JK Rowling’s Anti-Trans Post: A Deep Dive

In her long essay on trans issues, JK Rowling uses a lot of techniques to make herself sound more reasonable than she is actually being. She frequently minimizes and avoids explicitly saying the things she alludes to. She spends a lot of time poisoning the well. In particular, she avoids acknowledging the truly terrible things she’s said or supported publicly. She implies that all trans women are physically and sexually dangerous, particularly to children, and she consistently implies that trans people are just “men in dresses” or “self-loathing women”.

I’m going to go paragraph by paragraph through what JK Rowling has written because I think it’s important to highlight the tactics she’s using to minimize her bigotry and aim that bigotry at trans people, especially trans women.

Before I get started I will just say… you really don’t have to read this. It’s a pretty miserable experience and there are much more enjoyable ways to spend your time. That said, let’s get on with it.

This isn’t an easy piece to write, for reasons that will shortly become clear, but I know it’s time to explain myself on an issue surrounded by toxicity. I write this without any desire to add to that toxicity.

She starts with poisoning the well, making it sound like the toxicity is somehow generated by the topic itself, and not the result of, for example, her own behavior. She also peremptorily disowns her own bad behavior, without actually apologizing for it.

For people who don’t know: last December I tweeted my support for Maya Forstater, a tax specialist who’d lost her job for what were deemed ‘transphobic’ tweets. She took her case to an employment tribunal, asking the judge to rule on whether a philosophical belief that sex is determined by biology is protected in law. Judge Tayler ruled that it wasn’t.

This is deeply misrepresentative of Maya Forstater. Forstater was a contractor whose contract was not renewed following a series of tweets in which she misgendered trans people and called them “crossdressers”. She dismissed the possibility of trans people existing, referring to trans women consistently as “males”. Her contract was not renewed after an individual complained that she was creating a hostile work environment. After suing, Forstater continued to post vile things – insisting on deadnaming trans people, intentionally using incorrect pronouns, and misgendering people. A judge concluded that this harassing behavior wasn’t OK in a workplace. Forstater is allowed to believe whatever she wants, but when that belief manifests in treating individuals badly, an employer has the right to protect its other employees from harassment.

I can only assume that Rowling doesn’t explain the entire story because it would look very bad for her case. You’ll note that Rowling never directly links to anything she refers to, not allowing people to judge for themselves her interpretations or the validity of her sources. Rowling’s tweet in defense of Forstater was equally misleading and dismissive of trans people, implying that they were just crossdressing, not trans.

My interest in trans issues pre-dated Maya’s case by almost two years, during which I followed the debate around the concept of gender identity closely. I’ve met trans people, and read sundry books, blogs and articles by trans people, gender specialists, intersex people, psychologists, safeguarding experts, social workers and doctors, and followed the discourse online and in traditional media. On one level, my interest in this issue has been professional, because I’m writing a crime series, set in the present day, and my fictional female detective is of an age to be interested in, and affected by, these issues herself, but on another, it’s intensely personal, as I’m about to explain.

Rowling’s interest in trans issues started because she wrote a book in which a trans woman attacks the main character (the main character then threatens her with prison rape). Her research was to help her write a villainous trans woman. She writes this paragraph as though she’s a disinterested researcher, when she is, in fact, someone with an agenda. Her agenda is to ensure that cis women do not have to share spaces with trans women.

All the time I’ve been researching and learning, accusations and threats from trans activists have been bubbling in my Twitter timeline. This was initially triggered by a ‘like’. When I started taking an interest in gender identity and transgender matters, I began screenshotting comments that interested me, as a way of reminding myself what I might want to research later. On one occasion, I absent-mindedly ‘liked’ instead of screenshotting. That single ‘like’ was deemed evidence of wrongthink, and a persistent low level of harassment began.

There are a couple of interesting things happening in this paragraph. First, Rowling refuses to take any responsibility for her liking a tweet. It may seem inconsequential, but liked tweets by popular feeds means that tweet show up in a lot of people’s feeds. So a lot of people saw bile who otherwise wouldn’t have had to. Rowling’s large platform comes with additional responsibilities. On top of that, she again fails to acknowledge what research she was doing (how to write a trans woman villain) or the fact that what she was reading was absolutely awful — or the fact that there were actually several incidents of her “accidentally” liking transphobic material on Twitter. That link has a much more exhaustive analysis of how the tweets were problematic than what I can provide.

The first she liked was an article that presented trans women as predators and “strangers with a penis”. The second was a tweet that described trans women as “men in dresses” and said that supporting trans women rather than the (cis woman) author of the tweet was an example of misogyny.

She also casts herself as some powerless victim of persecution for being perceived to have a “wrongthink” opinion. To be clear, she was accurately perceived to have an opinion which this entire piece affirms. She also seems to be under the misapprehension that freedom of speech means the ability to say whatever you want without facing criticism. She can post things denying people’s gender identity, and that’s free speech, but saying she is wrong is necessarily harassment.

I will say this though, she is right that there is too much harassment on Twitter and some of it is aimed at her. Some of the criticism she has faced has been deeply misogynistic and violent. That is, unfortunately, true of Twitter across the board.

Months later, I compounded my accidental ‘like’ crime by following Magdalen Berns on Twitter. Magdalen was an immensely brave young feminist and lesbian who was dying of an aggressive brain tumour. I followed her because I wanted to contact her directly, which I succeeded in doing. However, as Magdalen was a great believer in the importance of biological sex, and didn’t believe lesbians should be called bigots for not dating trans women with penises, dots were joined in the heads of twitter trans activists, and the level of social media abuse increased.

Again, refusing to take responsibility for liking something that she agrees with, understating the impact of liking a tweet when it makes it appear to millions of people, and overstating the criticism of her by implying trans activists think it’s a “crime”. Berns was young for someone to die of a brain tumour, but she was 36 not 16, which is more the age that Rowling seems to be implying here. As a fully adult woman, Berns was absolutely responsible for her reprehensible views, which were much more than thinking it was OK for lesbians not to date trans women. (Never mind that many trans women are lesbians). Rowling here also here mentions penises in an attempt to scare people. I do not understand her obsession with genitalia, but many anti-trans people seem to reduce people to their genitalia.

Why did she even want to support Berns? That’s not some incidental information, Rowling likely wanted to support Berns specifically for her anti-trans work. Again Rowling implies that dots were joined that shouldn’t be joined, in a piece in which she advocates for transphobia! She wants to imply that trans people are crazy for thinking she doesn’t support trans people, even while she is writing an essay about how she doesn’t support trans people!

As for Berns’ beliefs, they were really aggressively dehumanizing. She didn’t believe trans women were women, she said they were “blackface actors” and “men who got sexual kicks from being treated like women.” She insisted that homosexuality was about attraction to specific genitalia not genders. She was very much a TERF, by the strictest definitions. Rowling again avoids acknowledging the worst of Berns’ public statements to maintain some plausible deniability of her own fear and dislike of trans people.

I mention all this only to explain that I knew perfectly well what was going to happen when I supported Maya. I must have been on my fourth or fifth cancellation by then. I expected the threats of violence, to be told I was literally killing trans people with my hate, to be called cunt and bitch and, of course, for my books to be burned, although one particularly abusive man told me he’d composted them.

She knew perfectly well that as someone who had positioned herself as an LGBTQ ally, people would be upset when she publicly supported someone who literally called trans people “blackface performers.” Yeah, that’s not super hard to predict. Here she performs an interesting trick where she conflates genuine abuse (threats of violence, gendered slurs) with legitimate criticism (contributing to trans youth suicide, destroying books). I have to assume the particularly abusive man who composted her book was considered abusive for some unstated reason? Notice also that here she goes from just following so she could DM to actively supporting Maya. She sneaks in this reveal of what is more likely her real behavior — supporting a very transphobic person specifically because she agrees with the transphobia.

What I didn’t expect in the aftermath of my cancellation was the avalanche of emails and letters that came showering down upon me, the overwhelming majority of which were positive, grateful and supportive. They came from a cross-section of kind, empathetic and intelligent people, some of them working in fields dealing with gender dysphoria and trans people, who’re all deeply concerned about the way a socio-political concept is influencing politics, medical practice and safeguarding. They’re worried about the dangers to young people, gay people and about the erosion of women’s and girl’s rights. Above all, they’re worried about a climate of fear that serves nobody – least of all trans youth – well.

A yes, a good bandwagon argument. You see the good people of the world, the silent majority, agree with my bigotry, therefore it is correct. She also avoids stating what people are “deeply concerned” about. “[A] socio political concept” means the belief that trans people exist, “influencing politics” means that trans people want their gender recognized, “medical practice” means providing appropriate care to people who are trans, and “safeguarding” means protecting cis women and children from being raped by predatory trans women. The dangers to young people are presumably that trans people are sexual predators and that transitioning is dangerous to the young. The danger to gay people is that somehow their sexuality is not real if trans people exist. The erosion of women’s and girl’s rights is that those rights would also be extended to trans women and girls.

