Amnesty International gets panties in a twist over JK Rowling.

[parmalee]

(Quoting JK Rowling:

The gay rights movement is currently host to a cannibalising ideology that blames and shames homosexuals for not sleeping with members of the opposite sex. Amnesty International is on the side of the persecutors.​

For that matter, what do you call a person who's gone so far off the deep end that you can no longer determine whether or not their screeds are attempts at "humor"? *

(That said, just how "tongue in cheek" can a thread premised as it is upon such a preposterous strawman--given the progenitor's documented advocacy for rape advocates and occasional lapses into casual antisemitism, not to mention a habit for complaining about others "complaining" about such matters--be said to be?)


* Rob Schneider, maybe? Ba-da-ching!

 

[foghorn]

If your enemy are just women ( J K Rowling) standing up for other women which have been abused by men...
Then join Bash-Back and hit these women back with threatening behaviour.

 

[Tiassa]

If your enemy are just women ( J K Rowling) standing up for other women which have been abused by men...

You're pretty much in the Creationist range of insistent denial.

And, let's face it, "Dick Almighty" is no better reason for any of that than "God Almighty".

 

[foghorn]

You're pretty much in the Creationist range of insistent denial.

And, let's face it, "Dick Almighty" is no better reason for any of that than "God Almighty".

Remember the OP was about a charity.

Amnesty International has apologised for blacklisting JK Rowling’s charity for women.

Telegraph

J K Rowling has not purchased a van yet, like some here seem to think she will???

 

[Tiassa]

Remember the OP was about a charity.

Remember, the OP was about J.K. Rowling and Amnesty International. Thus, to reiterate: "The gay rights movement is currently host to a cannibalising ideology that blames and shames homosexuals for not sleeping with members of the opposite sex," according to J.K. Rowling, who went on to declare that, "Amnesty International is on the side of the persecutors."

You might, as such, notice that #16↑ pertains to both the charity (Amnesty International) and J.K. Rowling, both of whom were mentioned both in the OP and the thread title.

Is there some reason why discussing those two elements in one post confuses you?

Meanwhile, sure, whatever, you're probably in good company. I'm sure there were some very fine people among geocentrists, and these days the creationists, and even the antivaxers, anti-abortionists, and anti-miscegenists, too. But simply insisting on doctrinal denial is actually one of the reasons all those folks are notorious in history. It's easy enough to wonder how many times I can do the bit about when science informs differently than superstition, but inasmuch as progress is always a buzzkill for someone, what we learn in times and discussions like these is who has met their threshold.¹

And that's an important distinction: We don't have a Trump administration, for instance, without the denialists all doing their part. No pogrom, no disruption of cancer drugs and birth control for the sake of Christian morals, and nobody stand up for rape while complaining that everybody who isn't like them is a sex predator.

But, hey, maybe it's worth it to those very fine people.
____________________

Notes:

¹ see "Ms. Rowling: insightful critic or myopic [insult]" #191↗ (2025), 828↗ (2026; note 2); those both point back to "Trump 2.0↗[/url] #552↗ (2025). As the record shows, it's easy for denialists to ignore the point, and maybe the reason for that is they think trying to ignore it might be all they can do.​

Spoiler

 

[billvon]

As an aside I always get a kick out of a minority trying to exclude related minorities because "they don't know what it's like" or "that's different."

A seminar at an Out and Equal conference had a talk about "the problem with bisexuals." Their problem, see, is that they can 'pretend' to be heterosexual and therefore they "don't know what it's like to be gay."

Saw a post on Facebook that a gay man was fine with LGB but wanted to cut the TQ off the end because "they are perverts and we're not."

And now Rowling's stance on how trans women are harming "real" women, even though she supports other people on the LGBTQ spectrum.

I mean, they can believe whatever they want and support whoever they want. I am just amused at how good people are at defending their special interest groups against all attackers - but at the same time can't recognize adjacent groups that are just as attacked because that would take away a little bit of their uniqueness and identity.

