in 2011 (!) was about pronouns, although I must say that the invented, gender-neutral pronouns still grate with me wherever I see them.

What I saw, twenty or more years ago, is that to succeed in medicine, women had to outperform the men. That meant that the few female consultants and professors, that I knew then, tended toward the ferocious spinster archetype. I got the impression these were women who had sacrificed a lot (personal life, family life) to get their positions. Many seemed to me to be bitter and battle-hardened: sick of proving themselves right in front of mansplaining men who were not as good as they were.

Before she was that doctor, she was this doctor.

It was considered acceptable for women to do the “touchy-feely” specialties, such as general practice or psychiatry. But women found it very difficult to succeed in the “tougher, harder” specialties such as surgery (especially orthopaedics). The following quote comes from my favourite dark medical drama, the wonderful Cardiac Arrest:

Just because surgery involves a bit of sewing doesn’t mean it’s any job for a housewife!

I personally witnessed the deliberate, ritualised bullying of a highly capable surgical trainee who had committed two grave sins: being a woman, and having brown skin.

But things have changed, and are still changing. Those battle-hardened spinsters have blazed the trail, and women are streaming into specialties which have previously been off limits. And they no longer need to do battle with the boys, which means they are more relaxed and able to express themselves. Some female surgeons operate with little feminine touches: fabulous pink surgical boots (instead of boring white) or operating spectacles with little sparkly bits glued onto the legs and rims. These sound like little things, almost trivial, but they represent ground which was hard-fought for, inch by inch.

The men are, in general, much more respectful and better-behaved. Some of the older ones have ascended to higher echelons, which means that Medical College councils and presidents still tend to be mostly men. But even here I am hearing new dialogue. The president of my Medical College (a man) announced that, considering all the Annual Scientific Meetings our College has ever held, over 100 keynote speakers have presented, and only six were women. Imagine, he said with genuine sincerity, all the talented speakers we have missed out on. (This year nearly all the keynote speakers were women).

That talented surgical trainee I knew back in the day has made it; she was far too talented not to. But she lost something along the way: her compassion is far less now than it was when I knew her. She too has been battle-hardened.

I remain hopeful that these trends continue, and I remain certain that medicine (and hence patients) will benefit from improved gender balance.

But there is one thing still missing: where are the trans doctors? If, as I suspect, there are just as many transgender doctors as there are in the general population, where are they all? This is a subject I intend to explore more fully in a later post, because I've been doing a lot of looking. Meanwhile, if you have a story or viewpoint to share, please leave a comment.

Rachel Dolezal

Here is a question. Is a person's identity something they determine for themselves? Or is it something which is imposed upon them by society? Is it a bit of both? Or is it neither, but somewhere in between?

I do not have an answer to it, but I do believe that a consideration of Rachel Dolezal* is pertinent to the discussion.

Rachel Dolezal as an adult

First, a brief bit of background. Born in the United States in 1977, Dolezal attended Howard University, a historically-black university in Washington, DC, and obtained a Master of Fine Arts degree in 2002. She taught part-time in Africana at the Eastern Washington University. In 2014, Dolezal was elected the president of the Spokane chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. By all accounts, she fulfilled her duties with energy and enthusiasm.

But in June 2015, things hit a real snag. I need to pause now to make a few further points. I don't live in the US, although I have spent some time there. I don't pretend to understand much about race relations in the US, although I have read about it to some extent. But the simplistic bottom line is that, up until this point, nearly everyone thought Rachel Dolezal was a black woman.

In June 2015, Dolezal's parents publicly announced that Dolezal wasn't black. They themselves are European Americans, of Czech, Swedish and German descent. And they released photographs and even a birth certificate to prove it. "She’s clearly our birth daughter, and we’re clearly Caucasian", they said. Dolezal had been estranged from her parents for some time prior.

Not actually black? Dolezal as a teenager

There followed an explosion of interest in Dolezal. She was immediately scrutinised from all quarters, and came under an enormous barrage of criticism. She stated:

Dolezal: I acknowledge that I was biologically born white to white parents, but I identify as black. (...) I don’t, as some of the critics have said, put on blackface as a performance.

She was forced to resign from her post in the NAACP, and was later dismissed from her post at the Eastern Washington University. Later there was some confusion when Dolezal seemed to use terms such as transracial to describe herself; this term was already employed to describe children adopted and raised by a different race.