And then there is her claim that, somehow, people who criticize trans people are living in a worse “climate of fear” than trans people themselves. A “climate of fear” is when you don’t know if you’ll be fired, kicked out of your home, disowned, beaten, or killed if someone discovers you’re trans. It’s not worrying that people will call you a bigot for expressing a bigoted opinion on Twitter. These are not the same. The dangers are nothing alike. And using trans youth as a shield here is especially galling.

I’d stepped back from Twitter for many months both before and after tweeting support for Maya, because I knew it was doing nothing good for my mental health. I only returned because I wanted to share a free children’s book during the pandemic. Immediately, activists who clearly believe themselves to be good, kind and progressive people swarmed back into my timeline, assuming a right to police my speech, accuse me of hatred, call me misogynistic slurs and, above all – as every woman involved in this debate will know – TERF.

Again, she uses the term “support” here. Again, without saying what Maya believed and said. Here she says that Twitter abuse was bad for her mental health, without acknowledging that the persistent denial of their humanity and gender is devastating to the mental health of trans people. Again, Rowling makes this about her. She goes on to act as though all she was doing on Twitter was this act of charity for children (you’ll note she repeatedly brings up children to act as a shield for her behavior), when she was actively posting anti-trans missives. Again, minimizing her own behavior and her responsibility for it.

She here mistakes criticism for policing of speech. Your right to say whatever you want isn’t infringed by people telling you that what you said was terrible. You are free to speak, not free from criticism of that speech. Again she does this conflating things as though being (accurately) accused of hatred is the same as being called misogynistic slurs. She also conflates misogynistic slurs with TERF, even though TERF is not that. She also implies that the only women involved in this debate are cis women who don’t support trans people, entirely ignoring all the cis women who’ve not been called a TERF and all the trans women fighting for their rights.

If you didn’t already know – and why should you? – ‘TERF’ is an acronym coined by trans activists, which stands for Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist. In practice, a huge and diverse cross-section of women are currently being called TERFs and the vast majority have never been radical feminists. Examples of so-called TERFs range from the mother of a gay child who was afraid their child wanted to transition to escape homophobic bullying, to a hitherto totally unfeminist older lady who’s vowed never to visit Marks & Spencer again because they’re allowing any man who says they identify as a woman into the women’s changing rooms. Ironically, radical feminists aren’t even trans-exclusionary – they include trans men in their feminism, because they were born women.

Here’s another bit of little word magic. She ends the previous paragraph with the claim that every (cis) woman (who is a TERF) involved in this discussion is familiar with the term TERF, to highlight that it’s a terrible slur being used against everyone willy-nilly, but begins this paragraph with, why should you have heard of the term TERF, it’s so unimportant and niche, so she can build the term up as a slur used with abandon and dismiss it as unimportant at the same time.

She’s actually right here about where the term TERF is applied. It was originally used inside the radical feminist movement to criticize radfems who didn’t support/include trans women, but it has become shorthand for anyone who doesn’t support trans people. It has evolved, like many terms, from one that was merely descriptive of a single philosophical position, to having other meanings and connotations. She lists some people who I guess she thinks don’t fit the term, but she herself is a pretty textbook case of being a feminist who doesn’t want to include trans women.

These examples are weird because they feel like non sequiturs. She presents this mother as a caring mother, not as a person standing between her child and help, which is what she reads as to me. It seems like a lot of people who don’t support young people seeking gender transition care don’t realize that a huge part of that care is mental health-related or that it takes years in the UK – up to three years – to just begin any care, then a wait to get hormonal support (if wanted), and then many years on hormones to get surgery (if wanted). It is not as if a teen just goes to school, gets called gay, and has surgery the next day in a huff.

As for the Marks and Spencer lady, I’ve got no clue what Rowling is attempting to say here except that all anti-trans people can get called TERF, even if not feminist. I’m not sure what makes this lady “totally unfeminist” unless shopping for Marks and Spencer is code for that. You’ll note that the writing is muddy here about whether this is the view of the lady or of Rowling, but this was written by Rowling herself: “they’re allowing any man who says they identify as a woman into the women’s changing rooms.” So this is implying that trans women 1. are just men pretending to be women, 2. are sexual predators trying to get into women’s spaces to rape them, and 3. that women’s changing rooms are somehow sacred spaces when they’re literally just tiny closets to try on clothes.

Finally she says that TERFs aren’t trans-exclusionary because they consider trans men to be women. This is super messed up on a number of levels. First, the complaint about TERFs is specifically about their refusal to include trans women. Secondly, she’s asking for credit for refusing to believe someone else when it comes to their gender. Third, this is absolutely excluding trans men, because if you’re refusing to believe them when they say who they are, how could they be included?

But accusations of TERFery have been sufficient to intimidate many people, institutions and organisations I once admired, who’re cowering before the tactics of the playground. ‘They’ll call us transphobic!’ ‘They’ll say I hate trans people!’ What next, they’ll say you’ve got fleas? Speaking as a biological woman, a lot of people in positions of power really need to grow a pair (which is doubtless literally possible, according to the kind of people who argue that clownfish prove humans aren’t a dimorphic species).

This paragraph genuinely blew my mind, I had to read it several times to even begin to understand what she’s saying. People are intimidated out of bigoted behavior because people will call them out as bigots. This seems… fine to me. Is the ask that people not call out homophobia, sexism, and racism, either, to be sure they don’t intimidate people into not using slurs? It seems perfectly reasonable for a person/organization to say “Should I say something that insults my fellow human beings and denies them their humanity or should I not?” It’s not great that the only thing standing between them and vocal transphobia is a fear of being called on it but, baby steps.

Next she says that calling someone transphobic is equivalent to saying they have fleas — which is to say that Rowling doesn’t think that transphobia is a meaningfully bad thing. She’s really fine with it. Fleas are, sadly, much easier to get rid of.

And then there’s this clownfish stuff that is… confusing. First, she makes this joke (?) about “biological women” (note she refused to use the term cis, instead tying “woman” explicitly to biology) growing balls, but it’s sort of weirder than that, because the implication is that all the people in positions of power are women, which is statistically unlikely. Then she goes on this very weird tangent about clownfish, which she claims that trans supporters believe proves that people can spontaneously grow new and different genitalia.

I spent a long time googling to try to understand this, so here is the only context I can give you: Clownfish exhibit something called “sequential hermaphroditism.” They live as a non-breeding male, and when triggered by the correct circumstances, can sexually mature as either a breeding male or a breeding female. This is upsetting to some transphobes, because it was included in Blue Planet II and they thought this was pro-trans propaganda. What is interesting is that there are many examples of conditions in which humans can present as one sex as a child and then change at puberty or where they look like one sex but actually have chromosomes for the opposite sex. Humans do exhibit dimorphism (differences in body between sexes), though at a lower level than many species, and this is more like a spectrum than two buckets of people — many people are ambiguous, mixed, or change over time, and I’m pretty sure that there’s no one feature of a sex that doesn’t ever appear in the other. (More about biology here.) It is a weird thing to claim that trans supporters believe there are no general differences in physical development, when the transition in question is often about changing those very things. I wonder if she objects to cis women with PCOS shaving their beards or cis men with gynecomastia having breast removal, in order to feel more attuned with their gender identities?

So why am I doing this? Why speak up? Why not quietly do my research and keep my head down?

Uh, because you weren’t ever doing that?

Well, I’ve got five reasons for being worried about the new trans activism, and deciding I need to speak up.

“The new trans activism” is a weird way of putting “supporting trans people.”

Firstly, I have a charitable trust that focuses on alleviating social deprivation in Scotland, with a particular emphasis on women and children. Among other things, my trust supports projects for female prisoners and for survivors of domestic and sexual abuse. I also fund medical research into MS, a disease that behaves very differently in men and women. It’s been clear to me for a while that the new trans activism is having (or is likely to have, if all its demands are met) a significant impact on many of the causes I support, because it’s pushing to erode the legal definition of sex and replace it with gender.

A charitable trust that, by the way, is all for including trans women and children in their care. The implication here is that somehow it would be bad if her charity had to help trans women prisoners or trans survivors of domestic and sexual abuse? I genuinely do not begin to understand why she’s upset that these would include trans women. I also don’t understand why she thinks the MS research is negatively impacted by focusing the legal definition of gender on identity rather than on sex. The medical history of a patient is the business of their medical providers and isn’t usually the business of everyone else. As mentioned above, there are lots of people who don’t fit neatly into either/or boxes, and medical research generally has to take that into account. Trans people offer the opportunity to learn more, not less, about how human bodies work. Also the use of “if all its demands are met” implies that trans activism is somehow holding the world hostage, not merely asking to be treated decently.

The second reason is that I’m an ex-teacher and the founder of a children’s charity, which gives me an interest in both education and safeguarding. Like many others, I have deep concerns about the effect the trans rights movement is having on both.

