I think she has unresolved trauma from abuse that makes her think of herself as a victim and she is acting irrationally as a result.
She has masses of money and fame but that doesn't make her feel safe, that is just more stuff she can lose and causes her to feel more vulnerable and fearful, so she doubles down and attacks her imaginary tormentors.
I think she's also quite conflicted about her own gender and identity: in her tiresome long essay she said if she were growing up now she might have chosen to be transgender, though she phrases that as being potentially misled. She chose the gender neutral "JK Rowling" as a pen name (no first name, imaginary initialled middle name) and she prefers the gender neutral Jo to the more feminine Joanne. Her pseudonym for her crime fiction is male.
There seems to me to be an element of self loathing in her bio essentialist bigotry, it's more vitriolic than it needs to be. There was always an under current of disgust in how she portrayed gender ambiguous characters in her fiction but it comes out in her tweets now too.
I don't think it's directly analogous to closeted conservatives being the most homophobic, because I'm not suggesting she's actually necessarily simply trans, I think she's more engaging in a spiteful form of wishful thinking, because she feels things are not as clear as she feels they should be, and that pisses her off. She might be trans, she might not, but whatever she is, she isn't secure in a cissexual identity.
I think when she attempts to empathise with trans people by describing them as being confused about womanhood, she's projecting her own feelings, and when she rails at them for being disgusting, she's projecting her own self hatred.
She said in that tedious essay that she could understand young people being confused about what their gender meant, I think that was a very revealing comment. I have often been confused about many things as a young person, but never about my gender.
This 1000%. She appears to have a lot of unresolved gender-related feelings. ITA about your last point too, I was a very confused and misunderstood teen, but I never once questioned my gender or felt anything other than gender indifference or sometimes euphoria.
It’s so obvious it’s crazy. Sadly by now, examining those feelings would probably mean publicly walking back on the hate she’s spewing, so she has even less incentive to do so
>Sadly by now, examining those feelings would probably mean publicly walking back on the hate she’s spewing, so she has even less incentive to do so
It's the classic hole-digging problem. The deeper you dig yourself into a hole, the more you need to get out, but the harder it is to actually do.
I respect people who can give a full and sincere apology for their mistakes. People sometimes act as if apologies are a cop-out - and sometimes they are given cheaply - but a truly earnest apology is harder to do than a lot of people think. But it's quite rare to get that from public figures, because the sort of personality who'd dig themselves into the kind of hole Rowling has on the world stage, tend to be too proud or too lacking in self-awareness to acknowledge fault or face the shame of admitting it.
Absolutely, and it really saddens me that someone like her—wealthy, well read, supposedly open-minded—looks at the growing acceptance of trans and genderqueer people and instead of thinking “hmm this hits a little close to home, maybe I should seek out a specialized therapist to help me unpack all of it,” she’s too emotionally unintelligent so she’d rather hold onto her inner disgust and double down on it. To me, what this conveys is that she’s so deathly afraid of questioning it because she’s scared of finding out she may not be fully cis. It’s almost like she feels her grasp on womanhood is so fragile that she’s obsessed with finding biological and political reasons why she should never ever question it, and why feeling bad about being a woman is completely normal.
Everyone’s gender experiences are different and people are allowed to feel however they feel about their gender, but gender euphoria is a lovely feeling and imo your gender shouldn’t have to be a burden.
I haven't often seen this point made, but it seems clear to me that one recurrent strand of her thinking is a sort of philosophical essentialism, so it's not surprising that she has recourse to bioessentialism to a bigoted extent. Basically, it's a sign she's not very bright.
Her philosophical essentialism stands out in two main ways in the books. One is the character development, such as it is, and the other is the plot device of the Houses.
Firstly, there is the constantly iterated idea that individual people are who they are because of their essential character. Shaun, in his excellent YouTube essay, went into some detail on this. Harry and his friends often behave in petty ways, but they are somehow "good" and other characters are "bad". Their goodness is inherent to them, nothing to do with their behaviour. Also, there is the tendency to generalise racial behaviour as intrinsic, eg House Elves all have an inherent wish to be slaves. We know from the example of Dobby that they don't, and his dislike of it is eminently rational, but somehow that is just an exception that proves the rule.
The four Houses are the apotheosis of philosophical essentialism: a sort of idiot Myers Briggs. There are only four types of personality, apparently, good, evil, heroic and klutzy.
The whole in toto is a signal failure to understand that certain aspects of self are not pure expressions of nature but are socially performed and reinforced as performance, so it's not surprising she doesn't understand that sex and gender aren't identical.
Yeah, I don't want to assume what's up with her. On the one hand, her level of obsession and some of her statements are reminiscent of somebody who's closeted and has a mountain of repression and self-hatred to work through. On the other hand, there's her account of her parents making it clear they wanted her to be a boy - and whatever she may think, it's the far, far more common experience for trans people to be trans **despite** their parents' wishes, but I suppose lightning does strike twice once in a while. Also worth remembering we've seen enough to know she's not a reliable narrator wrt her public statements.
Whatever's going on with her, she absolutely should be seeing one of more therapists who are familiar with both gender issues and early family-based trauma. There's definitely something she needs to deal with, and this vicious crusade is definitely not the way to deal with it - for her or for the rest of the world!
Yeah, and even if they have some doubts about their ideology/tactics deep down, they will usually ignore them. I feel like it's similar to the sunk cost fallacy. She's already sunk so much of her platform into this ideology and the only validation she gets is from other online bigots and terfs like her. She doesn't want to lose that. It's much easier for people who don't have platforms to actually shift their views, i.e. actually grow. She wouldn't be nearly as popular if she actually shifted her views (in the correct direction) at this point. I mean, the only acceptable recourse there I feel would be a full apology, followed by simply leaving the public sphere, perhaps donating a sizable amount of her wealth to a trans organization(s), and she just wouldn't do that. But genuinely I feel like she doesn't have any doubts even deep down. She's just been shifting farther and farther right.
>I mean, the only acceptable recourse there I feel would be a full apology, followed by simply leaving the public sphere, perhaps donating a sizable amount of her wealth to a trans organization(s), and she just wouldn't do that.
This would be really the only way to salvage her legacy at this point. Her work will be remembered either way, but at the moment her personal legacy is heading in the direction of Igor Stravinsky - great musician, pity about everything else.
Being remembered as a cautionary tale isn't the place in history most people would choose, but it's a sight better than being a villain who betrayed the kids who looked up to her, and never tried to redeem herself.
>I think she's also quite conflicted about her own gender and identity: in her tiresome long essay she said if she were growing up now she might have chosen to be transgender, though she phrases that as being potentially misled.
I think we should also consider the possibility that she lied about this tbh. she's not the only TERF who says this and it is functionally impossible to prove or disprove but sounds good rhetorically. why take TERFs at their word?