I am reminded of that old Star Trek episode where two aliens come onto the Enterprise. They are both half-white and half-black. Spock says that it is obvious they are both of the same breed:

BELE: Are you blind, Commander Spock? Well, look at me. Look at me!
KIRK: You're black on one side and white on the other.
BELE: I am black on the right side.
KIRK: I fail to see the significant difference.
BELE: Lokai is white on the right side. All of his people are white on the right side . . . It is obvious to the most simpleminded that Lokai is of an inferior breed.

Trans people are COMPLETELY DIFFERENT than other LGBTQ people! COMPLETELY!

 

[foghorn]

Well, we can count ourselves lucky JKR is not like parmalee who has stated he is not using hyperbole when he says about people he disagrees with...


“If that question is coming from a presumably semi-intelligent adult (Trump, Musk, the GOP, certain posters here), that person doesn't need a sincere response, i.e., "conversation", that person needs a bullet in their skull--and that is not hyperbole"

 

[C C]

If your enemy are just women ( J K Rowling) standing up for other women which have been abused by men...
Then join Bash-Back and hit these women back with threatening behaviour.

Merely some helpful nudges from the "awakened". It takes a while for both traditionalists and lingering classical feminists (i.e., the crusade as it existed prior to the epiphanies of neo-Marxist analysis) to come to terms with the discovery of "woman" just being a superficial identity that anyone or anything can adopt. ("Anything" being inclusive of female robots, digital assistant personas, cosplaying space aliens that might become groupies of such human categories, etc.)

Those old-school liberators fought tooth and nail for rights, only to later encounter that what they were worshipping was little more than a wooden idol with scant potency underlying it. In theory oppressed victims of the past could have switched to male status, which, likewise, is a purely formal identity (albeit a privileged one). But the hegemony of that era was enthralled with those vintage fantasies (ergo, why the injustice existed in the first place).

Radical feminists, in contrast, are not so much a loitering relic as just realists. They want to eliminate gender altogether, since that is an invented caste for facilitating oppression. From their perspective, trans women are perpetuating a classification that is exploited for subjugation purposes, rather than helping to erase it. And, again, in the more paranoid depths of the general membership, there probably is rabid suspicion that some men who identify as women are just the patriarchy adapting to a new situation and using this political strategy as the tool for its continued dominance.

Rowling certainly is not a radical feminist. She just eclectically borrows from them when it seems practical. Otherwise, she's hopelessly slotted in classical feminism or removed from the enlightened neo-Marxist-influenced versions dotting the mainstream ripple.

JK Rowling #transgender people (excerpt): Rowling published an essay on her personal website in 2020 in which she expressed a number of concerns about what she called the "new trans activism". Rowling characterises arguments that femaleness does not reside in the sexed body, and assertions that "biological women" do not have common experiences, as being misogynistic. She finds language calling females "menstruators" to be dehumanising, and she believes that the trans activist movement seeks to erode women as a political class as well as a biological one. She also said that the attempt to redefine the legal definition of sex in terms of gender would put safe spaces for women at risk. She said she was concerned that girls were transitioning in order to escape sexism. Identifying herself as a survivor of domestic abuse and sexual assault, she claimed that "When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he's a woman...then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside". She also stated in her essay: "I believe the majority of trans-identified people not only pose zero threat to others, but are vulnerable ... trans people need and deserve protection ... I feel nothing but empathy and solidarity with trans women who've been abused by men."

Among those who disputed the claims in Rowling's essay were the LGBTQ rights charity Stonewall and Mermaids, a charity for gender non-conforming children, which criticised Rowling for what it saw as her conflating "trans women with male sexual predators". Women's rights groups in the United States had said in 2016 that 200 municipalities which allowed transgender people to use women's shelters reported no rise in violence.