It is not that nothing else in this has made me angry, but this dog whistle is especially infuriating. She’s returned to the term “safeguarding” which in this context means “I think trans women are pedophiles”. I am unclear of the effect of trans rights on education, except, perhaps, that children will learn that trans people exist. It is incredible to me that someone who supposedly supports gay people cannot see that this is the exact same argument that was used against gay people — they aren’t safe around children and children shouldn’t have to learn about them.

The third is that, as a much-banned author, I’m interested in freedom of speech and have publicly defended it, even unto Donald Trump.

… How can someone post this long screed and also claim she doesn’t have freedom of speech. She has a much bigger platform than any of the trans rights people she hates.

The fourth is where things start to get truly personal. I’m concerned about the huge explosion in young women wishing to transition and also about the increasing numbers who seem to be detransitioning (returning to their original sex), because they regret taking steps that have, in some cases, altered their bodies irrevocably, and taken away their fertility. Some say they decided to transition after realising they were same-sex attracted, and that transitioning was partly driven by homophobia, either in society or in their families.

Detransitioning is a relatively uncommon phenomenon and it can happen at any phase of transition, meaning that someone doesn’t even have to have taken hormones, much less have surgery, to detransition. Because of how long it takes to reach the point of surgery (years and years, especially for very young people) it is even rarer for someone to have permanent alterations to their fertility when they detransition. Still, such things do happen, but they’re generally from choices made by individuals when they are adults after having extensive medical and mental health care. The logic of thinking trans men shouldn’t be allowed to transition at a young adult age is the same as the logic of doctors who refuse to let women get permanent birth control until they’ve had two children or are in their thirties. If this isn’t policing individual choices of what to do with their bodies, nothing is.
This focus on trans men (as she calls them, young women) is interesting, because she’s been presenting trans women as the bogey man so far, and mostly focuses on them throughout. Trans women are men who are predators trying to get into women’s spaces, and trans men are self-loathing women or self-loathing lesbians.

Most people probably aren’t aware – I certainly wasn’t, until I started researching this issue properly – that ten years ago, the majority of people wanting to transition to the opposite sex were male. That ratio has now reversed. The UK has experienced a 4400% increase in girls being referred for transitioning treatment. Autistic girls are hugely overrepresented in their numbers.

Researching this issue properly seems to mean reading a bunch of articles from Quillette. Note again she refers to young trans men as girls. I don’t know many women who like being called girls, but trans men definitely don’t.

This 4400% number is misleading for a number of reasons. First of all, there’s been a huge increase of young people being referred for gender treatment overall. Second of all, it is likely that this is because of the activism to reduce stigma against trans youth. Thirdly, 4400 is larger than the actual number of young people referred. The number of young people referred rose from 97 to 2519. That is indeed a large jump, but considering that there are over 10 million people under the age of 15 in the UK, it’s not a very impressive number. The vast difference of more “boys” than “girls” to begin with was 40 “girls” to 57 “boys.” The numbers currently are 1806 to 703, a much bigger difference, but still such small numbers that it’s difficult to discern much from it. Not all of these referrals lead to transitions, either.
I’m not sure what to make of this statement about “autistic girls” being overrepresented. The first is the implication that autistic girls are not capable of knowing their own gender, which is ableist. The second is the implication that “girls” who are “autistic” can only be “autistic”, and not also trans. Autism must explain everything. Either way, it’s a weird thing to bring up. Note again that she has not provided links for either of these claims so that we can evaluate the actual data.

The same phenomenon has been seen in the US. In 2018,  American physician and researcher Lisa Littman set out to explore it. In an interview, she said:

If this phenomenon has been seen in the US, the following story is not an example of it. Again, no actual reference to support this claim.

‘Parents online were describing a very unusual pattern of transgender-identification where multiple friends and even entire friend groups became transgender-identified at the same time. I would have been remiss had I not considered social contagion and peer influences as potential factors.’

Not linking to this story also makes it more difficult for readers to identify the problems with this study. Lisa Littman went specifically to sites known to host anti-trans people and specifically asked parents who didn’t believe in their children’s transition to participate in her study. This sample method is not ideal. Her conclusions have not been replicated in other studies. It sounds very reasonable to insist that you consider social contagion when you don’t consider that she’s specifically sought out anti-trans parents. She also doesn’t offer an alternate possibility, like that children who are different in the same way often find each other. Or that children with anti-trans parents may be open at school, meet other trans kids, and form a social support network before talking to their parents.

Littman mentioned Tumblr, Reddit, Instagram and YouTube as contributing factors to Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria, where she believes that in the realm of transgender identification ‘youth have created particularly insular echo chambers.’

Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria is a term Littman made up that has not been validated by any other study and is NOT a recognized medical condition or term.

Her paper caused a furore. She was accused of bias and of spreading misinformation about transgender people, subjected to a tsunami of abuse and a concerted campaign to discredit both her and her work. The journal took the paper offline and re-reviewed it before republishing it. However, her career took a similar hit to that suffered by Maya Forstater. Lisa Littman had dared challenge one of the central tenets of trans activism, which is that a person’s gender identity is innate, like sexual orientation. Nobody, the activists insisted, could ever be persuaded into being trans.

Her poorly researched paper that overreached in its conclusions did indeed create a backlash and had to be edited to meet the journal’s standards.

The argument of many current trans activists is that if you don’t let a gender dysphoric teenager transition, they will kill themselves. In an article explaining why he resigned from the Tavistock (an NHS gender clinic in England) psychiatrist Marcus Evans stated that claims that children will kill themselves if not permitted to transition do not ‘align substantially with any robust data or studies in this area. Nor do they align with the cases I have encountered over decades as a psychotherapist.’

Trans youth suicide is a big problem. It may not require transition to prevent, but transition is one way to lower the risks. Other ways include creating a supportive atmosphere where the author of the world’s most popular children’s books isn’t calling her young readers sexual predators and delusional lesbians. Again another reference without a link or any critical thinking about the claims of the person quoted.

The writings of young trans men reveal a group of notably sensitive and clever people.  The more of their accounts of gender dysphoria I’ve read, with their insightful descriptions of anxiety, dissociation, eating disorders, self-harm and self-hatred, the more I’ve wondered whether, if I’d been born 30 years later, I too might have tried to transition. The allure of escaping womanhood would have been huge. I struggled with severe OCD as a teenager. If I’d found community and sympathy online that I couldn’t find in my immediate environment, I believe I could have been persuaded to turn myself into the son my father had openly said he’d have preferred.

She believes young trans men are only clever and insightful insofar as it concerns other mental health issues, not their own understanding of their gender. Why is Rowling willing to believe them on one and not the other? Presumably because she doesn’t think that people can actually be trans. She here conflates all mental illness with being trans and absolutely believes that actually feeling like the other gender is not required for wanting to transition. That her self-hatred would have been sufficient for her.

When I read about the theory of gender identity, I remember how mentally sexless I felt in youth. I remember Colette’s description of herself as a ‘mental hermaphrodite’ and Simone de Beauvoir’s words: ‘It is perfectly natural for the future woman to feel indignant at the limitations posed upon her by her sex. The real question is not why she should reject them: the problem is rather to understand why she accepts them.’

This feels, more than anything, a resentment of the fact that youth have more options available to them than she did. She seems to be dancing around the idea that she herself is a self-loathing non-binary person (not to claim that she actually is). And also that not identifying as a woman can only be evidence of living in a world of misogyny. She’s missing the very salient point that gender, because it is a social construct, is absolutely impacted by social assumptions about people of different genders.

As I didn’t have a realistic possibility of becoming a man back in the 1980s, it had to be books and music that got me through both my mental health issues and the sexualised scrutiny and judgement that sets so many girls to war against their bodies in their teens. Fortunately for me, I found my own sense of otherness, and my ambivalence about being a woman, reflected in the work of female writers and musicians who reassured me that, in spite of everything a sexist world tries to throw at the female-bodied, it’s fine not to feel pink, frilly and compliant inside your own head; it’s OK to feel confused, dark, both sexual and non-sexual, unsure of what or who you are.

Again stating that being trans is a mental illness. Again being sure to exclude trans women from the experience of womanhood with the term “female-bodied.”

I want to be very clear here: I know transition will be a solution for some gender dysphoric people, although I’m also aware through extensive research that studies have consistently shown that between 60-90% of gender dysphoric teens will grow out of their dysphoria. Again and again I’ve been told to ‘just meet some trans people.’ I have: in addition to a few younger people, who were all adorable, I happen to know a self-described transsexual woman who’s older than I am and wonderful. Although she’s open about her past as a gay man, I’ve always found it hard to think of her as anything other than a woman, and I believe (and certainly hope) she’s completely happy to have transitioned. Being older, though, she went through a long and rigorous process of evaluation, psychotherapy and staged transformation. The current explosion of trans activism is urging a removal of almost all the robust systems through which candidates for sex reassignment were once required to pass. A man who intends to have no surgery and take no hormones may now secure himself a Gender Recognition Certificate and be a woman in the sight of the law. Many people aren’t aware of this.

