Modifica di Critiche a JK Rowling


Il video di Shaun [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ou_xvXJJk7k JK Rowling's New Friends - Youtube] prende una posizione critica. Riporto il transcript preso da YouTube con l'aggiunta della punteggiattura.

== Inglese ( ==
Hello everyone, today I'd like to talk about something that's been bothering me for a while; it's a particular contradiction one that comes up over and over whenever trans people or trans issues are mentioned either online or in the press by people who self-describe as gender-critical and I think I should start today by showing you an example of that contradiction.

In June 2020, J.K. Rowling published a statement on her website titled "J.K. Rowling Writes About Her Reasons for Speaking Out on Sex and Gender Issues". In this statement, Rowling explains why she decided to support the gender-critical crowd. There has been a lot of discussion about this statement, but I want to focus on one particular part of it right now: J.K. Rowling's description of Magdalene Burns.

Magdalene Burns was a British YouTuber who, according to Rowling, was an "immensely brave young feminist" who believed in the importance of biological sex and didn't think lesbians should be called bigots for not dating trans women with penises. Because of this, Rowling says that when she followed Burns on Twitter, she was subjected to abuse from trans activists.

Rowling also talked several times about her concerns in her piece; she doesn't want to be quoted as a bigot for having concerns about single-sex spaces, for instance, and she ends her piece with a request for empathy for the women whose "soul crime" is wanting their concerns to be heard without receiving threats and abuse.

So, this is the framing: Magdalene Burns and women like her simply believe in the importance of biological sex; they just want their concerns to be heard and they don't want to be called bigots because of that. And just because of those things, they and their supporters are bombarded with unwarranted social media abuse. Now, even if we're trying to be as fair and objective as we can be here, it has to be said that this framing looks rather one-sided, right? All the aggression and abuse is coming from just one side, in Rowling's view. We are all meek angels with just a few concerns, but we're getting shouted down by completely unreasonable social media abusers. So, let's examine this framing: is how JK Rowling described Magdalene Burns accurate? What was she actually like?

Well, I imagine many of you will be familiar with her now infamous blackface tweet, where she calls trans women "blackface actors who are motivated by sick sexual perversions". You see, Magdalene Burns was not passively voicing concerns; she wasn't simply stating her opinion that biological sex is important. She spent her time attacking transgender identities, which she repeatedly declared were invalid in her YouTube videos. She consistently made a point of misgendering any trans person she mentioned and she was also more than willing to attempt to ally herself and her cause with figures on the far right. She could be seen on Twitter sharing Breitbart News stories about their Neo-Nazi poster boy Milo Yiannopoulos, praising him and asking for him to share her YouTube videos. She even defended Yiannopoulos after he was widely criticized as a result of condoning, in a podcast, child molestation. As a side note here, Burns is also called what she considers trans activism to be a "child safety issue" which is utterly ludicrous when considered in contrast to her defense of a white nationalist who said child sexual abuse could be a "hugely positive experience". That is what he said. Burns could also be seen giving a platform to the controversial figure Posey Parker, who we'll talk more about in a moment. She also had a habit of focusing on George Soros as the person who she claimed was funding the EU transgender Lobby.

Which is a little suspect, especially considered in light of her willingness to "pal around" with racists. So, what's my point here? Well, there's a huge contradiction between the Magdalene Burns described by J.K. Rowling and the Magdalene Burns who actually existed. I myself interacted with Magdalene several times on Twitter, and this is just my subjective view, but she was consistently aggressive and unreasonable and someone who I thought was motivated not by some concern she had about single-sex spaces or a desire to protect her rights, but by her hatred and disgust of trans people. You can't call people "pathetic sick [__]" pervert blackface actors and then say, "Oh sorry, I just believe in the importance of biological sex. I just have a few concerns." So, where does this leave us with regards to J.K. Rowling and how she chose to betray bands? Well, it would be premature to come to any conclusions right now. I think, after all, Magdalene Burns is only one person. So, if we want to build a proper argument here, we need some more evidence. I think, so let's pick back up with Posie Parker.

