Debate about trans people: Rowling's simple reflex

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The world public previously knew JK Rowling as the author of the Harry Potter books, but now she has to take note: she is a terf , short for "Trans Exclusive Radical Feminist" - a feminist who excludes trans people. Rowling has revealed this attitude on Twitter: "Dress as you like. Identify yourself as you want. Sleep mutually with any adult who wants you. Live your best life in peace and security. But women from theirs Pushing jobs for the statement that the biological gender is real? #IStandWithMaya ".

Dress however you please.
Call yourself whatever you like.
Sleep with any consenting adult who'll have you.
Live your best life in peace and security.
But force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real? #IStandWithMaya #ThisIsNotADrill

To explain: Under the hashtag "IStandWithMaya" there are expressions of solidarity with Maya Forstater, a tax expert, whose contract with the Think Thank Center for Global Development has not been extended. The reason for this can also be found on Twitter. Forstater wrote there, among other things, "I think that male people are not women. I don't think that being a woman is a question of identity or female feelings. It's about biology."

Yes I think that male people are not women. I don't think being a woman / female is a matter of identity or womanly feelings. It is biology. People of either sex should not be constrained (or discriminated against) if they dont conform to traditional gender expectations

Forstater went to court against the decision of the think tank to stop employing her - and lost. The court held that their beliefs were incompatible with human dignity and the fundamental rights of others. Forstater, on the other hand, sees himself as a feminist pioneer.

Some feminists have been marginalizing trans women for years. You deny them to be women. It is astonishing, however, that Rowling is one of the Terfs : How can the "Harry Potter" author come up with house elves, shape shifters, create utopian worlds and in reality, outside of her books, think so anachronistically and small-mindedly? How can it be that the characters conceived by Rowling are more open, more progressive, wider than the author herself?

Apparently JK Rowling is mentally not far from the "Emma". In the dossier of the current issue it says: "30 years ago there were 3000 transsexuals in Germany, today there are 24.000. More and more women are fleeing to the opposite sex. Why? Is it a hype for young women to change sex instead of Blasting gender roles? And do you sometimes regret your step? "

It should actually be clear: Feminism that still does not think consistently of race , class, gender in 2019, but feels threatened by trans women, that continues to fuel hatred of trans people while transwomen of color are being killed is nothing more than one Dementor - this is the name of the magical soul suckers in "Harry Potter".

Gender vs. sex

It is characteristic of how simple Rowling's supposedly feminist reflex comes across. In the world of Forstater, Rowling and Co. there are trans people, but only at the social level of gender ( gender ), and not at the level of gender assigned to people at birth ( sex ).

The philosopher Judith Butler wrote back in the nineties that both gender and sex were social constructs that we as a society would constantly reproduce through repetition. And since Butler argued this in her standard work "The Discomfort of the Sexes", this debate has been going on. The discourse is actually long ago.

What makes Rowling's tweet unbearable is not just her anachronism, it is hidden in the inherent logic of what she said. Rowling initially pretends not to attack anyone, everyone should make what they want beautiful - and then attack. Because everything is allowed, but one thing goes too far for her: "Pushing women out of their jobs to say that gender is real". Here she mixes up the discourses and recalls a feminist idea: a woman has just been "pushed out" of her job. For what reason it seems to be irrelevant to them. Rowling plays the rights of women and the rights of trans women against each other. That is perfidious.

Rowling joins a feminism that wants to maintain the woman-man dichotomy and wipe out trans people. It could actually be that simple: trans men are men, trans women are women. They exist.