Where are these study numbers coming from? I cannot find them. But I believe it also refers to the understanding of gender dysphoria in prepubescent children (not teens). The problem with *that* is mental health professionals tend to lump any gender nonconformity into gender dysphoria when they are dealing with children, which means a lot of LGBQ youth get labelled gender dysphoric rather than gay. In other words, many parents of boys who liked to wear dresses took their children to psychologists because they assumed something was wrong. There is no reason to assume that everyone with gender dysphoria has any interest in transitioning even just socially, much less through hormones and surgery. That is even more true of children, because children get brought to therapists by parents who assume certain behavior, like boys dressing in dresses or girls being tomboys, is somehow pathological, and not within the normal range of experiences. Most prepubescent children who are thought to have gender dysphoria grow up to be gay or just slightly outside typical gender presentation. Some do grow up to be trans. But again, this observation is of prepubescent children, not of teenagers.  So, as far as I can guess without a source, Rowling is referring to numbers that apply solely to prepubescent children and NOT to teens. My understanding is that the majority of teens who identify as trans are, in fact, trans.

I hate that she’s dismissive of the young trans people as simply “adorable.” I also hate this “I have a trans friend, so I can’t be transphobic” move. Again, she doesn’t recognize how many steps and how much time it actually does take to seek transition care in the UK. And again she thinks that trans women are men trying to sneak into women’s spaces to attack them.

We’re living through the most misogynistic period I’ve experienced. Back in the 80s, I imagined that my future daughters, should I have any, would have it far better than I ever did, but between the backlash against feminism and a porn-saturated online culture, I believe things have got significantly worse for girls. Never have I seen women denigrated and dehumanised to the extent they are now. From the leader of the free world’s long history of sexual assault accusations and his proud boast of ‘grabbing them by the pussy’, to the incel (‘involuntarily celibate’) movement that rages against women who won’t give them sex, to the trans activists who declare that TERFs need punching and re-educating, men across the political spectrum seem to agree: women are asking for trouble. Everywhere, women are being told to shut up and sit down, or else.

There is a lot about our current era that has manifested misogyny in a really ugly way — and Twitter is among the worst places. She once again puts wholly different things in the same list: violence (punching) and educating. One of those is not a threat. She also here implies that trans activists are men telling women to sit down and shut up. Again refusing to acknowledge the identities of trans women.

I’ve read all the arguments about femaleness not residing in the sexed body, and the assertions that biological women don’t have common experiences, and I find them, too, deeply misogynistic and regressive. It’s also clear that one of the objectives of denying the importance of sex is to erode what some seem to see as the cruelly segregationist idea of women having their own biological realities or – just as threatening – unifying realities that make them a cohesive political class. The hundreds of emails I’ve received in the last few days prove this erosion concerns many others just as much.  It isn’t enough for women to be trans allies. Women must accept and admit that there is no material difference between trans women and themselves.

I don’t understand why it’s misogynistic to think that women don’t all have common experiences. There is a huge spectrum of what women’s lives look like and how their bodies behave. Not all women menstruate, not all women can get pregnant, not all women grow breasts, not all women are raped. The idea that women’s lives are all similar comes from an extraordinarily middle class and white conception of what it means to be a woman, something the feminist movement has a history of doing. This claim is classist, racist, transphobic, and homophobic.

Also, again and again, she uses the term “women” to solely reference *cis* women, excluding trans women.

She claims that trans women insist that there is no difference between trans women and cis women, when actually they just want to be recognized as women, a remarkably broad category of people with plenty of room for trans women, and they want even more to not be treated as predators and abusers.

But, as many women have said before me, ‘woman’ is not a costume. ‘Woman’ is not an idea in a man’s head. ‘Woman’ is not a pink brain, a liking for Jimmy Choos or any of the other sexist ideas now somehow touted as progressive. Moreover, the ‘inclusive’ language that calls female people ‘menstruators’ and ‘people with vulvas’ strikes many women as dehumanising and demeaning. I understand why trans activists consider this language to be appropriate and kind, but for those of us who’ve had degrading slurs spat at us by violent men, it’s not neutral, it’s hostile and alienating.

Okay, so here she is saying that trans women are men wearing a costume, based on an idea in their man head, because they think being pink-brained and liking shoes makes them a woman. Apparently any kind of desire for femme things is… not progressive and based on a specifically male understanding of femininity. See, here’s the thing, because not all cis women menstruate or even have vulvas, it is useful to be specific when you’re addressing a particular concern, even before you consider including trans men in the equation. I’ve also personally never seen the word “menstruators,” only the phrase “people who menstruate” which again, not dehumanizing, it has the word “people” right there. There are real slurs that have been spat by violent men, some of which Rowling has a genuine grievance about being thrown at her on Twitter, but this ain’t it.

Which brings me to the fifth reason I’m deeply concerned about the consequences of the current trans activism.

I’ve been in the public eye now for over twenty years and have never talked publicly about being a domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor. This isn’t because I’m ashamed those things happened to me, but because they’re traumatic to revisit and remember. I also feel protective of my daughter from my first marriage. I didn’t want to claim sole ownership of a story that belongs to her, too. However, a short while ago, I asked her how she’d feel if I were publicly honest about that part of my life, and she encouraged me to go ahead.

I’m mentioning these things now not in an attempt to garner sympathy, but out of solidarity with the huge numbers of women who have histories like mine, who’ve been slurred as bigots for having concerns around single-sex spaces.

Yo, you are a bigot for not wanting women in your women spaces. No amount of domestic abuse and sexual assault makes it ok to deny other people their humanity.

I managed to escape my first violent marriage with some difficulty, but I’m now married to a truly good and principled man, safe and secure in ways I never in a million years expected to be. However, the scars left by violence and sexual assault don’t disappear, no matter how loved you are, and no matter how much money you’ve made. My perennial jumpiness is a family joke – and even I know it’s funny – but I pray my daughters never have the same reasons I do for hating sudden loud noises, or finding people behind me when I haven’t heard them approaching.

“My trauma justifies my bigotry. I refuse to recognize trans women as not men and I am afraid of men.”

If you could come inside my head and understand what I feel when I read about a trans woman dying at the hands of a violent man, you’d find solidarity and kinship. I have a visceral sense of the terror in which those trans women will have spent their last seconds on earth, because I too have known moments of blind fear when I realised that the only thing keeping me alive was the shaky self-restraint of my attacker.

“I don’t want trans women to be murdered, I just don’t want them to be treated as fully human. Look at how reasonable I am!”

I believe the majority of trans-identified people not only pose zero threat to others, but are vulnerable for all the reasons I’ve outlined. Trans people need and deserve protection. Like women, they’re most likely to be killed by sexual partners. Trans women who work in the sex industry, particularly trans women of colour, are at particular risk. Like every other domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor I know, I feel nothing but empathy and solidarity with trans women who’ve been abused by men.

You can just call them trans. Calling them “trans-identified” implies that they’ve just chosen to call themselves that. Here she lists many many reasons why trans women should be welcomed in women’s spaces, including, for example, her domestic violence charity that she is afraid of trans people benefiting from.

So I want trans women to be safe. At the same time, I do not want to make natal girls and women less safe. When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman – and, as I’ve said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones – then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside. That is the simple truth.

She wants trans women to be safe, just not from being misgendered and harassed by people like Rowling. “Natal girls and women”? There is literally a word for what you’re trying to describe, it exists already, just use it. Again, she outright states that trans women are delusional men, denying them their identity and humanity. I do not understand why people like Rowling believe that the lack of a gender certificate would stop a predator from coming into a bathroom. The thing is, these certificates have been issued for like a decade, and there hasn’t been some increase in bathroom attacks by trans women.

On Saturday morning, I read that the Scottish government is proceeding with its controversial gender recognition plans, which will in effect mean that all a man needs to ‘become a woman’ is to say he’s one. To use a very contemporary word, I was ‘triggered’. Ground down by the relentless attacks from trans activists on social media, when I was only there to give children feedback about pictures they’d drawn for my book under lockdown, I spent much of Saturday in a very dark place inside my head, as memories of a serious sexual assault I suffered in my twenties recurred on a loop. That assault happened at a time and in a space where I was vulnerable, and a man capitalised on an opportunity.  I couldn’t shut out those memories and I was finding it hard to contain my anger and disappointment about the way I believe my government is playing fast and loose with womens and girls’ safety.

Again, trans women are men who just say they’re women. She was triggered because she doesn’t believe trans women are women and thinks that they’re all predators. She thinks that trans women being allowed into changing rooms is a rape threat. She thinks her own mental health problems are best addressed by denying humanity to an entire class of people rather than, for example, therapy.

Late on Saturday evening, scrolling through children’s pictures before I went to bed, I forgot the first rule of Twitter – never, ever expect a nuanced conversation – and reacted to what I felt was degrading language about women. I spoke up about the importance of sex and have been paying the price ever since. I was transphobic, I was a cunt, a bitch, a TERF, I deserved cancelling, punching and death. You are Voldemort said one person, clearly feeling this was the only language I’d understand.