So, Parker, also known as Kelly J. Keen Mitchell, is someone who thinks that "women who call themselves men should be sterilized." That's the sort of person Parker is. A controversial figure, even within the gender critical movement, and something that happened very recently serves as a good example of why that is. On Sunday, September 18th of this year, Parker organized an event called "Let Women Speak" which took place in Brighton. It featured gender critical speakers talking about what they see as the dangers of what they call "Trans ideology," and it also attracted a crowd of counter-protesters who turned up to protest the event. But the event also attracted some other people, and these were far-right nationalists, such as the Tommy Robinson-linked "Hearts of Oak" group, who streamed the event live on the internet. Posey Parker has defended including these groups as part of her events. She sees the issue of stopping so-called "trans ideology" as so important that she's willing to welcome in anyone who agrees with her on that particular issue, even if they also happen to be racist, homophobic, misogynist, or outright fascist. Parker is friendly with white supremacist YouTubers. She's appeared on Tucker Carlson, and she herself has a history of making racist statements. That again is controversial even within the gender critical movement. Some gender critical people refuse to associate with her, and the group Women's Place UK put out a statement explaining why they were cutting all links with Parker, saying, "Women's Liberation cannot be won by aligning with reactionary or oppressive groups or individuals who would deny women our rights and increase Division and Injustice."

Another person upset about the far-right infiltration of the gender critical movement is Angela Wilde, a member of the group "Get the Yell Out." (Viewers of my other videos will definitely remember this.) This is her alongside Rowling at a much-publicized lunch, in a photograph featuring many of the other prominent figures of the UK's anti-trans movement. Wilde recently stated on Twitter, "I'm horrified we seem to have handed over our movement to people who go around preaching racist and..."

Misogynistic hatred. There was a time it was shameful to be a racist. Nowadays, we can't even name racism anymore, let alone announce racist infiltration. It's one thing about being called far-right by the "tras" (that's what she calls trans rights activists) and laugh it off, because frankly, I'd rather cut both my legs off, I guess, than accept Heritage Foundation money and alliance with Matt Walsh, or proclaim proudly that on the issues, Trump is my man. But when the far right speaks at gender critical events unchallenged, we have no leg to stand on to tell them that's not true, because, hey, it is true. Well, not in my name.

On the other hand, there are many prominent people within the anti-trans movement who were supporting Parker, even despite her history of racism and her openness to working with the far-right. Returning to this image, we can see both Maya Forstater and Helen Joyce standing on either side of Rowling. There they both attended Posey Parker's event. This is them traveling to the event. This is Helen Joyce at the event holding a cut-up Pride flag (as she's not gay herself, by the way), and this is both Helen and Maya speaking at the event in clips uploaded by Hearts of Oak to their Twitter account, @HeartsOfOakUK. So, this event exposed something of a schism in the anti-trans movement. Some of them are happy to work with people like Posey Parker and the far-right groups that she welcomes to her events, and some of them are not. And there was much discussion on the issue in the wake of this event.

J.K. Rowling chose to weigh in by using her platform to condemn the protesters at the event, not the far-right presence inside the event, but the people who were there to protest the event. Rowling's language is also offensive and absurd, and incorrect. The protesters were "howling" get lesbians for not doing "dick." Apparently, she also explains in the replies to her tweet that "woman unafraid and unashamed of saying that they love only women are the greatest affront to patriarchy."

But J.K. Rowling seems to be a bit confused here. To be charitable, this was not a lesbian event. The organizer, Posey Parker, is married to a man. Speaker Maya Forstatter is married to a man. Speaker Helen Joyce is married to a man. By their own definition of lesbian, they are certainly not lesbians, and I doubt the men from the far-right groups present at the events identify as lesbians. To make a minor assumption, there were some lesbians at the event, I'm sure, but there were also a bunch of straight, conservative homophobes. Posey Parker herself has argued that the "LGBTQ community" is attempting to "indoctrinate and groom children" in a video titled "Thank You Marjorie Taylor Green."

Something else that needs to be mentioned here is Parker's association with an American group called "Hands Across the Aisle," an organization that claims to want to unite radical liberals with conservative Christians in order to oppose what they call "gender identity ideology."

"Hands Across the Aisle" was founded by Kaylee Trill and Emily Zinos, both of whom oppose gay rights and campaigned to outlaw abortion. Zinos attends anti-abortion rallies (as seen here) and Trill writes anti-abortion articles, like this one titled "Women Won't be Liberated Until We're Free from Abortion," posted on the website The Federalist. "Hands Across the Aisle" claims Posey Parker as a member. Here she is meeting founder Emily Zinos, and the group has posted fundraising campaigns in support of Parker on both their Facebook page and their website. So, Parker is associated with, and has taken money from, conservative, anti-abortion campaigners in the U.S.

And this is something I want to highlight in particular here, because, of course, the argument that the anti-trans crowd always used to defend their positions is that they're acting in defense of women's rights. They aren't attacking trans people, they're simply defending the rights that feminism has won for women, they say. But, what does it mean for that claim when the person making it is working with and is funded by conservative, anti-abortion groups?

