Ms Rowling: insightful critic of gender policy or myopic [insult]

[parmalee]

Eg. Bob could not use the n-word with impunity around anyone just because they happen to be black, even if Bob is talking about himself.

Bringing it back, you could not call yourself a kike around others without prior warning - I mean, not with impunity.

Yeah, it absolutely demands some sort of indication that it is being deployed either to make a point, or as some sort of provocation or challenge, i.e., when someone is just spewing egregiously racist crap, as a pointed reminder as to consideration of audience (not that that should matter*), or something to that effect.

For the longest time it bothered me that, from my erroneous perspective, people were according other people too much power by allowing a single word to have such an effect--I mean, the people deploying such were pieces of garbage, generally, it just seemed wrong to let them get under your skin. But over time I realized the damage was not necessarily done unto the specific person being insulted, but rather to other people generally--people not present and people having nothing whatsoever to do with whatever some asshole was ranting about and not being able (y virtue of absence) to even counter it. I'm a rather insular/introverted person and taking something beyond myself and my own selfish interests and concerns requires some effort on my part.

I mentioned that whole "complaining about people 'complaining' about racism" thing as rather suspect, but I find implications and insinuations that the person "complaining" is somehow personally offended a rather questionable tactic, as well. Typically the "complaint" has more to do with the disparagement and dehumanization of some group of people not even present to respond to such, and no personal "offense" is taken.

* And that always brings to mind those guys with a Black friend who'll spew a bunch of racist shit, while claiming that their "friend" knows they're not talking about him--he's different.

 

[Tiassa]

… that hate speech is expressly forbidden here …

But is it hate speech? Or is it, maybe↑, just an unpopular stance?

At some point, the general pretense that we might avoid the infamy of supremacism by doubting the boundaries of supremacism is predictable near to axiomatic. And, sure, what was it I said—「it's ten years later, and vis à vis the people who train up their girls to act more girly because they're training up the boys to expect it, we can only wonder how many people think the real grooming problem is the idea that girls should be who they are」—but it's only important in the moment because, well, life so conveniently provides.

Seth Gruber, for instance, is a self-proclaimed leading voice of the pro-life movement, and, well, if you're a come-lately who's just not used to this stuff, sure, maybe it's kind of a wow!

No, no, children should not be able to decide whatever they want to do with their body. And, by the way, anyone who tells that to a child is a pervert or a groomer. If you are whispering to children, "Hey, do whatever you want with your body", "Hey, here's some porn", "Hey, do you think―hey, Timmy, do you think you're a little girl", "Hey, here's some trans porn", "Hey, here's a website, where you can explore your gender identity". Like, when you're projecting a sexual and gender identity onto minors, historically we had a definition for that: You were called a pervert and a groomer, and the community or town you lived in might wake up the next morning to find you dead in an alleyway. I'm not calling for that; I'm observing how little tolerance we used to have for this kind of stuff.

(qtd. by Right Wing Watch↱)​

But for those a little more familiar with the subject matter, there really isn't anything new about it. Gruber isn't breaking new ground. Consider this thread: If you ride with Rowling, these are your allies, whether you want them or not. I wouldn't want them, either. But that doesn't change the fact of how this goes, and how it's gone for over a decade. ¿Are you new? Neither am I.

Is there a polite way to tell someone they have no civil, human, or constitutional rights? Is there a polite way to falsely accuse someone of being a groomer?

Again↑, maybe there's a reason some people would rather pass over that part.

†​

There is also this: Go back and read through what Gruber said. It stands out that Gruber has given so much though to how to groom a child. That is, sure, there is the bizarre, dangerous world he imagines, but there is also a question of how much time he spends, there. Reading through his five-step projection of sexual and gender identity, we might wonder if he really believes it or is just talking that way for thrills, because he has clearly taken some time to think it through; from agency to pornography to transgender to pornography to agency.

