Branded a heretic for standing up to the mob
AMOB of the perpetually outraged is currently tearing through society demanding the removal of anything it finds offensive. Statues are being toppled, Gone with The wind has been removed from the HBO channel, and golden oldie comedies are being pulled from Netflix and elsewhere.
And now that mob has JK rowling, creator of Harry Potter, in their sights. That’s right. The author beloved of millennials everywhere has become a target of its more woke cohort for having the temerity to challenge the transgender lobby.
She finds herself in the firing line for having picked up on campaign by an international development organisation that talked of the need to create ‘a more equal post- Covid-19 world for people who menstruate’.
It was a strangulated attempt to avoid offending men who identify as women, and rowling called it out for what it was on Twitter. ‘I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. wumben? wimpund? woomud?’ she wrote.
She was pointing out that we live in a world where the word ‘woman’ is being casually erased. A ‘person’ who menstruates, has breasts, a womb and ovaries is a woman. It should not be a thought-crime to say so.
I’m not a feminist and I have every sympathy for those who find themselves trapped in the wrong body. But turning the word ‘woman’ into an unutterable curse-word rides back on over a century of women’s hard-won rights.
And, of all people, the impeccably liberal-minded rowling should be safe from today’s ‘cancel culture’. She supports Amnesty International, she’s donated serious money to the Labour Party and she’s been a critic of Brexit, for goodness sake!
Her life story, her rags-to-riches tale of an impoverished single mum, sitting in an edinburgh cafe working away at her Potter stories, should make her a feminist role model.
Her crime, ironically, is to deny the power of magic. She believes it takes more than uttering a few special words for a man to transform into a woman, without any process at all – to say simply that because he identifies as a woman, he is a woman.
Today, daring to say that being female is more than just a ‘feeling’ and that there may be circumstances in which women need to be reassured that only other women are present – in lavatories, changing rooms, spas etc – is enough to have you branded a witch.
How did we get here? In March last year, a researcher called Maya Forstater lost her job at a London think tank for having expressed the view that people cannot change their biological sex. when the case came to court in December, the judge upheld her dismissal and described her views on sex and gender as ‘absolutist’ and ‘incompatible with human dignity and the fundamental rights of others’.
It’s incredible that a woman can lose her livelihood simply for stating biological facts. Yet hardly anyone challenged this unprecedented attack on Forstater’s freedom of speech and freedom of conscience.
JK rowling was one of the few to speak out. The author tweeted: ‘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?’
This one tweet, this one small act of sisterly solidarity, sparked a Twitter meltdown. rowling was labelled a ‘TerF’ – Trans-exclusionary radical Feminist – the go-to insult hurled at women who transgress new social norms established primarily by men.
NOT that long ago, it was considered grossly offensive to insult women by calling them derogatory names. Now, the hierarchy of victimhood has been transformed and women – females – can be subjected to no end of abuse if it’s for the greater good of protecting males who, complete with penis, chest hair and stubble, demand the world acknowledges they are women.
Thankfully, rowling was not cowed by the bullies. So, three cheers for her for standing up for women – except that’s not what is happening. She is being grossly insulted all over again. Nothing is off limits when it comes to taking down this modernday heretic.
She has explained why she won’t bow down to the demands of the transgender activists. with painful honesty, she has detailed the sexual assault she suffered and the abusive marriage she left.
Understandably, she thinks women fleeing such relationships should have female- only spaces. She’s revealed how her father wanted a son and, if she was a child today, she could have easily found herself heading for surgery. But nothing appeases the mob. Still the insults are hurled. In 2020, women are expected to know their place: erased from public record until required as a target for abuse. It’s time we stood up to this vile PC misogyny.