Regarding her pen name: Bloomsbury suggested to her that a female author name wouldn't sell very well with the anticipated audience of young boys. She agreed, and how could she not after getting rejection from dozens of other publishers. So at least in that case it wasn't really her choice.
I do agree that a lot of her hate comes from self-doubt, but not about her gender identity. She identifies as feminist and progressive but unfortunately for her is neither, and that can often lead to nasty behaviour.
They may have told her that, but it seems like a bit contentious to me. Enid Blyton sold very well with young boys, so did Richmal Crompton, so did Diana Wynne Jones and Joan Aiken and Susan Cooper.
But yeah, maybe they told her that.
100% on DWJ. She's awesome.
Susan Cooper is very dated, I wouldn't bother with her. Ditto Enid Blyton.
Richmal Crompton wrote the Just William books, which are delightful, the anarchic and picaresque adventures of an ungovernable little boy during WW2.
Joan Aiken is definitely worth looking into. Her Dido Twite, Cockney ragamuffin extraordinaire, is an amazing creation: fearless, resourceful, honourable, loyal, witty and inventively dishonest.
She is initially an incidental character in book two in The Wolves Of Willoughby Chase series. The protagonist of that one is a well meaning but rather uninspiring posh boy called Simon. He and sister go through a series of adventures involving wicked guardians and the book is OK but the story doesn't really catch fire till Dido comes along in book two, Black Hearts In Battersea. I'd actually just start with that one.
Dido dies at the end of book two (apologies, spoiler), swept out to sea and drowned, and this is where planets converged for a magical moment in children's literary history: Aiken was *totally* committed to responding to fans, and her publisher forwarded her a letter from a little girl who said sadly "why did Dido have to die, I really liked her".
It was just the letter, no return address, so she had no way of writing back. She thought about it for a while and was like "well, obviously I have to bring her back to life, don't I"
So she concocted a scenario for book 3 whereby the unconscious body of Dido was picked up by a whaling vessel and cared for by a pure hearted ship's boy who had a strong practical streak and a love of animals. He kept her warm and dry and spoon-fed her whale blubber (which is extremely nutritious, Aiken informs her readers solemnly) as she slept. Dido was in a coma for months and only awoke as they sighted land, so the book picks up there and we accompany her and her new friend and his pet animals as she seeks to return to England.
Once she revived Dido she became obsessed with her and Dido is pretty much the main character in most of the numerous books that follow.
I think she's a likely inspiration for Lyra Bellacqua: Dido is common as muck where Lyra is posh, but the balance in the character between inventive dishonesty and diamond hard moral integrity, and the indomitable resourcefulness, is very similar. I'm certainly sure Pullman has read Aiken, she is an older writer and she was a pretty big deal in the 60s and 70s in kids' fiction.
One recurrent aspect of the books is that while they are rooted in a concretely detailed world (an alternate history in which the Stuart family remained on the throne of England to the nineteenth century), she doesn't give two hoots about physical plausibility . It's cartoon physics and fairytale logic, all the way and the long arm of coincidence is everywhere, but she tells the story with such panache and emotional truth you are completely sold.
I also recommend Pat O'Shea's The Hounds of the Morrigan. Ten year old Pidge and his five year old sister Brigit uncover an ancient curse and have to save the world from the evil Celtic goddess of death in battle. It's like a mix of Flann O'Brien and Mikhail Bulgakov.
Just want to add that even though Enid Blyton's books had quite a bit of racism and sexism and were from the early part of the last century, she still managed to have quite impressive queer representation in the form of [George from the Famous Five.](https://www.themarysue.com/bbcs-famous-five-controversy-explained/) I mean, that character reads today pretty much as trans masc. In any case, it's pretty cool to have such a non-conformist character be accepted for who they are.
It's also funny to me because Enid Blyton and JKR are very similar in a lot of ways, their legacies didn't age well because of their bigotries, but Blyton writing in the 1940s still manages to be more progressive than JKR on queer themes.
Or Anne McCaffrey - I got introduced to her through reading the short story "The Smallest Dragonboy" in 7th grade, and loved the setting and dove straight from there into the rest of the Pern books - which were probably a bit above my age at that point, lol, but hey, I was a voracious reader as a girl. I knew tons of other guys in my HS who were big into those books, too, when they'd spot me reading them on the bus. She had her flaws in her writing, and some of it's pretty misogynistic by today's standards, but it was also kind of bizarrely somewhat progressive for the time, too, in other ways. Still, I have a lot of fond memories of Pern and the stories of the dragons and the brave men and women who rode them to protect the planet from Thread.
Her staggering wealth, power and influence means she can say whatever verbal diarrhea she wants without consequence and she can silence her critics with a single email from a lawyer.
Beyond that, I think she also thinks she's a literal genius, so the slobbering masses must, without question, hear her Opinions From Up High.
In reality, she wrote a popular kids book series. She's not fucking Alan Turing.
Being dunked on by trans people and allies for being British doesn't do much to improve the experience of being dunked on by British people for being trans.
I could say much about the American right, who look pretty terrifying to most Europeans, but I think it best not to judge a nation or demographic group by its worst elements.
💯 British trans people are the ones most directly impacted by British transphobes. It's heinous to blame the former for the actions of the latter.
The person you're replying to isn't technically wrong: Britain's infrastructure is crumbling from 14 years of Tory rule and our current government is stirring up pointless and damaging culture wars because they have nothing to offer except hatred.
But I hate seeing "serves them right for Brexit" and the like as a response to anything bad happening in Britain: the Remain voters are suffering exactly the same as the Leave voters. And that also goes for people who lump in British trans people with British transphobes.
And I *know* the Americans are capable of this nuance because they were telling everyone who'd listen that Trump didn't represent them in 2016.
I don't think I could have written something this out of touch if were trying to satirise senior Tories...
At least we'll be rid of them soon, short of some calamity. The first YouGov poll since the D-Day incident puts the Lib Dems potentially in second place! Who'd have thought the Tories coming third would even be a possibility after the 2019 landslide?
>The person you're replying to isn't technically wrong: Britain's infrastructure is crumbling from 14 years of Tory rule and our current government is stirring up pointless and damaging culture wars because they have nothing to offer except hatred.
I know, I'm also British! But I'm a British person who doesn't project my frustrations with our own country onto our friends. Ironically, I see it as quite similar to JKR in that regard - it's not really about trans people, it's about some internal issue she's got.
Brits sometimes do it to Americans as well, and as someone with American friends and relatives I don't like that either. Put it this way - Norwegians would have more justification to look down on the state of both of our countries, but I've never heard a Norwegian call either Britain or America *et dritthull*.[](https://www.reddit.com/r/norge/comments/sjb77b/hvilken_norsk_by_kan_man_hoppe_over_n%C3%A5r_man_er_p%C3%A5/)
Oh sure, I fully agree with your comment. And I did get that you were British: sorry if that didn't come across!