Rowling believes that "no child is 'born in the wrong body'," arguing that adults are promoting an ideology that bodies can be modified, which will prove harmful in the future. She has criticised schools for affirming trans identities without parental consent, and argues that parents may be protecting their children from a cultural assumption that anxieties about sexuality and puberty can be resolved by solutions that require lifelong dependence of pharmaceutical interventions. She has said that she "never set out to upset anyone" but was "not uncomfortable with getting off my pedestal." Neither is she concerned, she explained, about how her opposition to trans rights will affect her legacy. Rowling contends the term cisgender is "ideological language signifying belief in the unfalsifiable concept of gender identity." She has stated that her beliefs arise out of a sincere concern for transgender people, and in particular, young transgender men, saying, "I'm concerned about the huge explosion in young women wishing to transition and also about the increasing numbers who seem to be detransitioning."

 

[C C]

Well, we can count ourselves lucky JKR is not like parmalee who has stated he is not using hyperbole when he says about people he disagrees with...

“If that question is coming from a presumably semi-intelligent adult (Trump, Musk, the GOP, certain posters here), that person doesn't need a sincere response, i.e., "conversation", that person needs a bullet in their skull--and that is not hyperbole"

With respect to the actual far-left... For whatever reason, even the revolutionary element developed an antipathy toward guns and bombs over the ensuing decades. Now there's only reminiscence and colorful allusions to the glory days. Of course, proxies can be ambiguously recruited from the fascists' own "children" (the enemy), but it's a very sloppy hit-or-miss approach. Can't establish a successful uprising on that.

Red Army Faction (1970s for the most part)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army_Faction
_

 

[parmalee]

With respect to the actual far-left... For whatever reason, even the revolutionary element developed an antipathy toward guns and bombs over the ensuing decades. Now there's only reminiscence and colorful allusions to the glory days. Of course, proxies can be ambiguously recruited from the fascists' own "children" (the enemy), but it's a very sloppy hit-or-miss approach. Can't establish a successful uprising on that.

Red Army Faction (1970s for the most part)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army_Faction
_

Even earlier, it was either Lenin or Trotsky (Lenin, iirc) who after years, decades even, of ambivalence on the matter, concluded that propaganda by the deed was not efficacious. Or, at least, reliably so. Prior that, the irresolvable tensions between Marxian and Bakuninian approaches and suchlike.

Of course, it doesn't take a genius to work that out and with most it comes down to stats more than a matter of principle.

That said, when dealing with certain sorts who, generously, have "issues" with respect to literacy and a seeming inability to present any sort of coherent "argument" without introducing a bevy of logical fallacies, and a rather alarming inability to comprehend conditionals, the very real reality of there being an irrefutable abundance of irredeemable (for all intents and purposes) existential threats, and so forth, it's kinda a moot point anyway.

 

[parmalee]

With respect to the actual far-left... For whatever reason, even the revolutionary element developed an antipathy toward guns and bombs over the ensuing decades. Now there's only reminiscence and colorful allusions to the glory days. Of course, proxies can be ambiguously recruited from the fascists' own "children" (the enemy), but it's a very sloppy hit-or-miss approach. Can't establish a successful uprising on that.

Red Army Faction (1970s for the most part)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army_Faction
_

Also, I would be derelict in my duty were I not to point out that I am, in fact, a prime candidate for the Ulrike Meinhof Defense--that is, should such a situation ever arise.

 

[parmalee]

As an aside I always get a kick out of a minority trying to exclude related minorities because "they don't know what it's like" or "that's different."
...
I mean, they can believe whatever they want and support whoever they want. I am just amused at how good people are at defending their special interest groups against all attackers - but at the same time can't recognize adjacent groups that are just as attacked because that would take away a little bit of their uniqueness and identity.

Yeah, it's a genuinely bizarre phenomenon. I first saw the Kronos Quartet perform in '89 or '90 in LA--iow, a generally progressive and "cosmopolitan" place--and half the audience left early into their second set, cuz they played a weirder Shostakovich piece or something. Maybe it was Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze". Just as, nearly a century prior, people lost their shit over Stravinski's "Rites of Spring". Or in the '70s, even into the '80s, when the target audience couldn't abide Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, et al incorporating electric instruments and conventionally rock-ish elements into their work.