In a detailed interview with the Guardian, Dolezal "rejects the idea that she is a black person in a white person’s body – and spurns the concept of transracial. (...) Dolezal has made a point of describing herself as black, not African American, a distinction derided by Vanity Fair, but one that black Africans in the US would recognise. She describes African American as a particular historical experience. To be black is broader, unbound by dates or borders."

Let's steer clear of any further terminological confusion, and get right into some of the criticisms.

Guardian writer Syreeta McFadden writes:

McFadden: Dolezal’s messy theft and fiction of a black American identity uses the currency of a subculture of privilege that is rooted in white supremacy too. If anything, to believe that one can transfer one’s identity in this way is a privilege – maybe even the highest manifestation of white privilege. The ability to accept marginalization, to take on the identity of blackness without living the burdens of it and always knowing you could, on a whim, escape it, is not a transition to blackness; to use it to further your career or social aspirations is not to become black.

Meanwhile, across the pond, Denene Millner writes that Dolezal's chosen (African-derived) name represents "doubling down on her insistence" of her black identity in response to the controversy:

Millner: The woman formerly known as Dolezal is still a white lady with fussy hair and a bad tan, trying to make fetch happen. Snatching two words from two separate African languages and claiming them as a reflection of her connection with blackness cannot — and will not ever — earn her the soul of black folk.

Blackness is a bright and shiny diamond, and here in America, everyone wants to wear it like a Rockafella chain around their neck. (...) Like diamonds, blackness is created under extreme pressure and high temperature, deep down in the recesses of one's core.

And it is the ultimate in white privilege, really, for a white woman to see that diamond, all shiny and hard and unbreakable, and pluck it for her own, like it's a gift from Tiffany's, with seemingly zero regard for the pressure, the heat, the pain it went through — that we went through — to earn that shine.

And Britain's Dominic Lawson writes:

Lawson: Rachel Dolezal is merely the most spectacular example of the growing phenomenon of people posing as victims — itself the consequence of a culture which portrays victimhood as a form of moral superiority.

I was being me: Rachel Dolezal

Criticism was not confined to Dolezal herself. An article supportive of her entitled "In Defense of Transracialism" and published in April 2017 in peer-reviewed feminist philosophy journal Hypatia, provoked a storm of protest on social media, culminating in an open letter to the editorial board demanding that the article be retracted, and a subsequent (unauthorised) apology from some of the associate editors. The Editor-in-Chief and the Board of Directors have stood by the article, and have refused to take it down. The Wikipedia article offers a good summary and is well worth a read.

The author of the article, Rebecca Tuvel, pointed out that in 2015 Caitlyn Jenner came out as trans, and was widely praised and accepted, appearing on the cover of Vanity Fair and being named one of Glamour's Women of the Year 2015. In contrast, Rachel Dolezal was widely vilified and lost her job and status. I think Tuvel has a very good point in highlighting the significant contrast there.

So where is the damage?

Until I started to write this article, the above was all I knew of Rachel Dolezal, and it prompted me to consider several points.

First, until her parents outed her, Rachel Dolezal was accepted to be black by everyone around her: her employers, her friends, her students, and the wider community. Nobody seemed to notice. Nobody seemed to point at her and say "Hey, you know, you don't seem very black to me?" Nobody seemed to think she was doing harm. Nobody seemed to think she couldn't do her job, and it certainly doesn't seem as if she was breaking any laws. What, I wonder, was she doing wrong up until this point? Where was the damage?

The Guardian quoted NAACP president Cornell William Brooks, who said that the NAACP is “not concerned with the racial identity of our leadership”, and went on: “Our focus must be on issues, not individuals.” And her colleague at NAACP, Cedric Bradley, spoke up in favour of Dolezal's positive work in social justice. Some of her other colleagues and friends have spoken in support of her.

Rachel Dolezal's biological family, with her four adopted brothers

My next question was: why was she outed in the first place? And that's where the story takes a darker turn. Dolezal seems to have been very creative with her own life story. She has stated that she was born in a teepee and that her parents hunted for food with a bow and arrow. She told people that several different black men, most commonly a friend called Albert Wilkerson, were her father, (while her biological father was only her stepfather); and that her adoptive brother Izaiah was her son. She described herself on some websites as a professor, without ever having been one.