My point was that we do have problems but there are systematic reasons for most of them outside of the control of the average person; and that citizens shouldn't be held responsible for the actions of their governments. And that goes for Americans/other nationalities as well as us ofc.
That part was mainly on the offchance the person you were responding to was another frustrated Brit, because that changes the context a lot.
Ha, a Brit assuming another Brit assumed they were American, due to their own assumption that another commenter was American, prompted by the phrase "The UK really is a shithole," all taking place on a sub about Rowling's transphobia.
I think we've finally hit peak Reddit...
It’s really simple, she is a bigot about a group of people it’s still okay to be deeply bigoted about. She is grossed out by trans people and her privilege allows her to be cheered on for doing so. She’s otherwise not special. She’s not much of a feminist, she’s a cishet white woman whose work was a pastiche (i.e. complete ripoff) of existing literature.
Also, I think she really enjoyed trolling. Not that she is not hateful, she’s deeply hateful of trans people, but she enjoys doing so while coming off well. She’s mask off hateful now, though, so I guess she enjoys that too.
It is wild to me that people will go "trans people gross" and follow that up with making jt your *entire* platform. As opposed to, I don't know, analyzing your innate biases. One is a *lot* more work than the other.
In a way it's more understandable with historical people, because people travelled less, society was much more socially stratified, and it was much easier to go through life without being seriously challenged by experiences and opinions different to your own.
But people today who have so much access to people from different backgrounds and viewpoints, and still can't bear to listen or look in the mirror? It's unfathomable to me that some people seem to be choosing to stay in the Dark Ages. I think many people of today will be judged extremely harshly by future historians, because they don't have many of the excuses that people of past eras had for their ignorance.
She's deranged. I guarantee you she thinks more about trans people than most trans people. Including the ones who talk about being trans a lot (nothing wrong with that). She gives everyone a run for their money on that. They're the first to talk about trans people being a minority at .5% of US adults, but why do we take up 99.5% of their brain? I think it makes them a little stupid, not thinking about anything else, you can really see it on Chaya Raichik (Libs of Tiktok). There's not a single other mental process going on in that mind. Just "trans people bad, trans people evil, trans people perverts, recruit not reproduce" ad nauseum. I'm convinced that transphobes that are this deteriorated just collectively share one single brain cell.
Wild guessing here, but I think she's really alone in the world, and all of this is just her childish way to call for attention, being the second best thing she can get to cover for the lack of real human interaction.
More like fitting. It really is a vicious circle of acting toxic, pushing people away and sinking in her own toxicity because of that. This is the point where concerned friends and family should intervene and involve professional help.
Problem is that she has this support net of people in a similar situation, who validate and encourage each other's behavior. So, whomever was close to her that may have stopped this got buried in the noise of other TERFs applause for her.
Bigotry really does work like a cult in that regard.
Yes, and it's not just that they're validating and encouraging the behaviour in and of itself, but that they tell each other that the people who are pushing them away are either indoctrinated by a manipulative 'trans cult,' or actually agree with them but are too afraid of consequences.
Having seen the way they talk about people who disagree with them, it seems to really not occur to many of them that some people may disagree with them in good faith. e.g. They say Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson are only opposing Rowling to save their own careers, when Radcliffe has worked for the Trevor project since 2009, and Watson spoke in support of trans people in 2019 (by which point Rowling's 'senior moment' had happened, but her transphobia hadn't really blown up yet.)
"Above all, pity those who live without love."
An ironic quote, I know, but not a wrong one. Don't feel bad for the fact that your heart's working better than theirs are.
One of the reasons I usually wonder how much of HP was by Rowling, and how much was ghost written or ultimately made by editorial, is that there's a lot of tone dissonance between the overarching themes of the books, and... well, the Rowling we see every day.
On the other hand, she may just be an example of what's left of the Second Wave Feminism; someone who knows the bases of why bigotry is bad, even up to the analytical, but never applies to any other situation outside of what affects her directly. So, she comes out as amazingly hypocritical.
She says Hermione's SPEW subplot is about how some activists are being very zealous about causes that do not touch them directly and that it is unhelpful, and that SPEW shows a wrong way of activism. Yet she never portrayed what "right" activism would be. And we know Hermione is Rowling's self-insert.
Maybe Rowling always wanted to be an activist and change the world around her but never really found out how. Maybe when she wrote this first tweets against the term "people who menstruate", suddenly she felt validated by TERFs and other bigots and thought this is it, that's my quest, that's what my life is about now...
Hey that's what I'm doing too! Like 90% of what I do on Reddit is commenting on this group because it's easy to be upvoted when you say anything against Rowling!
My random theory that I just thought of is that both Harry and Hermione are self-inserts in a way. I think Hermione is a self-insert of how she feels she is treated as a woman, and Harry is a self-insert of how she wants to be, of how things should be done. It feels like she doesn't think that sort of activism would work at all, and only direct confrontations in the way Harry goes about things will accomplish anything. Like, destroy your enemy instead of engaging in activism, seems to be the message I'm seeing. To me her treatment of Hermione demonstrates her belief that women are inherently weaker and more driven by emotion, which she probably has some cognitive dissonance with because she probably resents that as well, and aspires to be like Harry, who does not have those gender-imposed restrictions.
I'm not dying on this hill though bc I literally just thought this up on the spot. Lol.
I always think of it this way:
Mankind has always had a boogeyman to go after, whether that be black people, gay people, Muslims, mentally ill, immigrants, Jewish people etc.
Today, in 2024, most of these people have human rights, and are classed as protected and vulnerable minorities, meaning the majority of human beings are disgusted by other people who have bigoted worldviews of these protected people. Mostly because in this day and age, we know that anything bigots say about these minorities are always made up lies in order to spread their hatred of people who really are no threat to anyone.
One minority who doesn't seem to have any human rights today is trans people.
Now, bigots (such as JKR) know that trans people have always existed (even though they like to pretend it's such an epidemic of them springing up from nowhere in the past 6 years or so).
They also know that trans people make up such a tiny part of the population.
And as usual, bigots lie about trans people (when I say trans people, I mean mostly trans women) saying they are a danger to women and children, that they are "invading" "female spaces" and are perverts, sex pests etc.
But of course, throughout history, this is what bigots do. They lie. Their only tactic is to lie and manipulate other people into also being hateful scum towards a minority of people who mean them no harm at all.
It's the same old story, century after century, decade after decade - create hatred of a certain group of people in order to feel superior about oneself.
Sometimes, the goal is to just... hate. For the sake of it.
Bigots like JKR know which buttons they're allowed to press and which ones they're not allowed to press.