And when this happens, otherwise intelligent people will come up with some of the stupidest and most ridiculous of arguments to account for their exclusionary stances. Like seemingly parodic or made in jest, with little real investment in the set-up--remember when Dave Chapelle first got on his trans bashing kick and he started using the phrase "the alphabet people". Just off the top of my head, I can come up with at least a dozen acronyms which use 6 or more letters, so the ostensible "joke" not only didn't land, it also didn't really make any damn sense.

 

[James R]

CC:

You seem quite interested in the topic of JK Rowling's views on feminism and, in particular, transgender people.

What are your own views on the matter?

 

[Pinball1970]

True, but then the authorities were onto that right away, as is usually the case with physical violence.

I actually meant on here. JK tweets something about Trans people and villagers are out with with forks and Hoes, some guy drives a van into a crowd of gays then makes an attack with a machete. I would have thought that may be worth a mention?

For our younger readers, A 'Hoe' is a gardening implement, handy for turning the soil and weeding. Something you never do.

 

[C C]

CC:

You seem quite interested in the topic of JK Rowling's views on feminism and, in particular, transgender people.

What are your own views on the matter?

Unfortunately, I have no idea how I personally feel about TWs in what were once BW domains because they have craftily eluded me from the earliest days of elementary school restrooms to sports contests to incarceration facilities (not that I've ever resided in the latter). I've yet to directly experience their ubiquitous presence that so much of social media attests to.

My view about feminism is that it is composed of a horde of subcategorical ideologies and movements. And with regard to those of us who are not candidates for having eidetic memory, it is probably much easier to subsume that vast number in three or four general groups. Like classical (activism prior to the influence of Marxism and later offspring of critical theory analyses), radical ("here be TERFs"), mainstream, and perhaps "weird or eccentric" for the ones that keep popping out when forced to slot under mainstream or radical.

My view about trans issues is that it's just another war between differing sensibilities that will have to work itself out on the figurative battlefield.[1] Since the background theories and formal presuppositions of literary intellectuals as applied to interpreting trans people and their role, status, and justice concerns in society are sort of irrelevent when it comes to "everyday" individuals alienated from those humanities narratives. (Again, this ironic rift of today between the philosopher kings and the very proletariat that they once depended on as the backbone of revolution.)

Thus, there are some BWs (biological women) who claim they do not feel uneasy sharing or competing with TWs in restrooms, atheletics/sports, and prison spaces. While other BWs do claim they have problems sharing or competing with TWs in restrooms, athletics/sports, and prison spaces.

Mixed-sex bathing existed for centuries in Japan (and later mixed-sex restrooms with multiple clients at one time), so this anxiety might be culture-based (casual European mixed-sex nudity on beaches, in saunas, etc, too.) This apprehension that some Anglophone women feel toward men (and consequently trans women) sharing those spaces with them (along with sports competition and penal environments) might be culture-grounded, given the societies of the past (and present?) where it was a non-issue. But that's setting aside all the potential anecdotal accounts of male sexual misconduct that don't make it to these formally distilled, idealized depictions.

---footnote---

[1] And perhaps that will or should always be locally contingent and pragmatic solutions rather than a universal decree of centralized government demanding and settling the matter.
_

 

[foghorn]

Yes, it’s something like why there’s never real peace in the world, humans are just humans.
There will be no more wars in the world when we sort it all out.
Good luck with that.

 

[TheVat]

My view about trans issues is that it's just another war between differing sensibilities that will have to work itself out on the figurative battlefield.[1] Since the background theories and formal presuppositions of literary intellectuals as applied to interpreting trans people and their role, status, and justice concerns in society are sort of irrelevent when it comes to "everyday" individuals alienated from those humanities narratives. (Again, this ironic rift of today between the philosopher kings and the very proletariat that they once depended on as the backbone of revolution.)

As you say later, a lot may be culture grounded. I had a philosophy prof back in college who said "a lot of ethics is aesthetics," which epigram seems to apply to some of this ferment. People react to the aesthetic at a gut level and then rationalize that with some more formal ethical framing and selected anecdotes. It's those gut reactions that will take a while getting worked out.