She was just innocently looking at the pictures of children (again, using children as her shield) not, you know, actively saying some transphobic stuff. “Paying the price” being people saying that she is a bigot, because… she is. Again she conflates a bunch of things that are very different: legitimate criticism (transphobic, TERF, deserving canceling) with gendered slurs and threats (cunt, bitch, punching, death). I think she’s genuinely upset that someone called her Voldemort, which is pretty funny.

It would be so much easier to tweet the approved hashtags – because of course trans rights are human rights and of course trans lives matter – scoop up the woke cookies and bask in a virtue-signalling afterglow. There’s joy, relief and safety in conformity. As Simone de Beauvoir also wrote, “… without a doubt it is more comfortable to endure blind bondage than to work for one’s liberation; the dead, too, are better suited to the earth than the living.”

Earlier, and below, she will state that there’s a huge number of people who agree with her, and that they’re in the majority, but somehow what she’s doing isn’t virtue signaling to that crowd, she cannot bask in her own afterglow. It is conformist to believe what she has elsewhere claimed to be a minority view. Confusing.

Huge numbers of women are justifiably terrified by the trans activists; I know this because so many have got in touch with me to tell their stories. They’re afraid of doxxing, of losing their jobs or their livelihoods, and of violence.

Huge numbers of cis women who don’t believe trans women are valid are afraid of being called bigots or having their bigotry exposed. I don’t support the harassment of these people, but I don’t know why anyone thinks that saying bigoted things will not cause some pushback.

But endlessly unpleasant as its constant targeting of me has been, I refuse to bow down to a movement that I believe is doing demonstrable harm in seeking to erode ‘woman’ as a political and biological class and offering cover to predators like few before it. I stand alongside the brave women and men, gay, straight and trans, who’re standing up for freedom of speech and thought, and for the rights and safety of some of the most vulnerable in our society: young gay kids, fragile teenagers, and women who’re reliant on and wish to retain their single sex spaces. Polls show those women are in the vast majority, and exclude only those privileged or lucky enough never to have come up against male violence or sexual assault, and who’ve never troubled to educate themselves on how prevalent it is.

No one is targeting her, they are responding to her actions and statements. She’s an extraordinarily famous person expressing extreme bigotry on a very large platform. Responding to that isn’t targeting any more than buying Harry Potter books was targeting. And here again this person, who supposedly is down with trans people, says that they are predators and trans women aren’t women. She’s literally targeting a class of people by calling them predators and denying them their identity but complaining that people are responding to that negatively. There are trans young gay kids, fragile trans teenagers, and trans women who are reliant on spaces without men. It’s just that she fails to see them as valid.

Here again she refers to some external source of a poll without citing it or allowing us to determine whether we think it’s valid. She also makes the claim that it’s only possible to support trans people if you’ve never experienced gender violence, even though trans women are subject to more risk for assault than cis women. I truly doubt that whatever poll she is referring to asked people if their beliefs about trans people were informed by their own personal assaults. But I can speak with complete confidence that being raped doesn’t make you hate trans people.

The one thing that gives me hope is that the women who can protest and organise, are doing so, and they have some truly decent men and trans people alongside them. Political parties seeking to appease the loudest voices in this debate are ignoring women’s concerns at their peril. In the UK, women are reaching out to each other across party lines, concerned about the erosion of their hard-won rights and widespread intimidation. None of the gender critical women I’ve talked to hates trans people; on the contrary. Many of them became interested in this issue in the first place out of concern for trans youth, and they’re hugely sympathetic towards trans adults who simply want to live their lives, but who’re facing a backlash for a brand of activism they don’t endorse. The supreme irony is that the attempt to silence women with the word ‘TERF’ may have pushed more young women towards radical feminism than the movement’s seen in decades.

Here she again implies that all cis women are against trans people and that trans women aren’t women and trans men aren’t men. Unsurprisingly, non-binary people really aren’t part of her schema. Again and again she fails to acknowledge that *her* concerns are NOT the concerns of all women, cis or trans. It may be that none of her friends who don’t support trans rights “hates trans people” they just are afraid of them, think they’re delusional monsters, and don’t want them in any of their spaces. You know, in the same way that you don’t have to “hate black people” to want them to use their own water fountains and have their own schools. And again, the wild accusation that the term TERF, which literally describes her actual philosophy, is meant to silence people. It’s like thinking that calling a Christian a “person who believes in Christ” is somehow negative. But here again she’s basically saying it’s great that people use the term TERF because it makes there be more TERFs. She’s all over the place.

The last thing I want to say is this. I haven’t written this essay in the hope that anybody will get out a violin for me, not even a teeny-weeny one. I’m extraordinarily fortunate; I’m a survivor, certainly not a victim. I’ve only mentioned my past because, like every other human being on this planet, I have a complex backstory, which shapes my fears, my interests and my opinions. I never forget that inner complexity when I’m creating a fictional character and I certainly never forget it when it comes to trans people.

She is asking us to excuse her bigotry because of her experience of abuse. And while she claims not to forget complexity when it comes to trans people, she absolutely doesn’t want to treat them like fully realized humans. They are evil to her mind, as she’s expressed repeatedly in this piece and in her own fiction.

All I’m asking – all I want – is for similar empathy, similar understanding, to be extended to the many millions of women whose sole crime is wanting their concerns to be heard without receiving threats and abuse.

She has spent an entire article insinuating that trans women are abusers, rapists, and pedophiles, but she’s asking for empathy for her own plight. Lovely.

JK Rowling’s Anti-Trans Post: A Deep Dive
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Secular Students Week: Interview with Scholarship Winner Kendall Lovely

Kendall Lovely
Kendall Lovely

It is Secular Students Week this week — which means I get to share an interview with one of the students and I share with you that they’re fundraising! The SSA is trying to get 500 donations by the end of June 17 to unlock a $20,000 challenge grant — the great thing about this goal is that it’s about how many people give, not about how much they give, meaning that everyone can have a big impact regardless of how much they can give.

I was a member of the SSA as a PhD student, it’s responsible for my meeting many amazing activists, including my fiancé, and I am now on the board of the organization to help it meet its goal of being more social justice oriented.

If you’re looking to understand the work that SSA is doing on the ground and how it’s helping students, one of the Secular Student Alliance’s scholarship winners from last year, Kendall Lovely, took some time to talk about the scholarship, her activism, and the SSA.  It’s an interesting read whether you’re interested in donating or not, and I’m particularly excited about the way Kendall is dedicated to both secularism and feminism in her activism.  Close to my heart!

Why did you apply for a scholarship from the Secular Student Alliance?

I was looking for outside sources of funding, just enough to get through graduate school applications, and I thought that I could make a case for my activism through the SSA scholarship. I don’t often come across scholarships out there specific to the sort of organizations that I’m involved with as a secular person and a feminist, so I decided to give this one a try.

How has getting an SSA Scholarship helped you with your activism?

Continue reading “Secular Students Week: Interview with Scholarship Winner Kendall Lovely”

Secular Students Week: Interview with Scholarship Winner Kendall Lovely

Maya Angelou, Susan B. Anthony, and Ashley F. Miller together at last

Sometimes you’re doing a deep Google search on your own name and you discover new things about yourself — I discovered a Table of Contents that included me.

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An article I wrote about feminism and atheism that was published in CrossCurrents last year was put into a women’s studies anthology textbook — apparently the #1 one on Amazon: Women’s Voices, Feminist Visions: Classic and Contemporary Readings.  So now there is a thing about atheism and women in the most recent edition of, according to Amazon, the #1 gender studies textbook.  So hurray for atheism being included in discussions of gender in academia!

Of course, this inclusion happened last April and no one told me that it happened so…? I’m going to contact the editors of the book and talk to them to see if I can get some more information on what happened and see if I can get a copy for less than the $110 it’s going for.  I’ve asked my local library to pick up a copy and it looks like the school library has one that you can’t check out because it is required reading in a class.  I was contacted last year because my article was the required reading in that class, but I guess no one thought to mention that it was in a textbook rather than a journal.  Internet searching also reveals to me that the article has been cited in at least four academic papers and assigned in at least three courses.  That’s not bad for something that’s been published only 18 months.

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Anyway, so Ashley F. Miller of FreethoughtBlogs is listed and included as the same kind of feminist expert must-read in a major text as Maya Angelou, Gloria SteinemEmily Dickinson, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, bell hooks, Virginia Woolf, Audre Lorde, Susan Douglas, Jessica Valenti, Barbara Ehrenreich. Also, you know, Natalie Merchant, so there’s that. And more.

Torn between being confused that no one told me it existed, to ecstatic that I am considered anywhere close to the same caliber as these other writers and thinkers, to fighting down imposter syndrome, to super stoked to include this on my resume.  Gonna go die now.  And not just from the mono.  Will update if/when I find out more information or locate the Discussion Questions!  Discussion Questions, people!

Maya Angelou, Susan B. Anthony, and Ashley F. Miller together at last

Find me at CONvergence and SSA East

Ashley
Picture courtesy Amy Davis Roth

Hello all

I will be speaking at both CONvergence and SSA East, and I’m getting an awful lot of stage time! This is a preview for anyone interested.