Worse, Dolezal complained to police on several occasions that she had been a victim of hate crime, presumably race-related. Police investigations revealed no evidence of crime, but did reveal strong suggestions that Dolezal had fabricated racially-motivated threats against herself. It was as part of the wider investigations into Dolezal's background which turned up her true biological parentage.

So now the question of where the damage is can be answered. Dolezal's fabrications have wasted police time and resources investigating crimes which never took place, invented for the purposes of attracting sympathy and validating Dolezal's own identity and sense of victimhood. There was a deception there. One can argue about whether it was malicious or not, but it was deliberate and indisputable.

A bright and shiny diamond?

Dolezal's birth certificate

So the next question becomes: why did all this arise? Dolezal's upbringing in rural Montana was pretty tough. In the 2015 Guardian interview, journalist Chris McGreal writes "Life was dictated by the couple’s strict interpretation of the Bible, including a strong belief in creationism and a puritan-like commitment to simple living and harsh punishment". Even the identity of the medic who delivered her as a baby is recorded, on her birth certificate, as "Jesus Christ". Perhaps he works for the State of Montana.

She grew up with her natural brother Joshua, and they were home-schooled. Her parents adopted four further children when she was a teenager; three African-American boys and a Haitian boy. Dolezal accuses her parents of frequent beatings, and these accounts are corroborated to some extent by her brothers. It certainly seems pretty likely that her childhood was unhappy, and probably pretty miserable and cruel at times. The Guardian reports that she used to imagine herself as really an Egyptian princess who had been kidnapped by her parents.

We can only speculate on where the idea of associating herself with black identity came from. Was it distancing herself from her parents' culture? Or attempting to pursue a new identity (Denene Millner's bright and shiny diamond)? Some people have accused her of mental illness, which seems to me unduly harsh. She told the Guardian:

Dolezal: As long as I can remember, I saw myself as black. I was socially conditioned to discard that. It was an all-white town. I was very unhappy. I felt like I was constantly self-sabotaging in order to conform to religion, culture dynamics. I was censoring myself. I was shutting down inside.

Given some of Dolezal's other porkies, I think it's reasonable to take some of this with a grain of salt, although I accept her point that she felt stifled and unhappy by her strict parenting, and I feel reasonably sure that Dolezal's attempt to switch race has been triggered by her difficult and painful childhood.

Let's set aside, for a moment, what Dolezal's motivations are, and accept at face value her comments that she identifies with being black; she feels black (and always has); and that she wants to continue to be black. Let's also set aside the lies she told to get into her jobs, and the indisputible hurt and anger she has caused to lots of people by pretending to be black.

Let's just consider this one point. Consider a white woman, born to white parents and raised accordingly, who describes herself as black. She has adopted brothers who are black. She was married to a black man between 2000 and 2004, and the first child she bore is thereby of mixed race (therefore black). She went to a formerly black university; taught African studies; and worked for a group to further black rights. I have no doubt that she affects mannerisms of speech, posture, gesture, dress and custom which would be considered "black". Not least, she was accepted and taken to be black by hundreds of people over many years. Is that enough for her to be accepted as black? And, if the answer is yes, is that OK?

Establishing race and identity

Black and white: not as simple as that

How much of "you" has to be black, for you to "be" black? Is it enough if you are one half? One quarter? One eighth? Is it a matter of inheritance of genetic material at all? Is it a matter of exactly what tone your skin is? Is it a matter of your upbringing, your culture? Is it (as Denene Millner writes) a matter of shared experiences? Is it a matter (as Touré Neblett insists) that the one thing all black people share is experience of racism? Or is it something intangible, something indefinable?

Bliss Broyard writes an excellent piece exploring what it means to be black, having first discovered that her father was of mixed race, literally as he lay dying. This revelation had a subtle but far-reaching impact on her image of herself and how others related to her. Broyard's article points out that, since 1970, Americans are allowed to "self-identify" their race on the Federal census. Nobody checks up on which box you tick, and the results form national statistics guiding official policies. Since 2000, Americans have been allowed to tick more than one box to identify their race.

And her piece was linked to this article by Steven Thrasher (my italics for emphasis).