 

[C C]

Here's a mere illustration of the two "relativistic" sensibilities in heated battle with each other. Does not entail accepting host Rita Panahi's insistence that literary intellectuals and their indirect supporters at large (like in the WNBA) are pretentiously gaslighting the so-called "commonsense orientation" of the working class, flyover country (etc) or not.

Anyway, this war will go on until one side settles it by either sheer administrative force and metaphoric body count or its membership just wanes too low for effectiveness. And that solution itself is idle speculation (it could go on for another century or until most of humankind technologically converts to a diverse array of transhuman species.)

As a capitalist enterprise, the WNBA might even be orchestrating all these sideshow issues (in a pro-wrestling fashion) to draw in more crowds and news attention to the circus.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -

WNBA in crisis mode as former NBA first round picks declare for draft

VIDEO EXCERPTS: . . . The WNBA wants to pretend that feelings trump facts. Here is WNBA player Gabby Williams saying she'd welcome trans women, aka men, into the league. [...] Be careful what you wish for, Gabby, because this just happened.

"After careful consideration and reviewing the current eligibility guidelines, I am officially declaring myself a WNBA prospect. If simply declaring who you are is all that's required, then I meet every single requirement necessary to compete in the WNBA."

That's former NBA first-round pick Enes Kanter Freedom nominating for the WNBA. And here's another first-round pick putting up his manicured hand.

"Oh, earlier this week I made the announcement. I'm transgender. I'm a woman. I identify sometimes as a woman for purposes of basketball, professional basketball. So, I'll be declaring for the WNBA draft in 2027 as well. I think I'd be unstoppable."

Stunning and brave right there. And if you're not on board with that, you're a filthy bigot. Have a look at you. Look at yourself. Well done, WNBA.

You wanted to be a hard-left ideological movement instead of a sporting league. Well, you got your wish.

Suddenly, now the WNBA bosses are worried about being mugged by reality. WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert sent a letter to teams yesterday addressing concerns over the inclusion of transgender athletes after those former NBA players announced their intentions to declare for the WNBA draft.

She wrote, "We recognize that this is a complex and nuanced topic, and we will continue to have important conversations with all of you and the players' association in the weeks and months ahead."

But it's not complex. It's not nuance. It's a matter of objective fact and biological reality. Men and women are different, and pretending otherwise only disadvantages female athletes.

 

[Tiassa]

A Victim's Life (b/w, "What's a Girl to Do?")

Here's a mere illustration of the two "relativistic" sensibilities in heated battle with each other. Does not entail accepting host Rita Panahi's insistence that literary intellectuals and their indirect supporters at large (like in the WNBA) are pretentiously gaslighting the so-called "commonsense orientation" of the working class, flyover country (etc) or not.

Once again, an anti-trans man goes out of his way to become what anti-trans advocates purport to fear.

Do we think Miss Freedom will be following the audacious Christian pretenders of a decade ago↗, into the locker room?

†​

Enes Kantor Freedom has previously expressed her intention to run for Congress in 2028, after the Turkish-born American citizen, who is deadnamed as "Kantor" throughout her Wikipedia page↱, will have been an American citizen for seven years, long enough to qualify for Congress.

I don't expect Republicans will be electing a foreign-born trans woman even if she is anti-immigrant. Moreover, she intends to carpetbag:

As for what state he'd represent? There's only one requirement.

"Send me somewhere warm, man," he joked with Dakich. "My whole life, I've played for cold cities — New York, Boston, Utah, Oklahoma, Portland. I need to go somewhere warm where I'm going to wake up in a good mood."

