this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2023
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For a gender that less than 0.5% of the population identifies as (Wiki numbers, 355 people out of 100,000), we sure do argue about this a lot, don't we?
Never underestimate the will of bigots to obsess over other people’s genitalia.
Edit: I said the above to be facetious and poke fun at these wall-eyed transphobic lunatics. I realise that trans / NB issues encompass SO much more than that, and I was being deliberately reductive in order to make a point. I hope that comes through ❤️
I hope that comes through ❤️
Clear as a bell. Anyone shitting on you is as tone-deaf as JK.
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It's just one of the culture war angles propagated by the rich to keep everyone angry with each other while they reap up as much of the world's wealth as possible before any of the forthcoming disasters- whether that is climate crisis migration, the next financial crisis, AI unemployment crisis, further war, food and water shortages worldwide, etc...
The writing is on the wall, a majority of people can see it too if you ask them, but unfortunately people can't help but get sucked in anyway. Probably because it's a distraction from facing the uncertain future we all have.
OR, this is just a tinfoil hat getting the better of me. It feels like a logical conclusion, so maybe that's the fallacy I've fallen for.
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Better that than throwing off the shackles of the oppressor and rising up against the oligarch class.
Those brown lads area after your crumbs! That man wants to be called "they"! Ooh look, Israel/Gaza, pick a side! Look at this jobless woman with her fancy flat screen television! Does eating Wotsits cure cancer? Distract yourselves with yourselves.
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Even if they were only 1 in a billion. They still deserve to exist and live their lives how they like if it doesn't negatively affect others.
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Fuck JK Rowling. What a bigot.
Always has been...
It's just the kids reading her books 20 years ago didn't recognize all the problematic shit she wrote till they grew up.
It’s just the kids reading her books 20 years ago didn’t recognize all the problematic shit she wrote till they grew up.
Adult here who was an adult when the books came out and recognized all the awful racist and sexist imagery. I have nothing new to add to the conversation, I'm just gonna vent. There were quite a few of us here and there who spoke up when the books were published, but we were significantly outnumbered and immediately drowned out by the "shut up and stop complaining" crowd. Yes, all this talk of "problematic" issues in the Potter books are old observations we've been rehashing for two decades...the goblins who run the banks are a horrifyingly obvious Jewish caricature, Chinese character Cho Chang's first name is actually a Korean last name, the one black guy in the whole fuckin series is named "Shacklebolt" (seriously wtf), the one Irish character goes by "Seamus Finnegan," the main female character Hermione is constantly referred to as "bossy"...just to name a few. JFC, what a shitshow.
Ok, one more example that got a lot of attention years back but sort of faded away from public consciousness: in the first movie there's a bigass six-pointed star on the fuckin floor of Gringotts, of all places. You know, Gringotts. The bank......where the undeniably Jew-like goblins work. No fuckin shit, it's right there, plain as day. That one still boggles my mind. I mean, what the fuck, man. https://i.postimg.cc/Jzx2hr31/happry-potter-1-star-of-david-gringotts.png
EDIT: Hey everyone, it's been abuot an hour now and I just want to apologize for all this negativity. I've given this a lot of thought, and I've come to realize all the anti-this and anti-that complaints are really unfair and show only one side of JK Rowling. So I feel compelled to balance this out and remind everyone that she is also pro-slavery. Especially the kind of slavery that forces its slaves to work completely naked, and no one in the book has a problem with it except for the bossy lib girl that everyone hates.
Me as a 13yo reading the first book: Holy shit, Dumbledore is so badass he just magics up a feast for everyone!
Me reading the later books: Oh, the feast is cooked by elves. Slave elves. Elves that are slaves... Cool cool cool...
Holy. Shit. That Star of David is blowing my mind.