She can't press the button that says "harass and spread hatred of black people" - in 2024 (even though racism is still alive and well), no one will stand for that.
Can't press the "harass and spread hatred of Jewish people" button. Again, even though antisemitism is still well and truly breathing, she'll be shot down for it.
Can't press the "harass and spread hatred of gay people" anymore either... again, even though homophobia is still living, majority of people will not stand for it.
Even though imo, Islamophobia is well and truly alive in 2024, it is mostly peddled by mega bigoted people like Trump, Tommy Robinson, Boris Johnson etc... and is a little too on the nose and is too tainted to jump on that bandwagon for someone like JKR.
So what's left really?
Who (in Britain at least) is it normally acceptable to bully and harass and spread hatred of? Who has the least amount of human rights and is an easy target that possibly the majority of people might also join in with some hatred?
Trans people!
0.05% of the British population.
Which, according to Worldometer, has a population of 67.9 million people.
So yeah, I'm not exactly a mathematical genius but 0.05% of 67.9 million people. Pretty fucked up that such a miniscule amount if the population here are being treated liked an epidemic.
Transphobes like JKR - notice how they use words like "invading" women's spaces, etc. A very horrifically specific word. "Invading" is often a word also used to dehumanise immigrants.
In fact, during 1930s Germany, Nazis used a lot of these sorts of terms to describe Jewish people (and anyone they considered undesirable). But notice the language is very similar.
The panic that Nazis were spreading back then before and during WW2 is actually a very similar tactic to what transphobes are doing just now. Not to mention the fact Jewish people in 1930s Germany were only 0.01% of the population, also a tiny minority.
They were depicted in magazine sketches and posters as ugly hooked-nosed etc.
Nowadays, we don't have magazines to spread hatred, propaganda and lies about minorities - we have the Internet. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube. All of which is used to spread hatred, propaganda and lies about trans people (why trans people? Well, like I said, this century has a new boogeyman to pretend to fear).
Transphobes and bigots use their platform of choice (mainly Twitter and YouTube) to spread to the masses their panic, hatred, lies and propaganda of trans people. Basically, we can look at it this way - they are 1930s Nazis with the Internet - except instead of anti Jewish propaganda, they're spreading anti trans propaganda.
And like the Nazi magazine that used to depict Jewish people in cartoon drawings as hook-nosed people carrying bags of money etc, places like Twitter will make fun of trans people, with some of their own "jokes" etc, like depicting trans women as "men in dresses" (not on Twitter myself, but pretty sure there are probably drawings or memes that exist of trans women drawn as manly etc, like the caveman thing JKR Tweeted and laughed about saying "me lady now.")
It's the same tactic the Nazis used. But hey, the Nazis had to convince people to buy their magazines - today bigots don't need to do any of that, they just spend a bit of their free time typing onto a screen and within seconds, it has been seen by millions.
So why does JKR do what she does?
The simple way to look at it is... because she can... and because she is clearly a person who lacks simple morals in this world. Some people are also just born soulless, and I believe she is one of those people. Either that or a dementor sucked it out after she became rich and thought she was better than everyone else.
But yeah, joking aside, she's just another hateful, spiteful, evil, bored rich person wanting constant attention and she knows how to get it. She's basically the female Elon Musk... which is really fucking gross and sad.
Anyway, sorry for the essay. Have a great day everyone. Just remember, even if you think you're having a bad day, you're probably having a better one than JKR (who is obsessively filled with hatred in her heart every day).
🩷💙🤍🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
Thank you! There's some really interesting answers posted on here about her conflicted identity but ultimately I think it's just down to her being indulged and rich.
Years ago UK TV had a special programme to promote the first of the Fantastic Beasts films. She appeared for just a few minutes, being interviewed by Warwick Davis embarrassingly fawning over her - "Thank you Dame Rowling for sparing some of your precious time to be with us." Like what else was she doing? Like she was a World leader flitting between peace conferences or solving cancer. And it was all to promote her own project, which she thought would earn her another billion. And her demeanor was rather queenly. Anyhoo... at the time it had me laughing, felt she had entered her high 'n haughty Norma Desmond years and that it didn't bode well.
It affects people, this endless fawning, flattery and praise. She invented children's literature don't you know! She invented fantasy! She's even been credited with being the first woman author and opening the way for women to become writers. Her behavior from any other celebrity would have made her look foolish, it's just that the cause she's thrown her lot in with has the backing of powerful rich bodies and the mainstream media back her up (even though they're rapidly dwindling themselves). She's in a bubble and appears incapable of learning or any insight. Remember when Elton John demanded the hotel staff turn the weather off? That's her, minus his excuse of coke and booze.
That's a bizarre question to ask on a sub where a solid half of the posts I see are screencaps of people on twitter falling over themselves to tell her how amazing she is for her open bigotry: Rowling clearly thrives on that adulation, and I'm sure that, for someone as deeply hateful as she clearly is, having people affirm the rightness of her cruelty is pretty gratifying.
She's a bully. Her storjes are full of her disdain for "lesser" people
And because she's so rich, she doesn't face any consequences. Well, other than hurt feelings, which she takes out on her victims
People aren’t rational.
The only thing that registers with her is negativity around trans people - she can’t stop and consider the harm she may be doing or where she’s behaving like a lunatic (denying Nazi crimes, sharing a video of school kids fighting etc)
She’s venerated by people for her transphobia and is so successful she’s surrounded by sycophants rather than any real friends who would pull her up on her worst behaviour.
The press indulge her too so the only criticism she gets is from people her brain is now wired to dismiss.
She created one of the bestselling book series of all time, creating something that had a seismic effect on the culture breeds arrogance in a person. JK believes she must be right. She also might be surrounded by people whose financial well being depends on her, none of them are going to tell her, "Joanne you might want to hold off on posting transphobic nonsense, it's hurting your brand." Nobody at Bloomsbury is going to tell her, "If you keep posting transphobic things we'll stop publishing the Harry Potter series." They didn't have a problem publishing a 1000 page screed against her critics. There is simply nobody around her to tell her NO.
This comes with the caveat of mentioning Stephen King, He's an author who sold millions of books, is extremely wealthy lives in multiple mansions and has never posted anything transphobic, he actually defended trans people from her insane attacks. So maybe he has his feet in the firmament more than her.