On a similar note, one of the speakers at the event I showed there was Maya Forstatter. Here's another picture of her getting all chummy with Rowling. There, and she says, "J.K. Rowling has been such a source of strength to me and to so many women, standing up for women's rights." So, that's what Forstatter is doing, in her own words.

Standing up for women's rights. I mentioned this because Forstatter is due to speak at another event very soon, that being "Warfare: The Use and Abuse of Law to Fight for Freedom." That's an event being put on as part of the Battle of Ideas Festival by the group ADF UK. So, who are ADF UK? Well, they're the UK branch of the US-based Alliance Defending Freedom. And to quote the Southern Poverty Law Center, founded by some 30 leaders of the Christian right, "the Alliance Defending Freedom is a legal advocacy and training group that supported the recriminalization of sexual acts between consenting LGBTQ adults in the U.S. and criminalization abroad, has defended state-sanctioned sterilization of trans people abroad, has contended that LGBTQ people are more likely to engage in pedophilia, and claims that a homosexual agenda will destroy Christianity and Society." The ADF also campaigns to outlaw abortion. Their website proclaims the overturning of Roe v. Wade as a victory and is generally just covered in anti-abortion rubbish. The first president of the ADF was a man called Alan Sears, who wrote a book called "The Homosexual Agenda: The Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today." The second president of the ADF was attorney and Baptist minister Michael Farris, who in 2003 wrote a legal brief arguing against the Supreme Court overturning sodomy laws in the Lawrence v. Texas decision.

So, what is Maya Forstatter doing speaking at an ADF event? She claims to be standing up for women's rights, but she's working with people who campaign to take those rights away. They want to take away a woman's right to have an abortion if she's a lesbian. They want to take away her right to get married to anyone except a man, and if she had sex with another woman, they want to send her to prison anyway. What about the other speaker at Posey Parker's event, Helen Joyce? Is she merely standing up for women's rights? Well, another person at the event was another Helen, Helen Stanneland. Now, Stanneland hosts an online show called "Wine with Women" (that's "Wine" spelled without an "H"). And a few months ago, she had Helen Joyce on as a guest. Now, this interview caused quite a bit of alarm and rightly so. In it, Joyce openly talks about wanting to reduce the number of trans people. All trans people, even if they are happily transitioned, she says, are a problem for the world because they need what she calls "special accommodations." Every trans person is a "difficulty," she says. I watched this whole interview, and it was utterly horrible and very revealing. The clarification that she wants to reduce the number of people who transition, even if they are happily transitioned, is especially awful. And the talk about trans people being "difficulties" who are "problems for the world because they need special accommodations" just sounds like fascist eugenics rhetoric. The first thing that came to mind for me listening to this interview were those Nazi party propaganda films about disabled people that I watched as part of making my video on the Bell Curve.

it featured gender critical speakers talking about what they see as the dangers of what they call Trans ideology. And it also attracted a crowd of counter-protesters who turned up to protest the event. But the event also attracted some other people and these were far-right nationalists, such as the Tommy Robinson-linked Hearts of Oak group, who streamed the event live on the internet. Posey Parker has defended including these groups as part of her events. She sees the issue of stopping so-called trans ideology as so important that she's willing to welcome in anyone who agrees with her on that particular issue, even if they also happen to be racist, homophobic, misogynist, or outright fascist. Parker is friendly with white supremacist YouTubers, she's appeared on Tucker Carlson, and she herself has a history of making racist statements that again is controversial even within the gender critical movement. Some gender critical people refuse to associate with her and the group Women's Place UK put out a statement explaining why they were cutting all links with Parker, saying, "Women's liberation cannot be won by aligning with reactionary or oppressive groups or individuals who would deny women our rights and increase division and injustice."

Another person upset about the far-right infiltration of the gender critical movement is Angela Wilde, a member of the group Get the Yell Out. Who viewers of my other videos will definitely remember. This is her alongside Rowling at a much publicized lunch in a photograph featuring many of the other prominent figures of the UK's anti-trans movement. Wilde recently stated on Twitter, "I'm horrified we seem to have handed over our movement to people who go around preaching racist and misogynistic hatred." There was a time when it was shameful to be a racist. Nowadays, we can't even name racism anymore, let alone announce racist infiltration. It's one thing to be called far right by the tras, that's what she calls trans rights activists, and laugh it off, because frankly, I'd rather cut both my legs off, I guess, than accept Heritage Foundation money and alliance with Matt Walsh, or proclaim proudly that on the issues Trump is my man. But when the far right speaks at gender critical events unchallenged, we have no leg to stand on to tell them that's not true, because hey, it is true. Not in my name.