(Harding↱)​

Maybe Florida Nineteen↗ will will be in play, again, but maybe that's just a coincidence in this year's cycle. Nineteen going carpetbagger↗ is only one variation on its legend; some would actually suggest Florida in general has a carpetbagger problem.¹

But, sure, count Miss Freedom's WNBA announcement as a stunt toward a congressional run. And the irony gets so dense that it starts to crystallize and harden into cynicism. For instance, Harding, at OutKick, asserts, "In fact, after calling out China on multiple occasions, the NBA basically blackballed him from the league." It's part of his political credential; Freedom's outspokenness even compelled the revocation of his Turkish citizenship, according to this telling.² And she points to another OutKick article, by Dave Hookstead↱, ca. 2022, and the thing is this: Enes Kanter Freedom got no offers at age thirty after the worst statistical year of his career. And it's true, "he thinks his criticism of China is the reason why". And while sports fans might ordinarily argue themselves under the table about performance dropoff or injury recovery after thirty, no formal blacklisting or blackballing is required for team ownership to prefer to avoid certain discussions at news conferences, and spare their coaches the post-game political drama, and there is nothing new about that. Hookstead saw it differently: "Hopefully, Kanter finds a way to continue his career. He's only 30 years old, and definitely has some ball left in him."

It's probably more likely this is a political stunt toward a congressional run; even if it's actually about balling in the women's league, and somehow doesn't manage to extend her career, he can always blame Democrats and China, and try explaining that part to '28 GOP primary voters in whichever state. Those voters are going to love his lifetime of victimhood, except he's a foreign-born American citizen, which used to be good enough but now Republicans want to deport them, so it will be a striking contrast. Even more than her hairy penis standing at attention in the locker room because what's a girl to do.

Actually, it would be hilarious if she sued the NCAA for eligibility. Or maybe that might be a bit subtle.
____________________

Notes:

¹ Former PR man turned independent reporter Edmond Thorne↱ would suggest, "The term 'carpetbagger' once described Northerners who rushed South after the Civil War, seeking quick gains. Today, the label fits many transplants — investors chasing profits, politicians starting over, and families hunting deals." Nor is it unrelated to consider that, vis à vis migrants overwhelming local culture, "Domestic migration has slowed lately." Indeed, "For many Floridians, the changes hit close to home," and, "Longtime residents watch their neighborhoods change." If "Developers fueled much of this", then they are to blame when "Rising home prices and insurance costs push out locals." Harding noted of Freedom, "As someone who went through the process to gain his U.S. citizenship legally, Freedom is frustrated with the flood of immigrants rushing over the southern border unchecked"; and, "Safe to say we know what's on Freedom's agenda if he's elected to office. As for what state he'd represent? There's only one requirement." To the other, we can drown in the irony, but that's part of the point. Miss Freedom did not give women his permission to have this discussion for themselves, so now she will have her say as a man. The whole thing is a trolljob audition for a political career as a Republican. How the hell is anyone supposed to take this seriously, except we already know we must.

² The truth ought to be enough, that a tyrannical government issued an arrest warrant for domestic politics only nominally associated with Mr. Kanter; he once was a member of Hizmet, and there's a Trump-Flynn scandal involved with the Turkish crackdown against the conservative-pacifist group. It really oought to be enough, but Harding's summary works toward a particular narrative.​

"Enes Kanter Freedom". Wikipedia. 10 August 2026. Wikipedia.org. 10 August 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enes_Kanter_Freedom

Harding, Amber. "Enes Kanter Freedom Plans To Run For Office In 2028 Once Waiting Period Ends". OutKick. 8 March 2024. OutKick.com. 10 August 2026. https://www.outkick.com/culture/enes-kanter-freedom-run-for-office-2028-dan-dakich

Hookstead, David. "Enes Kanter Freedom Says He Has No NBA Offers After Speaking Out Against China". OutKick. 2 August 2022. OutKick.com. 10 August 2026. https://www.outkick.com/sports/enes...o-nba-offers-after-speaking-out-against-china

Thorne, Edmond. "Florida's Modern Carpetbaggers: Outsiders Reshaping the Sunshine State Into Their Lux Visions". 21 February 2026. Medium.com. 10 August 2026. https://medium.com/@edmondthorne/fl...ine-state-into-their-lux-visions-0924b2c4081c