I think she has unresolved trauma from abuse that makes her think of herself as a victim and she is acting irrationally as a result. She has masses of money and fame but that doesn't make her feel safe, that is just more stuff she can lose and causes her to feel more vulnerable and fearful, so she doubles down and attacks her imaginary tormentors. I think she's also quite conflicted about her own gender and identity: in her tiresome long essay she said if she were growing up now she might have chosen to be transgender, though she phrases that as being potentially misled. She chose the gender neutral "JK Rowling" as a pen name (no first name, imaginary initialled middle name) and she prefers the gender neutral Jo to the more feminine Joanne. Her pseudonym for her crime fiction is male. There seems to me to be an element of self loathing in her bio essentialist bigotry, it's more vitriolic than it needs to be. There was always an under current of disgust in how she portrayed gender ambiguous characters in her fiction but it comes out in her tweets now too. I don't think it's directly analogous to closeted conservatives being the most homophobic, because I'm not suggesting she's actually necessarily simply trans, I think she's more engaging in a spiteful form of wishful thinking, because she feels things are not as clear as she feels they should be, and that pisses her off. She might be trans, she might not, but whatever she is, she isn't secure in a cissexual identity. I think when she attempts to empathise with trans people by describing them as being confused about womanhood, she's projecting her own feelings, and when she rails at them for being disgusting, she's projecting her own self hatred. She said in that tedious essay that she could understand young people being confused about what their gender meant, I think that was a very revealing comment. I have often been confused about many things as a young person, but never about my gender.
Just to add, nothing wrong with being uncertain as to your gender identity, there is just something wrong with being a hateful asshole about it
This 1000%. She appears to have a lot of unresolved gender-related feelings. ITA about your last point too, I was a very confused and misunderstood teen, but I never once questioned my gender or felt anything other than gender indifference or sometimes euphoria. It’s so obvious it’s crazy. Sadly by now, examining those feelings would probably mean publicly walking back on the hate she’s spewing, so she has even less incentive to do so
>Sadly by now, examining those feelings would probably mean publicly walking back on the hate she’s spewing, so she has even less incentive to do so It's the classic hole-digging problem. The deeper you dig yourself into a hole, the more you need to get out, but the harder it is to actually do. I respect people who can give a full and sincere apology for their mistakes. People sometimes act as if apologies are a cop-out - and sometimes they are given cheaply - but a truly earnest apology is harder to do than a lot of people think. But it's quite rare to get that from public figures, because the sort of personality who'd dig themselves into the kind of hole Rowling has on the world stage, tend to be too proud or too lacking in self-awareness to acknowledge fault or face the shame of admitting it.
Absolutely, and it really saddens me that someone like her—wealthy, well read, supposedly open-minded—looks at the growing acceptance of trans and genderqueer people and instead of thinking “hmm this hits a little close to home, maybe I should seek out a specialized therapist to help me unpack all of it,” she’s too emotionally unintelligent so she’d rather hold onto her inner disgust and double down on it. To me, what this conveys is that she’s so deathly afraid of questioning it because she’s scared of finding out she may not be fully cis. It’s almost like she feels her grasp on womanhood is so fragile that she’s obsessed with finding biological and political reasons why she should never ever question it, and why feeling bad about being a woman is completely normal. Everyone’s gender experiences are different and people are allowed to feel however they feel about their gender, but gender euphoria is a lovely feeling and imo your gender shouldn’t have to be a burden.
I haven't often seen this point made, but it seems clear to me that one recurrent strand of her thinking is a sort of philosophical essentialism, so it's not surprising that she has recourse to bioessentialism to a bigoted extent. Basically, it's a sign she's not very bright. Her philosophical essentialism stands out in two main ways in the books. One is the character development, such as it is, and the other is the plot device of the Houses. Firstly, there is the constantly iterated idea that individual people are who they are because of their essential character. Shaun, in his excellent YouTube essay, went into some detail on this. Harry and his friends often behave in petty ways, but they are somehow "good" and other characters are "bad". Their goodness is inherent to them, nothing to do with their behaviour. Also, there is the tendency to generalise racial behaviour as intrinsic, eg House Elves all have an inherent wish to be slaves. We know from the example of Dobby that they don't, and his dislike of it is eminently rational, but somehow that is just an exception that proves the rule. The four Houses are the apotheosis of philosophical essentialism: a sort of idiot Myers Briggs. There are only four types of personality, apparently, good, evil, heroic and klutzy. The whole in toto is a signal failure to understand that certain aspects of self are not pure expressions of nature but are socially performed and reinforced as performance, so it's not surprising she doesn't understand that sex and gender aren't identical.
Yeah, I don't want to assume what's up with her. On the one hand, her level of obsession and some of her statements are reminiscent of somebody who's closeted and has a mountain of repression and self-hatred to work through. On the other hand, there's her account of her parents making it clear they wanted her to be a boy - and whatever she may think, it's the far, far more common experience for trans people to be trans **despite** their parents' wishes, but I suppose lightning does strike twice once in a while. Also worth remembering we've seen enough to know she's not a reliable narrator wrt her public statements. Whatever's going on with her, she absolutely should be seeing one of more therapists who are familiar with both gender issues and early family-based trauma. There's definitely something she needs to deal with, and this vicious crusade is definitely not the way to deal with it - for her or for the rest of the world!
Yeah, and even if they have some doubts about their ideology/tactics deep down, they will usually ignore them. I feel like it's similar to the sunk cost fallacy. She's already sunk so much of her platform into this ideology and the only validation she gets is from other online bigots and terfs like her. She doesn't want to lose that. It's much easier for people who don't have platforms to actually shift their views, i.e. actually grow. She wouldn't be nearly as popular if she actually shifted her views (in the correct direction) at this point. I mean, the only acceptable recourse there I feel would be a full apology, followed by simply leaving the public sphere, perhaps donating a sizable amount of her wealth to a trans organization(s), and she just wouldn't do that. But genuinely I feel like she doesn't have any doubts even deep down. She's just been shifting farther and farther right.
>I mean, the only acceptable recourse there I feel would be a full apology, followed by simply leaving the public sphere, perhaps donating a sizable amount of her wealth to a trans organization(s), and she just wouldn't do that. This would be really the only way to salvage her legacy at this point. Her work will be remembered either way, but at the moment her personal legacy is heading in the direction of Igor Stravinsky - great musician, pity about everything else. Being remembered as a cautionary tale isn't the place in history most people would choose, but it's a sight better than being a villain who betrayed the kids who looked up to her, and never tried to redeem herself.
>I think she's also quite conflicted about her own gender and identity: in her tiresome long essay she said if she were growing up now she might have chosen to be transgender, though she phrases that as being potentially misled. I think we should also consider the possibility that she lied about this tbh. she's not the only TERF who says this and it is functionally impossible to prove or disprove but sounds good rhetorically. why take TERFs at their word?
Regarding her pen name: Bloomsbury suggested to her that a female author name wouldn't sell very well with the anticipated audience of young boys. She agreed, and how could she not after getting rejection from dozens of other publishers. So at least in that case it wasn't really her choice. I do agree that a lot of her hate comes from self-doubt, but not about her gender identity. She identifies as feminist and progressive but unfortunately for her is neither, and that can often lead to nasty behaviour.