On the other hand, there are many prominent people within the anti-trans movement who were supporting Parker, even despite her history of racism and her openness to working with the far right. Returning to this image, we can see both Maya Force data and Helen Joyce standing on either side of Rowling. They both attended Posey Parker's event. This is them traveling to the event. This is Helen Joyce at the event, holding a cut-up Pride flag as she's not gay herself, by the way. And this is both Helen and Maya speaking at the event in clips uploaded by Hearts of Oak to their Twitter account, Hearts of Oak UK. So, this event exposed something of a schism in the anti-trans movement. Some of them are happy to work with people like Posey Parker and the far-right groups that she welcomes to her events, and some of them are not. And there was much discussion on the issue in the wake of this event.

Pharaoh herself has written anti-abortion articles. She's tweeted that homosexual acts are sinful. Here she is campaigning against a pride parade. You get the picture. Pharaoh is also notorious in Ireland for downplaying the Catholic Church's infant Mass Graves Scandal and, as a side note here, Pharaoh is currently running a crowdfunder for her own legal fees through the citizen go site. There are people who call themselves liberals donating money to this organization. So, I want to talk about something in particular in relation to Pharaoh and that is platform responsibility. Let's imagine a possibility: maybe JK Rowling didn't know who Carol and Pharaoh was. She just saw someone praising her on Twitter and responded in kind, inadvertently supporting an anti-abortion homophobe in front of her millions of followers. Now, that is lazy and irresponsible but possible, maybe. But here's the thing: following her tweet, hundreds of people immediately pointed out to Rowling who Pharaoh is, providing every sort of evidence you can ask for. It made the news. This tweet, Forbes talked about this tweet. So, she knows now doesn't she? But this tweet is still up. Rowling didn't delete this even after being told who Pharaoh was and the sorts of things that citizen go are up to. Now, unfortunately, this is a pattern. As another example, Rowling has praised the anti-trans work of self-described Theocratic fascist Matt Walsh. A man who is currently in hot water after an audio recording surfaced of him seeming totally cool with adult men impregnating minors so long as they also get married to them. Matt Walsh has also spoken in favor of arranged marriages. But even after a flood of complaints about her praise for a creepy fascist, JK Rowling's tweet in support of his work remains online. At just a couple more examples, Rowling sent a nice reply to the account "literary goon", someone who had previously threatened to set those who believe in gender ideology on fire, urinate on them, kill them, and bury them in the desert. Lots of people informed Rowling about that but her reply to him remains. Dennis Kavanagh, writing on the account "jebedu2", was suspended from Twitter for saying that he preferred AIDS to the work of charities like Stonewall and Mermaids. When he returned to Twitter, JK Rowling was there to welcome him back even though she was told why he was suspended and he himself claimed to quote "stand by every word". In her Twitter replies, he was later suspended again for threatening those charities and their friends, saying he would quote "[__] nail you to a wall". Rowling was also told about this, of course, but again ignored it. And we can't say that she doesn't see these replies because when people point these things out to her, she blocks them. She blocked me for criticizing her in her Twitter replies. So, she is aware of all this but ignores it because she has to. She wants to pretend that all social media abuse, all the death threats, all the violent fantasies about setting people on fire and cutting them up and nailing them to things, she wants to pretend that all that is solely originating from people critical of her and her allies.

And, in order to preserve that fantasy, she must deliberately overlook the abuse originating from inside her own camp. She just quietly pretends not to notice it and blocks anyone who points it out to her. The last person I want to talk about today is not one of JK Rowling's new friends, but one of her old friends, Baroness Emma Nicholson. Rowling co-founded the Children's High Level Group charity with Nicholson way back in 2005, but still jokes around with her, making fun of trans people on Twitter. Emma Nicholson is a homophobic conservative politician who opposed same-sex marriage, opposed lesbians being parents, supported Section 28, and she's proposed legislation to limit access to abortion as recently as two years ago. Nicholson could be seen arguing against same-sex marriage, which saw her receiving much criticism, as well as being removed from her position with the Booker Prize Foundation. Nicholson has also in the past had her house protested by a lesbian activist group. Nicholson has also attended and given speeches at Posey Parker's events, at one of which, at least, she stated her intention to get Posey Parker into Parliament.