It's one of those things like the old homophobic barracks-rape fantasy, I'm pretty sure I don't really want to know how they think that all goes. And if I'm flashing back to the Nineties, it's because we've been here before:

… a fabricated story of seduction entitled, "Billy and Chuckie: A fictional story about how adult role models can influence children's decisions about 'progressive' life-styles." In the story, "Billy Johnson, small for his twelve years, shy and a little self-conscious," the child of recently divorced parents, is seduced by "Chuckie," "a head taller than Billy, and about 50 pounds heavier." Billy finally submits to Chuckie after a thorough brow-beating about how homosexual sex must be "O.K." because their teacher is gay:

Chuckie, playing and making noises like he was an NFL linebacker, tackled Billy into a huge pile of leaves. Tickling him unmercifully, he said, "Hey, this is the Chuckmeister, your best friend, would I do something to hurt you? Hey, I understand man," said Chuckie as he pulled Billy to his feet [....] But remember we heard Mr. Carson tell us all the experts say it's perfectly normal--even some doctors and shrinks and people like that." While both remained covered with leaves, [...] Billy apologized for not waiting like he'd promised. he [sic] felt a little guilty. he has promised to go to the fort, even if yesterday it was just to stop Chuckie from bugging him all the time [...] .Even in spite of the tickling, Chuckie could see that something still bothered Billy. "Look," said Chuckie. "You heard Mr. Carson, our health teacher say he was gay, right? He said, he first tried it when he was about our age....And he's pretty cool. Right" I mean he lets everybody do what they want in his class. He even gives some kids rides in his Porsche after school. Being gay hasn't hurt Mr. Carson, has it?" Billy accompanies Chuckie to "the fort," where they will presumably engage in "gay stuff." The spectacle of poor, feminized Billy being "bugg[er]ed" incessantly by Chuckie is accompanied by a drawing of a frail boy, presumably Billy, kneeling with a rather Priapic penis-like outline running the length of his thigh.​

"Billy and Chuckie" focuses anxiety on the male child as seducible weak point of the patriarchal family, and on a horrified vision of child sexuality per se. The patriarchal family is envisioned as a container breached by the penetrating, uncloseted gay man. In this scenario, the Porsche-driving gay man penetrates the child simply by being out of the closet and not evidently persecuted-- "Being gay hasn't hurt Mr. Carson, has it?" Although the seduced child becomes feminized and corrupt, the seducer is masculine and aggressive. Has this masculinity been stolen from straight family men by the economically successful, Porsche-driving gay man?

(Kent↱)​

Again, I probably don't want to know what goes into that; as Le'a Kent put it thirty years ago:

… to emphasize what a stunning creation it comprises. It is important, I think, to highlight the fantastic nature of this story. (Indeed, where else but in right-wing fantasy do grade- school teachers drive Porsches?) Somewhere, some OCA minion, some fine upstanding homophobic man or woman, composed this story of pre-teen seduction, and drew the accompanying illustration. It is through and through the creation, not of NAMBLA, not of the "gay agenda," but of the religious right.​

And as McCall recently observed↑ of Butler circa all of last year:

Judith Butler wrote in Who's Afraid of Gender? that "a specter-infused hypothetical" has been used to stoke panic about trans women: Someone who has a penis, or once had a penis, will rape, because either the penis, or the socialization of people with penises, is the cause of rape. This is the argument for putting trans women in men's prisons. A dick will inevitably rape. Or a man's dick could drive him to become trans so it can rape. These hypothetical men and hypothetical crimes are enough to justify a trans woman's suffering, and her possible rape, in a men's prison, because she is violent by virtue of her birth.​

Or as Butler put it thirty-five years ago (qtd. in Kent), "If the legal statute relies on this figure of the male homosexual, then perhaps the legal statute can be understood as its own kind of fantasy."

How many more times does who need to go through this? How many more times 'round and 'round the mulberry bush? Once upon a time, just for instance, somebody reminded me they were part of my community and I should respect that, but I still don't get↗ the part where history is supposed to become a blank slate just because johnny finally came lately.

Or, as such, the apparently undying↑ politeness↑ owed those who would harm.