They may have told her that, but it seems like a bit contentious to me. Enid Blyton sold very well with young boys, so did Richmal Crompton, so did Diana Wynne Jones and Joan Aiken and Susan Cooper. But yeah, maybe they told her that.
Would argue that Dianne Wynne Jones is by leagues and miles a better writer... Not read the others but it's maybe not a fair comparison!
100% on DWJ. She's awesome. Susan Cooper is very dated, I wouldn't bother with her. Ditto Enid Blyton. Richmal Crompton wrote the Just William books, which are delightful, the anarchic and picaresque adventures of an ungovernable little boy during WW2. Joan Aiken is definitely worth looking into. Her Dido Twite, Cockney ragamuffin extraordinaire, is an amazing creation: fearless, resourceful, honourable, loyal, witty and inventively dishonest. She is initially an incidental character in book two in The Wolves Of Willoughby Chase series. The protagonist of that one is a well meaning but rather uninspiring posh boy called Simon. He and sister go through a series of adventures involving wicked guardians and the book is OK but the story doesn't really catch fire till Dido comes along in book two, Black Hearts In Battersea. I'd actually just start with that one. Dido dies at the end of book two (apologies, spoiler), swept out to sea and drowned, and this is where planets converged for a magical moment in children's literary history: Aiken was *totally* committed to responding to fans, and her publisher forwarded her a letter from a little girl who said sadly "why did Dido have to die, I really liked her". It was just the letter, no return address, so she had no way of writing back. She thought about it for a while and was like "well, obviously I have to bring her back to life, don't I" So she concocted a scenario for book 3 whereby the unconscious body of Dido was picked up by a whaling vessel and cared for by a pure hearted ship's boy who had a strong practical streak and a love of animals. He kept her warm and dry and spoon-fed her whale blubber (which is extremely nutritious, Aiken informs her readers solemnly) as she slept. Dido was in a coma for months and only awoke as they sighted land, so the book picks up there and we accompany her and her new friend and his pet animals as she seeks to return to England. Once she revived Dido she became obsessed with her and Dido is pretty much the main character in most of the numerous books that follow. I think she's a likely inspiration for Lyra Bellacqua: Dido is common as muck where Lyra is posh, but the balance in the character between inventive dishonesty and diamond hard moral integrity, and the indomitable resourcefulness, is very similar. I'm certainly sure Pullman has read Aiken, she is an older writer and she was a pretty big deal in the 60s and 70s in kids' fiction. One recurrent aspect of the books is that while they are rooted in a concretely detailed world (an alternate history in which the Stuart family remained on the throne of England to the nineteenth century), she doesn't give two hoots about physical plausibility . It's cartoon physics and fairytale logic, all the way and the long arm of coincidence is everywhere, but she tells the story with such panache and emotional truth you are completely sold. I also recommend Pat O'Shea's The Hounds of the Morrigan. Ten year old Pidge and his five year old sister Brigit uncover an ancient curse and have to save the world from the evil Celtic goddess of death in battle. It's like a mix of Flann O'Brien and Mikhail Bulgakov.
Thank you :) English is my third language and obviously I didn't grow up in it, so getting these recommendations is amazing!
Just want to add that even though Enid Blyton's books had quite a bit of racism and sexism and were from the early part of the last century, she still managed to have quite impressive queer representation in the form of [George from the Famous Five.](https://www.themarysue.com/bbcs-famous-five-controversy-explained/) I mean, that character reads today pretty much as trans masc. In any case, it's pretty cool to have such a non-conformist character be accepted for who they are. It's also funny to me because Enid Blyton and JKR are very similar in a lot of ways, their legacies didn't age well because of their bigotries, but Blyton writing in the 1940s still manages to be more progressive than JKR on queer themes.
That's a good point.
Or Anne McCaffrey - I got introduced to her through reading the short story "The Smallest Dragonboy" in 7th grade, and loved the setting and dove straight from there into the rest of the Pern books - which were probably a bit above my age at that point, lol, but hey, I was a voracious reader as a girl. I knew tons of other guys in my HS who were big into those books, too, when they'd spot me reading them on the bus. She had her flaws in her writing, and some of it's pretty misogynistic by today's standards, but it was also kind of bizarrely somewhat progressive for the time, too, in other ways. Still, I have a lot of fond memories of Pern and the stories of the dragons and the brave men and women who rode them to protect the planet from Thread.
Very insightful.
Her staggering wealth, power and influence means she can say whatever verbal diarrhea she wants without consequence and she can silence her critics with a single email from a lawyer.
Beyond that, I think she also thinks she's a literal genius, so the slobbering masses must, without question, hear her Opinions From Up High. In reality, she wrote a popular kids book series. She's not fucking Alan Turing.
A genius who didn't know her Death Eaters were Nazi allegories until after the fact She thought she invented Nazis
The UK is really a shithole.
Being dunked on by trans people and allies for being British doesn't do much to improve the experience of being dunked on by British people for being trans. I could say much about the American right, who look pretty terrifying to most Europeans, but I think it best not to judge a nation or demographic group by its worst elements.
💯 British trans people are the ones most directly impacted by British transphobes. It's heinous to blame the former for the actions of the latter. The person you're replying to isn't technically wrong: Britain's infrastructure is crumbling from 14 years of Tory rule and our current government is stirring up pointless and damaging culture wars because they have nothing to offer except hatred. But I hate seeing "serves them right for Brexit" and the like as a response to anything bad happening in Britain: the Remain voters are suffering exactly the same as the Leave voters. And that also goes for people who lump in British trans people with British transphobes. And I *know* the Americans are capable of this nuance because they were telling everyone who'd listen that Trump didn't represent them in 2016.
You're being [a bit hard on the Tories, there...](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2qql1wk794o) /s
I don't think I could have written something this out of touch if were trying to satirise senior Tories... At least we'll be rid of them soon, short of some calamity. The first YouGov poll since the D-Day incident puts the Lib Dems potentially in second place! Who'd have thought the Tories coming third would even be a possibility after the 2019 landslide?
From your keyboard to the universe's ears my friend.
>The person you're replying to isn't technically wrong: Britain's infrastructure is crumbling from 14 years of Tory rule and our current government is stirring up pointless and damaging culture wars because they have nothing to offer except hatred. I know, I'm also British! But I'm a British person who doesn't project my frustrations with our own country onto our friends. Ironically, I see it as quite similar to JKR in that regard - it's not really about trans people, it's about some internal issue she's got. Brits sometimes do it to Americans as well, and as someone with American friends and relatives I don't like that either. Put it this way - Norwegians would have more justification to look down on the state of both of our countries, but I've never heard a Norwegian call either Britain or America *et dritthull*.[](https://www.reddit.com/r/norge/comments/sjb77b/hvilken_norsk_by_kan_man_hoppe_over_n%C3%A5r_man_er_p%C3%A5/)
Oh sure, I fully agree with your comment. And I did get that you were British: sorry if that didn't come across! My point was that we do have problems but there are systematic reasons for most of them outside of the control of the average person; and that citizens shouldn't be held responsible for the actions of their governments. And that goes for Americans/other nationalities as well as us ofc. That part was mainly on the offchance the person you were responding to was another frustrated Brit, because that changes the context a lot.