Harry Potter reached the height of its popularity in the 2000s/early 2010s, in a time when gay was still an extremely popular insult, feminists were the punching bags of the internet, holocaust jokes were a dime a dozen and anyone saying it wasn't funny was an enemy to comedy itself, the biggest internet creators took literal pride in their content specifically being offensive (Smosh was the biggest example of this IMO), and saying you should respect people's gender identities on the mainstream internet will get you labeled as an SJW and actual death threats thrown your way, so I'd also argue that Harry Potter not being seen as problematic was in part because mainstream society (not you obviously, but the broader internet/pop culture in general at the time) genuinely did not view those things as problematic. Like if JK Rowling said all the things she said about transgender rights in 2003, she would probably still end up in controversy but way more people would actually support her, would have probably split the fandom roughly down the middle as opposed to the overwhelmingly negative response she's receiving in the 2020s. Or look at it this way: Harry Potter was most popular in the same time period when Family Guy was most popular.
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It’s just the kids reading ~~her~~ its books 20 years ago didn’t recognize all the problematic shit ~~she~~ it wrote till they grew up.
Surely it can't have a problem with that wording, which doesn't refer to gender at all.
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Sucks that's she's heavily involved in the new reboot, which means the stereotypes and troublesome characters are going to be even worse this time around
Has anyone in any country ever been incarcerated for misgendering a trans person? Is there even a significant number of people who seriously believe that would be an appropriate response?
Nope.
Just come out and tell us about your victimhood complex, Joanne.
Exactly! It's like going to jail for having someone presenting themselves as Joanne and you always call them Joanna. How will it ever be so much of a concern to throw someone in jail and destroy their future over it, Joanna? HOW??
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Using the correct pronouns is an issue of respecting others, and seeing Rowling doubling down on her smug and bigoted views in public is a revelation, because during a re-read, you start seeing these views reflecting everywhere in her writing. It's a deeply prejudiced and irrational world, and it stayed that way all the way to the ending with nothing in that world really changed.
I think being an adult is realizing that I don't love Harry Potter as much as I used to, because (I can't believe I'm saying this) I've finally outgrown it. It's time to move on.
Being a grown-up is painful.
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The prosecution complex is real. No one's suing you for using the wrong pronouns you bigot.
In fact, I'm almost entirely sure that no one's ever asked Rowling to use specific pronouns because no queer person could stand being around her for longer than a minute.
*Persecution
Prosecution is a noun referring to the party bringing charges in a criminal case.
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Does she realize what a complete arsehole that makes her look? She'd rather go to jail than treat people like human beings?
He doesn't.
assuming you didn't make a typo, this ain't cute. The signal you're sending is that respecting pronouns is a privilege you reserve for people you agree with.
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[x] Doubt
Even if you disagree, using a pronoun is just polite. She'd have to go out of her way to do this.
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He really does know how to keep yall pushing their SEO score higher
Wait... is that really on the table? If so, then I grudgingly have to take her side insofar as objecting to prior restraint or compelled speech. Being an asshole is a fundamental human right.
No. It isn't on the table. This is another in the long line of scenarios that only exist in TERF imaginations.
It was not on the table.
Some rando posted on her Shitter account "vote for Labour, get two years" and Rowling responded with the quote in the headline.
If you read the article, they clarify that the Labour party wants to crack down on LGBTQ hate crimes, and nowhere is it said that they would make it illegal to use improper pronouns for others.
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That makes her the second gigantic prominent shithead in as many days expressing that they're willing to go to prison for their beliefs. And also the second whom I wouldn't believe for even a millisecond that they're telling the truth.
Enjoy jail then I guess. It's a pretty stupid hill to die on, especially when you're filthy rich and the conservatives already hate you over the whole witchcraft nonsense. I cannot fathom conservative doublethink.
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what a weirdo lol
The twitter thread where they fantasise about being in prison reminds me of this meme:
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What a shitbrick. I am glad I never got into her books in the first place. I saw the first movie and had no interest in seeing the others. I read half the first book to my daughter and she got bored with it, so we stopped. My wife got really into her and is disappointed neither of us are, but fuck her. I don't want to spend a dime on her.
Edit: Weird part- she's always been an atheist and she loved the Narnia books.
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