Thrasher: I have zero personal insight into why Dolezal chose to perform race as she did. But the reason that her story is so fascinating to me and to the rest of the world is that it exposes in a disquieting way that our race is performance – that, despite the stark differences in how our races are perceived and privileged (or not) by others, they are all predicated on a myth that the differences are intrinsic and intrinsically perceptible. (...) Like it or not, she’s exposed how shaky and ridiculous the whole centuries-old construct of individual “race” is.

This certainly feeds into my own thoughts, which I touched on five years ago on this blog, writing about Jaye Davidson, who is considered "Black British" by virtue of his Ghanian father, even though he doesn't look black. Does blackness "trump" other aspects of your ethnicity? And it brings me back to the essence of this article. Is your identity something which you determine for yourself? Or is it something which is imposed upon you by others?

Dolezal: Black like me

Rebecca Tuvel's article considers four questions about Dolezal's purported black identity. The first is the necessity of cultural experience, including the experience of racism (as per Touré Neblett's article). Dolezal seems to have been so determined to experience this that she concocted it for herself. The second is the question of ancestry; the truth is that we are all mixtures of various races and ethnic groups, and Bliss Broyard has had her DNA tested four times with four different results.

The third is the idea that the black community could be harmed when a white individual seeks to enter. For me, it seems plain that nobody seems to have complained that Rachel Dolezal harmed the black community, until she was revealed to be white.

And the fourth question is an extremely sensitive one: the idea that Dolezal is wrongfully exerting white privilege. As touched upon by Syreeta McFadden, this would mean appropriating black identity without accepting any of its burdens, and with the luxury of being able to leave it at any time. Tuvel quotes the writer Tamara Winfrey Harris: "I will accept Ms. Dolezal as black like me only when society can accept me as white like her". My point is that Dolezal seems to not have changed her mind in response to some extremely negative experiences, and (in the words of Denene Millner) "doubled down" on her identity. If she could retreat, wouldn't she do it?

Tuvel considers these questions and argues against them all, drawing parallels with gender reassignment, and coming to the conclusion that Dolezal should be accepted to be black. It is this conclusion which led to the outburst of protest against her paper. I am pleased with the decision by Hypatia to let the paper stand. As I have written elsewhere, protesters should not be allowed to silence considered, peer-reviewed publications, just because they get upset about them.

Wrapping it all up

So let's try to wrap this all up. As always, there are many layers of complexity to consider.

We don't know why Rachel Dolezal chose to attempt to switch races, and we will never know. I think it's likely she will say whatever casts her in the best possible light, so I don't think her own personal accounts of her motivations are completely reliable. The best we can do is to accept her statements that "I wasn't identifying as black to upset people. I was being me."

It's clear that, along the way, she fooled a lot of people, to her own advantage. In other countries, I suspect people would be much less bothered about what Dolezal's purported race was, but this was the United States, where a lot of people take race identity extremely seriously, and she must certainly have known that, and how upset they would be if they knew the truth. As a result, her deception was harmful, and deliberately so. In addition, there was the issue with fabricating the hate crimes, and a further issue around legal action against Howard University. (This article is already too long to go into this!)

Nonetheless, I have some sympathy for Rachel Dolezal. I don't know if it would be possible for her to try to live her desired black lifestyle without an element of deception. At first, she seems to have achieved a sense of belonging, only to have it torn painfully away when her deceptions were revealed. Ironically, if she hadn't cooked up her stories of experiencing hate crime (which presumably she did to validate her identity), she might never have been outed. In any case, it will now be extremely difficult for her to escape from the shadow of what has happened. She has written a book about her experiences, entitled In Full Color. Although I disagree with her wrongdoing, I cannot find it in me to condemn her for wanting to live and identify, and be accepted, in the way she chooses.

It certainly seems to me, as per Steven Thrasher's article, that the notion of race is very vague. Nobody can quite agree on how it can be defined, or determined empirically. It clearly isn't based just on what you look like. It's a phenomenon which comedian Sasha Baron Cohen has deliberately satirised in his Ali G persona. ("Is it because me is black?") I will not be convinced that blackness is something indefinable, intangible; something I couldn't possibly understand because I am white.

Is he really black?