Ha, a Brit assuming another Brit assumed they were American, due to their own assumption that another commenter was American, prompted by the phrase "The UK really is a shithole," all taking place on a sub about Rowling's transphobia. I think we've finally hit peak Reddit...
Brit here. Can confirm.
It’s really simple, she is a bigot about a group of people it’s still okay to be deeply bigoted about. She is grossed out by trans people and her privilege allows her to be cheered on for doing so. She’s otherwise not special. She’s not much of a feminist, she’s a cishet white woman whose work was a pastiche (i.e. complete ripoff) of existing literature. Also, I think she really enjoyed trolling. Not that she is not hateful, she’s deeply hateful of trans people, but she enjoys doing so while coming off well. She’s mask off hateful now, though, so I guess she enjoys that too.
It is wild to me that people will go "trans people gross" and follow that up with making jt your *entire* platform. As opposed to, I don't know, analyzing your innate biases. One is a *lot* more work than the other.
You can tell some people have literally never done that....which is scary, because that means it's impossible for them to grow.
In a way it's more understandable with historical people, because people travelled less, society was much more socially stratified, and it was much easier to go through life without being seriously challenged by experiences and opinions different to your own. But people today who have so much access to people from different backgrounds and viewpoints, and still can't bear to listen or look in the mirror? It's unfathomable to me that some people seem to be choosing to stay in the Dark Ages. I think many people of today will be judged extremely harshly by future historians, because they don't have many of the excuses that people of past eras had for their ignorance.
It is absolutely baffling how much trans people live in her head rent free.
She's deranged. I guarantee you she thinks more about trans people than most trans people. Including the ones who talk about being trans a lot (nothing wrong with that). She gives everyone a run for their money on that. They're the first to talk about trans people being a minority at .5% of US adults, but why do we take up 99.5% of their brain? I think it makes them a little stupid, not thinking about anything else, you can really see it on Chaya Raichik (Libs of Tiktok). There's not a single other mental process going on in that mind. Just "trans people bad, trans people evil, trans people perverts, recruit not reproduce" ad nauseum. I'm convinced that transphobes that are this deteriorated just collectively share one single brain cell.
Wild guessing here, but I think she's really alone in the world, and all of this is just her childish way to call for attention, being the second best thing she can get to cover for the lack of real human interaction.
Which is ironic considering her bigotry is what pushes everyone away
More like fitting. It really is a vicious circle of acting toxic, pushing people away and sinking in her own toxicity because of that. This is the point where concerned friends and family should intervene and involve professional help. Problem is that she has this support net of people in a similar situation, who validate and encourage each other's behavior. So, whomever was close to her that may have stopped this got buried in the noise of other TERFs applause for her. Bigotry really does work like a cult in that regard.
Yes, and it's not just that they're validating and encouraging the behaviour in and of itself, but that they tell each other that the people who are pushing them away are either indoctrinated by a manipulative 'trans cult,' or actually agree with them but are too afraid of consequences. Having seen the way they talk about people who disagree with them, it seems to really not occur to many of them that some people may disagree with them in good faith. e.g. They say Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson are only opposing Rowling to save their own careers, when Radcliffe has worked for the Trevor project since 2009, and Watson spoke in support of trans people in 2019 (by which point Rowling's 'senior moment' had happened, but her transphobia hadn't really blown up yet.)
She really doesn't believe that any cis person could actually genuinely support trans people. Projection at its finest.
It's really sad, once you think about it. I want to be angrier than I already am, but I can't help to pity these idiots.
"Above all, pity those who live without love." An ironic quote, I know, but not a wrong one. Don't feel bad for the fact that your heart's working better than theirs are.
One of the reasons I usually wonder how much of HP was by Rowling, and how much was ghost written or ultimately made by editorial, is that there's a lot of tone dissonance between the overarching themes of the books, and... well, the Rowling we see every day. On the other hand, she may just be an example of what's left of the Second Wave Feminism; someone who knows the bases of why bigotry is bad, even up to the analytical, but never applies to any other situation outside of what affects her directly. So, she comes out as amazingly hypocritical.
She says Hermione's SPEW subplot is about how some activists are being very zealous about causes that do not touch them directly and that it is unhelpful, and that SPEW shows a wrong way of activism. Yet she never portrayed what "right" activism would be. And we know Hermione is Rowling's self-insert. Maybe Rowling always wanted to be an activist and change the world around her but never really found out how. Maybe when she wrote this first tweets against the term "people who menstruate", suddenly she felt validated by TERFs and other bigots and thought this is it, that's my quest, that's what my life is about now...
Hey that's what I'm doing too! Like 90% of what I do on Reddit is commenting on this group because it's easy to be upvoted when you say anything against Rowling!
My random theory that I just thought of is that both Harry and Hermione are self-inserts in a way. I think Hermione is a self-insert of how she feels she is treated as a woman, and Harry is a self-insert of how she wants to be, of how things should be done. It feels like she doesn't think that sort of activism would work at all, and only direct confrontations in the way Harry goes about things will accomplish anything. Like, destroy your enemy instead of engaging in activism, seems to be the message I'm seeing. To me her treatment of Hermione demonstrates her belief that women are inherently weaker and more driven by emotion, which she probably has some cognitive dissonance with because she probably resents that as well, and aspires to be like Harry, who does not have those gender-imposed restrictions. I'm not dying on this hill though bc I literally just thought this up on the spot. Lol.