CONvergence

You can start looking out for me at about 1pm Friday at CONvergence.

FRIDAY, July 4th

5pm Paranormal Romance vs Urban Fantasy

With the popularity of paranormal romance, has romance become a fixture in most urban fantasy to a degree? What about the combo of romance, action, and magic keeps drawing readers? What’s out there for readers who want less kissing and more butt-kicking? Panelists: Ashley F. Miller, Cetius d’Raven (mod), Emma Bull, Melissa Olson, Rory Ni Coileain

7pm Coming Out Atheist

Join us to discuss what it’s like to come out as an atheist in various parts of the country, with different religious backgrounds, and the intersection for many of us with coming out in other ways, such as in sexual orientation and gender identity. Panelists: Ashley F. Miller, Heina Dadabhoy, PZ Myers, Debbie Goddard, Brianne Bilyeu

SATURDAY, July 5th

11am Evolution of Disney Princesses

They started out helpless (Snow White), and now they’re shooting arrows. What changed, and why? Panelists: Ashley F. Miller, Kathryn Sullivan, Michelle Farley, Windy Bowlsby, Madeleine Rowe, Greg Guler

SUNDAY, July 6th

9:30am Skepchick and FreethoughtBlog Readings

In room 2201

11am Protofeminists in Shakespeare

Shakespeare portrayed several intelligent, independent, and self-aware women–Juliet, Lady Macbeth, Katharine, Beatrice, Viola, Rosalind. We’ll discuss the problematic and the remarkably (for the era) fleshed-out aspects of their representation. Panelists: Elizabeth Bear, Ashley F. Miller, Greg Weisman, Joseph Erickson, Alexandra Howes

12:30pm Loving Problematic Media

Social justice doesn’t have to ruin your fun! We’ll discuss ways to be a literate fan of problematic media, from reality TV to video games, recognizing (rather than rationalizing) its problems, and still finding ways to enjoy it without getting defensive. Panelists: Rebecca Watson, Ashley F. Miller, Emily Finke, Courtney Caldwell, Amanda Marcotte

I will be leaving for the airport as soon as there are no more people with questions for me after this panel.

 

 

SSAEast

I will be at SSAEast for the entire program, I’m speaking in one of the 45 minute slots in union.

SUNDAY, July 13th

10:30am Feminism, Atheism, and Welcoming Women to Your Group

Find me at CONvergence and SSA East

Introduction to “Redneckaissance: Honey Boo Boo, Tumblr, and the Stereotype of Poor White Trash”

As you may have noticed I have been somewhat absent from these parts of late, because I have been working on my dissertation proposal for my study of Honey Boo Boo and Tumblr.  I have finally finished the proposal and will defend it next week, at which point I will hopefully be cleared to write the second half, which is the actual independent research.  I thought I would share with you the opening of the dissertation.  As you may have guessed, working more than full time and writing a dissertation leaves little time for blogging, but I thought I’d take advantage of my week of breathing room and the fact that I have actually written something.  Enjoy.

Mama June on a waterslide honey boo boo

“Who knew television audiences would be completely enthralled with a Southern family acting out every stereotype of “redneck” on Here Comes Honey Boo Boo…” – Alison F. Slade[1]

My first realization that Here Comes Honey Boo Boo had become a complex discursive phenomenon came with the appearance of an image from the show in my social media feeds.  In this animated image, June Shannon, the overweight matriarch of the show, careens down a water slide in her bathing suit with joy on her face.  This image became popular on Tumblr, with hundreds of reblogs, and spread elsewhere online.[2]  Most of the previous discourse I had encountered around the show was negative and focused on how “trashy” the show was, but, in my social media feeds, people praised the show for fat acceptance of “real” bodies and embraced June’s joy.  There were still negative comments about the show but they were complicated by people claiming identity with her around one of the same signifiers, her weight, that was used to mock her and call her “white trash.”

This study seeks to explore how online content creators engage with television stereotypes online.  Specifically, this study seeks to understand the ways in which online content that is created using a reality television show as source material supports, undermines, and interacts with the tropes of the white trash stereotype.  It also seeks to discover how online content creators participate in the construction of meaning using the show.

In particular, this study will examine a selection of Tumblr posts about Here Comes Honey Boo Boo for the ways in which online content creators uphold, undermine, and “play with” white trash stereotypes. The goal is to gain insight into online content creators’ participation in television culture and its use of the white trash stereotype as well as into how they use Tumblr to communicate. This research uses discourse analysis to examine the Tumblr content created with, around, and about the show Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.

In seeking to explore this phenomenon, the study addresses the following research questions: How do Tumblr users use Here Comes Honey Boo Boo in discourse explicitly and implicity about race, class, gender, sexuality, and geography?  What are these discourses?  How do these discourses adopt, negotiate, or resist common U.S. stereotypes of “white trash” and “rednecks?” How does the online audience’s role as a secondary content creator change meaning and discourse around and about the show?  Honey Boo Boo represents a unique intersection of poor, white, fat, southern, LGBT-allied, and female-dominated social actors, positioning the show along the power axes respectively of class, race, weight, geography, sexuality, and gender.  This dissertation attempts to understand Tumblr discourse about the show through the framework of intersectional theory. Intersectional theory assumes that social categories of race, class, and gender are intertwined and together constitute identity and describe power relationships. How do these axes of power interact in online discourse?  The study is an attempt to understand the online content creator’s role in creating meaning around a show that relies heavily on negative stereotypes.

Although Here Comes Honey Boo Boo debuted only two years ago, it has already been the subject of scholarly interest.  As a popular reality television show dependent on stereotypes of rural Southerners, it has offered scholars rich ground to explore those stereotypes.  Bevie Tyo examined the redneck stereotype within the show, doing a cultural value analysis of the problematic representation of the main characters and noting that the show was constructed to use those stereotypes for entertainment.[3]  Similarly, Ariel Miller did a quantitative content analysis of the show, alongside Duck Dynasty and Buckwild, to explore the construction of Southern identity on reality television and the frequency with which the shows used stereotypes.[4]  Unsurprisingly, these studies showed heavy reliance on negative stereotypes about “rednecks” and “white trash.”

But scholarship on the show has not exclusively focused on the negatives.  Scholars like Geoffrey Parkes and May Friedman have pushed back against a simplistic understanding of the show as merely exploitative of Southern stereotypes, suggesting instead that it also serves as a site of resistance.[5]  The show includes radical acceptance of fat bodies, female empowerment, and queer individuals in addition to the stereotypes about rednecks.  The show also offers resistance to issues of class expectations and, in that way, serves, at least partially, as a site of resistance against the Southern stereotypes it uses.[6]

Closer to this study’s interest, Andre Cavalcante has done a discourse analysis of the Facebook fan page of the show.[7]  Reality television and social media have been intertwined over the past decade. For example, reality television is dependent on social media for generating interest and in voting on competition shows, and social media frequently focuses on television as a source of conversation topic.  Social media has allowed audiences to interact much more closely with television while reality television has encouraged a sense of intimacy for audiences. These two phenomena have led to the creation of fascinating sites of discourse around reality shows.[8]  The tension between the resistance that Parkes and Freidman note and the dependency on exploitative stereotypes that Tyo and Miller observe is revealed in the attitudes and language used by the commenters on the Facebook page.[9]  Audiences use “the Thompson family and their show as reasons to debate the ‘proper’ and moral parameters of self, family, society and nation.”[10]

This intersection between stereotypes, power structures, identity formation, mass media, social media, reality television, and queer intersectional feminism is exactly where I want to situate my research. These studies help problematize the idea of representation issues in television, especially the relationship between what is presented on screen as the reality of the people’s lives and “actual reality,” and add to the body of feminist and critical television studies.  Cavalcante even extends this research into online social media spaces, where there has been less analysis of stereotypes, by locating his discourse analysis in the medium of Facebook. This study wishes to add to that scholarship by focusing on an area of social media that has been under-studied—Tumblr and the image macro—and that offers new insights into the stereotypes and resistance to cultural expectations while also offering insight into the cutting edge of online communications.


[1] Alison F. Slade, Amber J. Narro, and Burton P. Buchanan, eds., Reality Television: Oddities of Culture (Lexington Books, 2014), vii.

[2] “Chasingapril,” accessed May 12, 2014, http://aprilloveslies.tumblr.com/post/38232075183/http-whrt-it-rjyqn0; “Community Post: 25 Crazy Mama June GIFs,” BuzzFeed Community, October 2, 2012, http://www.buzzfeed.com/hyvesredactie/25-crazy-mama-june-gifs-7j5s.

[3] Bevie Tyo, “Coming to Appreciate the Redneck Stereotype: A Value Analysis of Here Comes Honey Boo Boo” (California Polytechnic State University, 2013), http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1144&context=comssp.

[4] Ariel Miller, “The Construction of Southern Identity Through Reality TV: A Content Analysis of Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, Duck Dynasty and Buckwild,” Elon Journal of Undergraduate Research in Communications 4, no. 2 (2013), http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/824/4/the-construction-of-southern-identity-through-reality-tv-a-content-analysis-of-here-comes-honey-boo-boo-duck-dynasty-and-buckwild.