Are there others like Dolezal? Living "stealth" in different races or cultures? Should we be asking ourselves, when we meet a black person: is this person really black? Or are they an impostor? There are, as Bliss Broyard points out, many people of black ancestry who are pale enough to pass for white, getting by and wisely keeping their mouths shut. Before today, the only person I know of who was even remotely similar to Rachel Dolezal was the writer John Howard Griffin, who passed as a black man in the Deep South in 1959, and wrote the book Black Like Me about his experiences of racism from the opposite side. Griffin's project also necessitated deception, of course, but this deception was not to Griffin's personal advantage, and Griffin resolved not to hide either his name or his true identity if confronted. His book is well worth a read.

And then today, I learned of the existence of Martina Big. She is a white German woman who has taken medication in order to darken her skin, seemingly with considerable success. She also has gargantuan breast implants. Deary, deary me.

But that aside, I wonder about what happens in other countries. India, for example, has a rigid and elaborate caste system, which prescribes rigid social codes for people at every level. Nonetheless, it must be the case that people purport to be in a different caste, from time to time, and I bet you can't always tell by looking who is whom.

Race and gender

And of course I need to consider this aspect of the discussion. There are so many parallels between Rachel Dolezal and trans people that I don't know where to begin. And there are comments from across the board (which are hard to refute): if someone is born and raised as a boy, how can that person become a woman (and legally recognised as such)? And if we accept that this is possible, how can we refuse to allow a similar change of identity for Rachel Dolezal? Some of the statements made by Dolezal sound very like the statements made by trans people. And some of the criticisms aimed at Dolezal sound very like the criticisms aimed at trans people, including the one that a transwoman in a female-only environment is merely trying to enact male privilege.

There is certainly a very blurry area between the two conceptual boxes labelled "male" and "female". Likewise, there is a very blurry area between the two races labelled "black" and "white". There are some people who are incredibly uncomfortable about these blurry areas; and some people seem to be fine with one but not with the other.

For their part, many trans people seem to be falling over themselves to distance themselves from Dolezal, when in fact I think the parallels are clear, and certainly worthy of exploration and discussion. This distancing seems understandable, given the amount of ire which Dolezal has provoked. On the other hand, not all of it is objectively demonstrable. Statements like "I am a woman, while Rachel Dolezal is only pretending to be black," just aren't persuasive enough for me. And statements like "Transgender brains are different; it's medically proven," are just not convincing enough for this neuroscientist to accept. And the idea that, while gender and race are both social constructs, there exist fundamental differences between them, seems unsupportable to me.

I think a discussion of Rachel Dolezal is very pertinent to a discussion about gender. I think there are many more similarities than differences, and writers like Rebecca Tuvel are right to consider them and debate them in the scientific literature. I think that ultimately, even if a person asserts a particular identity, there are always going to be other members of society who will reject that identity, if it doesn't fit their own world view.

The last words will go to Tuvel and Dolezal.

Tuvel: I wrote this piece from a place of support for those with non-normative identities, and frustration about the ways individuals who inhabit them are so often excoriated, body-shamed, and silenced. (...) My article is an effort to extend our thinking alongside transgender theories to other non-normative possibilities.

Rachel Dolezal told the Guardian: “The discussion’s really about what it is to be human."

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* Although her birth name is Rachel Anne Dolezal, she legally changed her name to Nkechi Amare Diallo in 2016. For clarity I have stuck with her original name, since that's where most of the information out there on the Internet is to be found.

Update: 8th September 2020

Jessica Krug

Although I wrote this post some years ago, I hadn't heard of anyone else doing what Rachel Dolezal did--until this week, when a BBC news article caught my eye. Jessica A. Krug, an associate professor of history at George Washington University lived for years pretending to everyone that she was black. The BBC story can be found here.

Krug did not give a reason for her decision to come clean, though she was full of apology. (Unlike Dolezal, she hasn't seemed to double down on her black identity but to relinquish it immediately). The BBC reports that screenwriter Hari Ziyad said her admission came "because she had been found out".

Wikipedia gives two more people who have apparently feigned a different race. H.G. Carillo, also an assistant professor at George Washington University (perhaps there's something in the water) claimed to be a Cuban immigrant, although he was born in Michigan. When Carillo died (of COVID-19), the true details of his life became publicly known. And Andrea Smith maintains she is a Cherokee, but actual Cherokee scholars have claimed she has no family connections to documented Cherokee ancestors or relatives.