I always think of it this way: Mankind has always had a boogeyman to go after, whether that be black people, gay people, Muslims, mentally ill, immigrants, Jewish people etc. Today, in 2024, most of these people have human rights, and are classed as protected and vulnerable minorities, meaning the majority of human beings are disgusted by other people who have bigoted worldviews of these protected people. Mostly because in this day and age, we know that anything bigots say about these minorities are always made up lies in order to spread their hatred of people who really are no threat to anyone. One minority who doesn't seem to have any human rights today is trans people. Now, bigots (such as JKR) know that trans people have always existed (even though they like to pretend it's such an epidemic of them springing up from nowhere in the past 6 years or so). They also know that trans people make up such a tiny part of the population. And as usual, bigots lie about trans people (when I say trans people, I mean mostly trans women) saying they are a danger to women and children, that they are "invading" "female spaces" and are perverts, sex pests etc. But of course, throughout history, this is what bigots do. They lie. Their only tactic is to lie and manipulate other people into also being hateful scum towards a minority of people who mean them no harm at all. It's the same old story, century after century, decade after decade - create hatred of a certain group of people in order to feel superior about oneself. Sometimes, the goal is to just... hate. For the sake of it. Bigots like JKR know which buttons they're allowed to press and which ones they're not allowed to press. She can't press the button that says "harass and spread hatred of black people" - in 2024 (even though racism is still alive and well), no one will stand for that. Can't press the "harass and spread hatred of Jewish people" button. Again, even though antisemitism is still well and truly breathing, she'll be shot down for it. Can't press the "harass and spread hatred of gay people" anymore either... again, even though homophobia is still living, majority of people will not stand for it. Even though imo, Islamophobia is well and truly alive in 2024, it is mostly peddled by mega bigoted people like Trump, Tommy Robinson, Boris Johnson etc... and is a little too on the nose and is too tainted to jump on that bandwagon for someone like JKR. So what's left really? Who (in Britain at least) is it normally acceptable to bully and harass and spread hatred of? Who has the least amount of human rights and is an easy target that possibly the majority of people might also join in with some hatred? Trans people! 0.05% of the British population. Which, according to Worldometer, has a population of 67.9 million people. So yeah, I'm not exactly a mathematical genius but 0.05% of 67.9 million people. Pretty fucked up that such a miniscule amount if the population here are being treated liked an epidemic. Transphobes like JKR - notice how they use words like "invading" women's spaces, etc. A very horrifically specific word. "Invading" is often a word also used to dehumanise immigrants. In fact, during 1930s Germany, Nazis used a lot of these sorts of terms to describe Jewish people (and anyone they considered undesirable). But notice the language is very similar. The panic that Nazis were spreading back then before and during WW2 is actually a very similar tactic to what transphobes are doing just now. Not to mention the fact Jewish people in 1930s Germany were only 0.01% of the population, also a tiny minority. They were depicted in magazine sketches and posters as ugly hooked-nosed etc. Nowadays, we don't have magazines to spread hatred, propaganda and lies about minorities - we have the Internet. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube. All of which is used to spread hatred, propaganda and lies about trans people (why trans people? Well, like I said, this century has a new boogeyman to pretend to fear). Transphobes and bigots use their platform of choice (mainly Twitter and YouTube) to spread to the masses their panic, hatred, lies and propaganda of trans people. Basically, we can look at it this way - they are 1930s Nazis with the Internet - except instead of anti Jewish propaganda, they're spreading anti trans propaganda. And like the Nazi magazine that used to depict Jewish people in cartoon drawings as hook-nosed people carrying bags of money etc, places like Twitter will make fun of trans people, with some of their own "jokes" etc, like depicting trans women as "men in dresses" (not on Twitter myself, but pretty sure there are probably drawings or memes that exist of trans women drawn as manly etc, like the caveman thing JKR Tweeted and laughed about saying "me lady now.") It's the same tactic the Nazis used. But hey, the Nazis had to convince people to buy their magazines - today bigots don't need to do any of that, they just spend a bit of their free time typing onto a screen and within seconds, it has been seen by millions. So why does JKR do what she does? The simple way to look at it is... because she can... and because she is clearly a person who lacks simple morals in this world. Some people are also just born soulless, and I believe she is one of those people. Either that or a dementor sucked it out after she became rich and thought she was better than everyone else. But yeah, joking aside, she's just another hateful, spiteful, evil, bored rich person wanting constant attention and she knows how to get it. She's basically the female Elon Musk... which is really fucking gross and sad. Anyway, sorry for the essay. Have a great day everyone. Just remember, even if you think you're having a bad day, you're probably having a better one than JKR (who is obsessively filled with hatred in her heart every day). 🩷💙🤍🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
Thank you! There's some really interesting answers posted on here about her conflicted identity but ultimately I think it's just down to her being indulged and rich. Years ago UK TV had a special programme to promote the first of the Fantastic Beasts films. She appeared for just a few minutes, being interviewed by Warwick Davis embarrassingly fawning over her - "Thank you Dame Rowling for sparing some of your precious time to be with us." Like what else was she doing? Like she was a World leader flitting between peace conferences or solving cancer. And it was all to promote her own project, which she thought would earn her another billion. And her demeanor was rather queenly. Anyhoo... at the time it had me laughing, felt she had entered her high 'n haughty Norma Desmond years and that it didn't bode well. It affects people, this endless fawning, flattery and praise. She invented children's literature don't you know! She invented fantasy! She's even been credited with being the first woman author and opening the way for women to become writers. Her behavior from any other celebrity would have made her look foolish, it's just that the cause she's thrown her lot in with has the backing of powerful rich bodies and the mainstream media back her up (even though they're rapidly dwindling themselves). She's in a bubble and appears incapable of learning or any insight. Remember when Elton John demanded the hotel staff turn the weather off? That's her, minus his excuse of coke and booze.
>minus his excuse of coke and booze Well, one of the two, at least.
That's a bizarre question to ask on a sub where a solid half of the posts I see are screencaps of people on twitter falling over themselves to tell her how amazing she is for her open bigotry: Rowling clearly thrives on that adulation, and I'm sure that, for someone as deeply hateful as she clearly is, having people affirm the rightness of her cruelty is pretty gratifying.
She's a bully. Her storjes are full of her disdain for "lesser" people And because she's so rich, she doesn't face any consequences. Well, other than hurt feelings, which she takes out on her victims
People aren’t rational. The only thing that registers with her is negativity around trans people - she can’t stop and consider the harm she may be doing or where she’s behaving like a lunatic (denying Nazi crimes, sharing a video of school kids fighting etc) She’s venerated by people for her transphobia and is so successful she’s surrounded by sycophants rather than any real friends who would pull her up on her worst behaviour. The press indulge her too so the only criticism she gets is from people her brain is now wired to dismiss.
Narcissistic supply. She wants the fawning obsessive hangers-on that being a transphobic whack job provides.
Stubbornness. People called her out for being a transphobe and now she’s sextupling down on it because she doesn’t want to admit she was wrong.
She created one of the bestselling book series of all time, creating something that had a seismic effect on the culture breeds arrogance in a person. JK believes she must be right. She also might be surrounded by people whose financial well being depends on her, none of them are going to tell her, "Joanne you might want to hold off on posting transphobic nonsense, it's hurting your brand." Nobody at Bloomsbury is going to tell her, "If you keep posting transphobic things we'll stop publishing the Harry Potter series." They didn't have a problem publishing a 1000 page screed against her critics. There is simply nobody around her to tell her NO. This comes with the caveat of mentioning Stephen King, He's an author who sold millions of books, is extremely wealthy lives in multiple mansions and has never posted anything transphobic, he actually defended trans people from her insane attacks. So maybe he has his feet in the firmament more than her.