But is it really hate speech?
____________________

Notes:

@RightWingWatch. "Anti-LGBTQ activist Seth Gruber says that, historically, if you talked to kids about sexuality and gender issues, 'you were called a pervert and a groomer and the community or town you lived in might wake up the next morning to find you dead in an alleyway.'" X. 17 June 2025. X.com. 18 June 2025. status/1934997332828823897

Kent, Le'a. "'Abnormal, Wrong, Unnatural and Perverse': Taking the Measure (9) of the Closet". (n.d.) Internet Archive. 12 October 2006. web.archive.org. 18 June 2025. https://web.archive.org/web/20061012064151/http://cultronix.eserver.org/kent/

McCall, Vivian. "It's All About the Dick". The Stranger. 4 June 2025. TheStranger.com. 18 June 2025. https://www.thestranger.com/queer-issue-2025/2025/06/05/80088309/its-all-about-the-dick

 

[Wizard of Whatever]

OK great!

Let's say you have a daughter. She is born with all the usual parts, grows up, joins the woman's swim team, likes dresses.

Then she goes to the doctor at age 14 because she's having odd periods. The doctor tells her that she is XY - genetically male. Like tens of thousands of other women in the US.

Is she a woman or a man?

Should be easy right?

It is easy. She is one of the rare examples of abnormal sexual development in the womb. She is generically male, but with female characteristics. More properly a type of hermaphrodite Has nothing to do with Trans, which is more properly a psychological, or mental, or brain structure phenomenon.

 

[billvon]

It is easy. She is one of the rare examples of abnormal sexual development in the womb. She is generically male, but with female characteristics.

Great! So is she a woman or a man? Because by your definition she's a man, and you are going to have to tell your daughter that she has to use the men's room at high school. And perhaps have her kicked out of school for being a man on the women's swim team.

More properly a type of hermaphrodite

Nope. A hermaprodite has both male and female sex organs. She only has the one set - female.

Has nothing to do with Trans

Has everything to do with trans. There are about 40,000 people in the US with CAIS (complete androgen insensitivity syndrome) which is what I described above. There are hundreds of thousands of people with partial AIS; these people are often called intersex. They have characteristics of both. Google "Prader scale" for more information. And there are about a dozen other medical conditions that will cause a newborn to present as intersex.

And here's the $64,000 question again - which of them are women, and which of them are men? If the answer is so easy (as you claim above) let's hear it.

 

[Wizard of Whatever]

Great! So is she a woman or a man? Because by your definition she's a man, and you are going to have to tell your daughter that she has to use the men's room at high school. And perhaps have her kicked out of school for being a man on the women's swim team.



Nope. A hermaprodite has both male and female sex organs. She only has the one set - female.



Has everything to do with trans. There are about 40,000 people in the US with CAIS (complete androgen insensitivity syndrome) which is what I described above. There are hundreds of thousands of people with partial AIS; these people are often called intersex. They have characteristics of both. Google "Prader scale" for more information. And there are about a dozen other medical conditions that will cause a newborn to present as intersex.

And here's the $64,000 question again - which of them are women, and which of them are men? If the answer is so easy (as you claim above) let's hear it.

Same answer, a form of hermaphrodite. Neither male nor female, but with characteristics of both, Genetic characteristics of male, external characteristics of female.

 

[billvon]

Same answer, a form of hermaphrodite. Neither male nor female, but with characteristics of both, Genetic characteristics of male, external characteristics of female.

So is she a woman or a man? Which bathroom does she use? What do you call her?

It's a very simple question. You even said it was easy.

 

[DaveC426913]

So is she a woman or a man? Which bathroom does she use? What do you call her?

It's a very simple question. You even said it was easy.

I'd day you'vee got your answer in WoW's equivocation and stammering.

He's describing biological sexuality falling on a spectrum, rather than black and white, without - you know - saying that biological sexuality falls on a spectrum, rather than black and white.

Ask him again. See if he can fine-tune his equivocating before exploding.

 

[Wizard of Whatever]

So is she a woman or a man? Which bathroom does she use? What do you call her?

It's a very simple question. You even said it was easy.

She has the inner form of a man. and the outer form of a women. Since the outer form is the one others interact with in the world she should be considered female for these interactions.