Emma Nicholson is a typical example of a bigot who's found that homophobia simply doesn't have the same level of open institutional support that it once had, and so now use this transphobia as a way to advance her bigotry. And I want to make something very clear here: Emma Nicholson is a politician voting on and proposing actual laws. She isn't "yanan" who just doesn't know all the PC words or whatever. She has actual power that she has wielded to attempt to stop same-sex marriage and roll back abortion rights, and she's been welcomed into the gender critical so-called feminist movement just because she's willing to be transphobic.

With this in mind, I want to think about JK Rowling's claim that she supports abortion and gay marriage. Twitter user Katie Montgomery prompted Rowling earlier this year to say that she has always supported abortion and gay marriage, but I wonder what that means in light of everything that we've talked about today. What does it mean to support abortion rights and gay marriage if you also support people who are working to outlaw those things? If you're friends with politicians who introduce anti-abortion bills, several groups we've talked about today actively campaigned to take away abortion rights and gay marriage rights, and many people let JK Rowling support either work for those groups directly or are open to working with them as part of an anti-trans movement.

The transphobes are so desperate for allies in their Crusade against trans people that some of them are willing to join up with groups who, if they got their way, would force all women back into the kitchen and all gay women back into a closet in that kitchen. The anti-trans movement claimed to only be protecting their rights, but these are the very same rights that they're willing to risk by allying themselves with far-right, reactionary movements that seek to take those rights away. This Alliance threatens women's rights far more than anything trans people are accused of doing, and it seems obvious to say this, but it reveals that this movement is not really about protecting women's rights but can only be about attacking trans rights. Unfortunately, the divide in the anti-trans movement between those open to working with conservatives and the far right and those who are not is being won by the people who are willing to do so. The people not willing to align themselves with racists, homophobes, and misogynists are being sidelined, and the ones who are are being left to run the ship. And this is who JK Rowling surrounds herself with, literally surrounds herself with. Rowling herself has very recently shown where she stands on the issue.

She posted a picture of herself in a shirt criticizing Nicola Sturgeon for being a "destroyer of women's rights." Now, this shirt is a design from Posey Parker's online store, which can be seen advertising the shirts under Rowling's tweet. Posey Parker, remember, throws rallies that fascist groups are openly welcome to attend. She works with and is funded by an anti-abortion organization. She thinks, "women who call themselves men should be sterilized," and JK Rowling is helping to advertise her t-shirts. So, what's my point today? Is it that JK Rowling is a bad person? Well, not really, although she is. My point today was to show the worrying links between the UK's anti-trans movement and far-right groups. JK Rowling just happens to be right in the middle of all this. If I had to make a concluding point about Rowling, it would be that she knows what she's doing. I think we've seen enough evidence today to fairly make that judgment. When she shows kindness towards ultra-conservative bigots, she knows exactly what she's doing. When she attacks and mischaracterizes the people who protest those ultra-conservative bigots, she knows exactly what she's doing. She is a long-time friend of ultra-conservative bigots, after all. That's just who she is, and everything she says about respecting trans people and marching with them if they were discriminated against or whatever else it's just a lie.

She's just a liar, the contradiction I mentioned at the start of the video isn't really a contradiction at all; it's just a conscious misrepresentation of the anti-trans movement. And I'd like to end today by thinking again about Angela Wilde, the person who said she was horrified about the gender critical movement being handed over to the far right. And I'd like to have a brief word with anyone who was thus far supported the anti-trans movement but now, like Angela, has some concerns about all the racists and homophobes turning up. So, hello! Whatever you think trans people are up to, it has to be said that objectively, it is some small beans compared to the outlawing of abortion and the re-criminalization of gay sex. Now I'm not speaking for anyone but myself here, but trans people are not your enemies, trust me. But the Heritage Foundation, Citizen Go, the ADF, Hands Across the aisle, and groups like them, they are actually coming for your rights. They have people working around the clock trying to undo the last century of feminism, and you can tend to be used by them, especially if you're not straight yourself.

You're going to be relegated to being the gay camouflage for a bunch of straight conservative homophobes who work with the US religious right. Do you really think that they'd stop after pushing just trans people back in the closet? Of course they wouldn't. The moment you're done helping them push trans people in, you'll feel the hands on your back, believe me. So, you know, get out now. That's my advice anyway. Thanks a lot for watching everyone and thank you especially to all my supporters over on Patreon. Some of whom are scrolling by right now. Patreon backers get early access to all my videos, so if that's something you feel like checking out, I'll leave the link below in the video description. You can also follow me on Twitter and Twitch if you like. I will leave those links below as well. So, thanks a lot for watching today folks. I'll see you next time.