[5] May Friedman, “Here Comes a Lot of Judgment: Honey Boo Boo as a Site of Reclamation and Resistance,” The Journal of Popular Television 2, no. 1 (April 1, 2014): 77–95, doi:10.1386/jptv.2.1.77_1; Geoff Parkes, “He’s Gonna Be a Little Gay: Redneckognising the Queer American Family in Here Comes Honey Boo Boo,” in Proceedings of the 4th Annual International Popular Culture Association of Australia and New Zealand Conference (PopCAANZ 2013) (University of Southern Queensland, 2013), 138–46, http://eprints.usq.edu.au/23932/.

[6] Friedman, “Here Comes a Lot of Judgment.”

[7] Andre Cavalcante, “You Better ‘Redneckognize’!: Deploying the Discourses of Realness, Social Defiance, and Happiness to Defend Here Comes Honey Boo Boo on Facebook,” in Reality Television: Oddities of Culture, ed. Alison F. Slade, Amber J. Narro, and Burton P. Buchanan (Lexington Books, 2014).

[8] Beverley Skeggs and Helen Wood, “The Labour of Transformation and Circuits of Value ‘around’reality Television,” Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 22, no. 4 (2008): 565.

[9] Cavalcante, “You Better ‘Redneckognize’!: Deploying the Discourses of Realness, Social Defiance, and Happiness to Defend Here Comes Honey Boo Boo on Facebook.”

[10] Ibid., 42.

Introduction to “Redneckaissance: Honey Boo Boo, Tumblr, and the Stereotype of Poor White Trash”

Women Protagonists in YA: A List and Resources

akata-witch-by-nnedi-okorafor

This is a work in progress, any feedback from the audience/readers will be incorporated into the list.  I am especially interested in finding any good works about female friendship.  Here is a wonderful tumblr devoted to diversity in YA.  Here is a wonderfully comprehensive list of protagonists of color in YA and another specifically looking at SF and fantasy.

Akata Witch – Nnedi Okorafor

I cannot recommend this book enough.  It deals with being an outsider on multiple levels — because of looks, because of talents, because of being a girl in a patriarchal society, and because of culture.  It’s about an albino girl in Nigeria, who was born in America and spent years there before being brought back to Nigeria with her family.  She discovers that she has magic powers.  Imagine Harry Potter, but based entirely on Nigerian culture.  I’ve not read Nnedi Okorafor’s other work, but I am going to as soon as I can.  The beautiful art above is from the cover of this novel.

The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins

While this book does have a love triangle in it, it is otherwise a fantastic dystopian novel with a female lead.  Katniss is smart and driven by her desire to help her family and herself.  She can be quite selfish and uninterested in the feelings of others.  These flaws make her far more interesting than many women in YA novels and far from a passive participant in the events.  She is also written with olive skin and dark hair, which many interpret as being a person of color but, at the very least, is resistant to the blonde haired, blue eyed tradition.

His Dark Materials Trilogy – Philip Pullman

These books are really fascinating from an atheist perspective, but also just a really good fantasy story.  The lead character is a pre-pubescent girl who is an expert liar.  Her journey is fascinating.  The book is also notable for the importance and fundamental goodness of the Gyptian people (based on Gypsies) to the storyline.

Speak – Laurie Halse Anderson

This is an incredible book about a girl who is outcast from her high school because she called the cops when she was at a party.  She called the cops because she had been raped, but she is unable to talk about it.  In fact, she doesn’t speak much at all.  The book is about her coping with what happened to her and learning to be herself again.  It was made into a completely watchable movie starring Kristen Stewart pre-Twilight.

Princess Academy – Shannon Hale

I am a sucker for books about princesses, especially if they’re princesses who buck the trend and do something totally unusual like have opinions and fight battles and refuse to get married.  The lead character of this book is a young woman who feels like an outcast and, in the end, does not want the prince and doesn’t get him.  The book is really about the importance of education for women and the role of one’s home and family.

Tiffany Aching Series – Terry Pratchett

My reviews of Tiffany Aching books are here and here.  I love Terry Pratchett, I hope some day to write something I enjoy as much as Terry Pratchett books.  Tiffany Aching is a marvelous lead.  Her first book is the most compelling, but I really wish that someone would turn Tiffany Aching into a TV series.  It’s like a pre-teen Buffy.

Equal Rites – Terry Pratchett

My review from a couple years ago: Third in the Discworld series and by far my favorite of them all.  This introduces Granny Weatherwax, who is my favorite Pratchett character, followed closely by Death.  Pratchett’s greatest skill as a writer, in my opinion, is that none of his characters are particularly attractive and they all have terrible flaws, but you like them and they never get over their flaws.  People don’t become pretty, or overcome their inherent selfishness or cowardice, they’re just regular people.

Harriet the Spy – Louise Fitzhugh

This is one of my favorite books. She also seems to be on the spectrum as well — she’s very into routine and order and not good at empathizing with others.  I tried to watch the movie version again recently and was unable to get through it, so stick to the book I think.  Many people read Harriet and her friends as queer as well.  I personally see far more traits of autism than indications of any kind of sexuality.

Enchanted Forest Chronicles – Patricia C. Wrede

This is a brilliant series about a princess who doesn’t want to be a princess and has no interest in boring princes trying to rescue her.  She runs away to live with a dragon because that’s much more interesting.  And the dragons are much more into gender equality than humans, teaching some interesting lessons about the roles of men and women.

Ella Enchanted – Gail Carson Levine

Despite the terrible movie, the book is actually a really good examination of societal expectations of women.  I really like Gail Carson Levine’s writing style, but her books are fairly short on people of color.

Coraline – Neil Gaiman

I love Neil Gaiman, and the character of Coraline is great.  The story is not my favorite, I thought The Graveyard Book, which was similar in tone, was a much better read.  If you like YA horror, however, you can’t get a much better character than Coraline.

 

On My To-Read

Divergent – Veronica Roth

Fault in Our Stars – John Green

Books by Tamora Pierce, not sure which

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown – Holly Black

Ash – Malinda Lo

Liar – Justine Larbalestier

Chaos – Nalo Hopkinson

Half-World – Hiromi Goto

Eon – Alison Goodman

Book of 1000 Days – Shannon Hale

Women Protagonists in YA: A List and Resources

TMI Review – Softcups / Complaining about my period

Taken From Naamah_Darling's Livejournal
This is a post all about uteruses and the havoc they play.  Really it’s mostly about my uterus.  So, for some people, that may be too much information and, hey, that’s fine, just stop reading.  Because I intend to pull no punches.  Maybe I’ll throw in a picture of a flower or something.  But seriously, don’t read this if you’re going to be all like, “Ew, lady parts” or “Ashley is gross.”

Yesterday I had a long, involved conversation on Facebook about whether it was feminist to complain about your period or if it was buying into patriarchal notions of… something.  The conclusion was basically that hating your period is A-OK.  Which is good because I really hate my period.  It’s also fairly subversive to not be embarrassed of your basic bodily function, so I’m claiming it as feminist.  Look — it happens, it’s pretty gross, but it actually means my body is working, so hurray.  So take that, reviewing Softcups is my feminist FU to people who are bothered by my ladyparts.  SHAZAM.

FeminismVaginaBolt

I take Seasonale continuously, but every 4 months or so, I suffer from breakthrough bleeding that’s pretty heavy and will only stop if I relent and have a full period.  Basically I have to make a choice between continuous bleeding that’s relatively painless but never stops or 5 days of excruciating pain and massive quantities of blood that will ultimately stem the flow.  Hooray my body.

elevator

Supposedly the fact that I’m on birth control makes my periods not as heavy and not as painful.  I don’t remember them ever feeling worse than they do now, though, so I am skeptical of this supposed beneficial side effect.  It does mean that I have them less frequently, though, so that’s a relief.  If you’ve ever had a period then you know that the methods for taking care of them are fairly medieval — plug it up or wear some gauze.  Science has not made major advances in this field.

Ranging from ineffective to might as well shove a hand towel up there
Ranging from ineffective to might as well shove a hand towel up there

Pads are basically like wearing a diaper.  They are messy, especially if you have hair down there, and they are incredibly uncomfortable.  Then there are tampons.  If, like me, you have wildly varying days of super heavy uterine explosion and not too much going on down there, tampons can be difficult.  You have to predict your level of flow and, if you go super heavy in protection when you’re actually producing super light, it creates this crazy uncomfortable dry, scratchy vagina sensation that doesn’t go away for a while.  And I already have ridiculous sensitive, in need of hypoallergenic everything skin.  Not pleasant.  Oh, also they can kill you.

So a few years ago, I longed to branch out from my uncomfortable period solutions and tried Instead, which are now known as Softcup.  I was afraid of Diva Cups because reusing them seemed unsanitary but I was fascinated by the idea of a solution that didn’t involve absorption.  So I tried out Softcup and have never looked back.

softcup

In addition to the plus of no dry vagina and not wearing a diaper, there are other benefits.