 

[Atlan0001]

My children have never been . . . my grandchildren and great-grandchildren aren't . . . the property of the state, the would be Woke Socialist / Fascist Communist dictatorship, including the Orwellian Big Brother bureaucrat school and hospital personnel who clearly believe parents no longer have any say against the state in their children's lives. Literally, the state owning the children now . . . to indoctrinate and operate and experiment upon as it absolutely wills! "Resistance is futile!" according to the Socialist monsters of the tyrannical (thus, anarchic, too) Globalist Woke World state (Utopia (Dystopia)).

Thank God, the growing resistance of Americans and an American administration, now, is proving not so futile! And resistance is expanding in the rest of the world as well, to the utter chagrin of the world's would be Total Quality Controllers and Managers.

 

[TheVat]

At the same time, I actually generally am inclined to agree here with regards to the specifics: "kike" is unacceptable, even if referring to oneself. I think my usage of such, a couple of pages back, would be more an example of, perhaps, "poking the bear" or something like that--maybe being pedantic in the least effective imagineable way!

In middle school my pal David and I were riding bikes on day and he held his arms wide and shouted "look, a kike on a bike!" Another friend in college often called himself a fat kike. It seemed like a "we're taking control of this word, so it can't control us."

Sincerely,

A runty balding four-eyed mick ("paddie" in UK, IIRC)

 

[TheVat]

Actually 5/9 is, per Bureau of Vital Statistics, the average male height in the US. But where I grew up and mostly lived, it was short. Just to clarify.

 

[James R]

I'm not anti-trans, but defining a woman is easy. Her 23 chromosome pair is XX, while a males is XY. This is the biological definition.

What about women who have XY chromosomes, but are in every physiological aspect, female? That is, they have a uterus, can bear children, present as women, identify as women, etc. etc.?

Are you going to label those women "men"?

 

[James R]

OK great!

Let's say you have a daughter. She is born with all the usual parts, grows up, joins the woman's swim team, likes dresses.

Then she goes to the doctor at age 14 because she's having odd periods. The doctor tells her that she is XY - genetically male. Like tens of thousands of other women in the US.

Is she a woman or a man?

Should be easy right?

Bingo! (Sorry. I replied before reading the entire thread. You got there before me.)

 

[James R]

It is easy. She is one of the rare examples of abnormal sexual development in the womb.

It sounds like you're not very familiar with why this sort of thing happens.

While we're on the subject of rareness, a widely quoted figure is that about 1.7% of people are intersex.

If the world's population is 7 billion people, that makes a total 119 million people who are intersex. This is a population equivalent to about one third of the US population, or the entire population of Japan.

Not really all that rare.

She is generically male, but with female characteristics.

She produces ova, not sperm. She can bear children. What makes her male?

More properly a type of hermaphrodite...

billvon defined the term "hermaphrodite" for you, previously. The definition doesn't fit the woman in question.

Has nothing to do with Trans, which is more properly a psychological, or mental, or brain structure phenomenon.

How many genders are there, Wizard of Whatever?

She has the inner form of a man. and the outer form of a women.

No. Physiologically, she is a woman, inside and out.

Since the outer form is the one others interact with in the world she should be considered female for these interactions.

But you said that anybody with XY chromosomes should be considered male, for all purposes, did you not? You said it was an "easy" thing to do. A no-brainer.

Have you changed your mind now?

 

[billvon]

She has the inner form of a man. and the outer form of a women.

OK we're getting there. It would be more accurate to say "the phenotype of a woman and the genotype of a man" (since she has a vagina, a uterus etc) but if by "inner form" you mean inside the cells of her body, I'll give you that.

Since the outer form is the one others interact with in the world she should be considered female for these interactions.

And now the really important question - who gets to decide that? Suppose, for example, she has all those female parts, but looks sort of like a guy? (flat chest etc.) Who decides what she is called, what bathroom she uses and what teams she plays on?

 

[billvon]

She produces ova, not sperm. She can bear children.

One note here. While she will appear anatomically female, XY cells cannot produce fertile egg cells - so she won't be able to bear kids. In fact, often the first sign that someone is XY is that they can't seem to get pregnant.