When I have my period, I tend to need to use the bathroom a lot.  Cramps just make everything seem to move down there.  When I wear a tampon that usually means I just have to change the tampon every time I pee.  The physics of making that not happen are difficult and unreliable and I’m a little too OCD for that.  Changing your tampon every two hours is expensive and uncomfortable and also you’re not really supposed to flush them apparently, and that’s weird too.

With Softcups I just leave it up in there for 12 hours.  Sometimes there’s some leakage when I pee or poop, but it goes back into place on its own.  The only bad thing is that it does create a little bit of internal pressure which can require a little extra pressure when expelling waste, on either side.

You can wear them when you’re being intimate — though it’s good to warn people.  And also to have a fresh one to avoid leaks.  You can wear them swimming.  They’re also great if, like me, you’ve got the problem of there is no pad or tampon strong enough to get you through a full night on your worst nights.

I also can’t feel it at all when it’s inside, which is miles better than pads or tampons.

The bad: They can leak — it’s a good idea to wear a panty liner with them, especially on heavy days.

They are hard to find.  I went to four stores in DC before finding them.  CVS carries them, but I have been to CVSs that didn’t have any in stock.  It’s terrible to be starting your period without supplies and not know where to get them.  Especially if your period is super unpredictable like mine.  There’s supposedly a reusable one, where it’s one cup per period, but I can’t find it anywhere.

Taking them out can be kind of gross — but then, if you’re following the directions with tampons or using pads, those are pretty gross too.  Your hands will probably get bloody, though you can use gloves if you like.

Here's that promised picture of a flower
Here’s that promised picture of a flower
TMI Review – Softcups / Complaining about my period

It’s OK to shoot hookers in Texas — but only if it’s dark outside

texasguns
It’s hard to imagine, without knowing the story, how someone could shoot a woman in the back of the head and then, quite literally, get away with murder.  Actually, it’s pretty hard to believe when you do know the story because that is what has just happened in Texas.

Ezekiel Gilbert hired a woman from Craigslist to be his escort and, after having spent the time he paid for in his apartment with him, she left.  But they hadn’t had sex, so Gilbert wanted his money back.  Instead, the woman got into her car and he shot her multiple times.  She was paralyzed and ultimately died from her wounds and he was charged with the murder.

His defense said that it is perfectly legal because of the “nighttime theft” rule in Texas which states that it’s OK “to use deadly force to recover property during a nighttime theft.”  Now, he’d paid the woman she claimed for the time and he claimed for the sex, so it was really a dispute over whether he was getting what he paid for.  But instead of, say, suing or claiming fraud, he decided to shoot a woman with no weapons in the back because he didn’t get what he wanted from her escorting.  And he got away with it.

Here’s what I wonder.  Would any of this have happened if having sex for money was legal?

This is a big problem with underground, illegal economies.  When you pay for a special massage or escort service, sex isn’t clearly, necessarily in the cards.  Because, legally, it can’t be.  There’s no way that, if he’d sued her for not having sex with him, he would have won.  But, somehow, his understanding that there would be sex is enough justification for him to convince the jury that he was just trying to get money he’d been duped out of giving away because he had the expectation of getting laid.

Can you imagine a circumstance under which someone shot their dealer for not giving them the right kind of drugs?  Like the dealer sold the guy some perfectly legal version of pot, therefore the guy buying shot the dealer because he was expecting marijuana and then a court said, well, you didn’t like what you paid for, so it was fair to shoot the guy for not giving you what you really wanted.  There was an exchange of goods and services — you just thought you were getting something else for your money.

If prostitution (or drugs for that matter) was legal, there would be consumer protection, clarity in advertising, and protection for those selling the services. But apparently the only consumer protection now is to just shoot someone if they’re taking advantage of you.  Because your foolishness in falling for their scheme means that death for them is the appropriate action to take.  At least, according to juries in Texas.

It’s OK to shoot hookers in Texas — but only if it’s dark outside

Taking it Personally: Privilege and Women in Secularism

Illustration by Tom Gauld for The Guardian
Illustration by Tom Gauld for The Guardian

There is a tendency for people to take criticism of ideas personally.  It’s true of all people, though I noticed it particularly this weekend at the Women in Secularism conference.  People also have a bad habit of criticizing individuals rather than their ideas.  I do not claim freedom from this tendency, although I do work very hard to try to be clear in that distinction.  I do not like the speech that Ron Lindsay used to open the conference with, but this doesn’t mean that I do not like Ron Lindsay.  I don’t know him, he is quite probably a pretty cool guy generally speaking.

Of course, I am not the only person who took umbrage at his opening speech.  I wasn’t particularly upset by it, I just felt it was wrongheaded as an opening speech for this event in particular and demonstrated poor understanding of the cultural theory behind the terms of “privilege” and the intent of “shut up and listen.”   I think it’s inappropriate to use the opening speech to criticize the conference goals rather than introduce it. I also think that the way he talked about critical theory indicated a lack of familiarity with the scholarship on the subject and the power dynamics at play. At best it was terrible tone deafness which was then exacerbated by his position of power in the organization, his race and gender and socioeconomic status, and the fact that he was giving the opening address not a lecture.

I also agreed with Rebecca Watson that it was particularly bad for these apparent misunderstandings to be delivered by a wealthy white man who was part of the organization in charge of the Women in Secularism conference.  In other words, it was a poorly expressed, poorly timed message delivered by exactly the wrong person for the message.

maiself

For stating that, I have been accused of being sexist, of having it out for men, for having it out for Ron Lindsay, of quote-mining, of being dismissive, of shutting down dialogue by calling people names, and just good old “fuck you” and “fuck off” from strangers. I am dogmatic and hateful and trying to tear people down.

Rebecca Watson has also gotten this kind of response, but far more intense, for level-headed criticism of the talk.  In response, Ron Lindsay felt the need to make it about how Rebecca Watson is a Bad Person.  (At least further accusations of quote-mining will be justified by the use of quotes):

Rebecca Watson inhabits an alternate universe.  At least that is the most charitable explanation I can provide for her recent smear.  Watson has posted comments on my opening talk at Women in Secularism 2.  It may be the most intellectually dishonest piece of writing since the last communique issued by North Korea.

Perhaps Watson was too busy tweeting about how “strange” it was to have a “white man” open the conference to pay attention to what I was actually saying

I’m just glad Watson didn’t notify security: “white man loose on stage, white man loose on stage!”

There are also places where it continues to be clear that he doesn’t understand the “shut up and listen” suggestion, but at least those aren’t unnecessary and unprofessional attacks on someone who has criticized something he said.

Now I’d like to offer some advice to Ron Lindsay: Shut up and listen.

  • Shut up because you’re just making this more and more of a PR disaster.
  • Shut up because you’re hurting Melody Hensley and the amazing event she put together.
  • Shut up because if you’re so busy coming up with ways to defend yourself, you’re failing to understand why people are upset.
  • Shut up because it is so very clear that you are not listening.
  • Shut up because you can’t talk and listen at the same time.
  • Listen to what other people in your organization have to say.
  • Listen to what other people in the cause have to say.
  • Listen to women and men who are upset about the opening speech.
  • Listen to criticism of what you said and remember that it’s not about who you are as a person, but the argument that you’ve made.
  • Listen because it’s the right thing to do.

I appreciate that there are those who somehow think that this “shut up and listen” thing means don’t use critical thinking, but it’s actually about defensiveness.  People always take things personally.  When someone says, “You’ve got privilege,” most of us want to yell, “I worked really hard to get what I’ve got.”  And most of us have worked really hard, but it doesn’t mean we aren’t privileged — learning to see the privilege is difficult, and to see it we’ve got to be willing to shut up for a little while and recognize the possibility that there are things that we didn’t know before.  In other words, if you’re not prepared to just listen for a little while, you’re going to spend the entire time trying to prove someone wrong instead of considering the possibility that they may have a point.

Ron Lindsay presents this as a war where either you “believe reason and evidence should ultimately guide our discussions, or you think they should be held hostage to identity politics.”  This negates the possibility that this is a fight between factions who think that reason and evidence point to the necessity of identity politics and those who refuse to listen.

Taking it Personally: Privilege and Women in Secularism

Ashley Speaking in Chapel Hill Next Monday

If you are in the Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill area and like Freethought Blogs and/or me and/or the topic of social justice movements and religion, then have I got good news for you!

I will be speaking at UNC-CH for their SSA (Secular Student Alliance) and SAGA (Sexuality and Gender Alliance) groups.

Monday, February 11, 2013
6:30pm until 8:30pm
Murphey 116, UNC

“Come out to hear Ashley Miller, a writer and tv/film editor, speak about religion’s interaction with women’s, gay, and minority rights, both the costs and benefits of religion to individuals in those groups, and how atheism as a movement has failed to be as strong an ally as they can be and how we can change that.

SSA and SAGA members are welcome to join us with Ashley for dinner before the event! “

Ashley Speaking in Chapel Hill Next Monday