Reflection and Analysis

Rowling Never Sugar Coated Anything (9/15/20)

"It is, at best, an utterly tone-deaf decision to include an evil man who cross dresses after months of pain among trans people and their allies." Alison Flood – JK Rowling's Troubled Blood: don't judge a book by a single review – Sep 15, 2020

Is it really tone-deaf to write about reality?

What I mean here is that I don't think it's actually fair to say that what Rowling wrote is indeed tone-deaf when what I've been hearing from "trans people and their allies" is that the above doesn't happen; men won't go about pretending to be transwomen just to get their hands on their perceived victims. To me, the people who are acting tone-deaf are the ones who claim what Rowling is writing about isn't an actual worry and fear for women, but this honestly hits home the point she's been trying to make.

I'm also appalled to learn that this is the big to-do at the publishing company with people actually refusing to work on the book because they felt they were being supportive of the trans community by advocating that Rowling's work be censored or they quit. They, like so many others want to pretend that people like Dennis Creed don't exist. We're also talking a series which is of the mystery genre, for crying out loud where covering this shouldn't even be a question.

The fact she actively has people attempting to censor her work definitely explains why she's been vocal recently, because she is effectively being told that we can't discuss people like Dennis Creed because it will hurt the feelings of transgender individuals because it – or so the "trans people and their allies" claim – sends the message that everyone who is trans is dangerous, completely forgetting that not everyone who cross dresses is trans.

Seriously, if someone's outside and their inside, or physical and non-physical selves, actually match, they aren't trans. I'm saying this as someone whose gender non-conforming who is conveniently "trans" to the "trans and their allies" when they want to count me and people like me (gender non-conforming and intersex) under the term of trans, but not listen to any of us when we voice the fact we don't like the direction things are going we're conveniently told to check our privilege and not included.

Like, WTF!

The thing about the "trans people and their allies" that Flood is referring to is actually a "minority of a minority". By this I mean what these "trans people" are pushing isn't representative of the actual trans community, but there are some individuals whose outside and their inside match who are latching onto the trans label for their own personal gain, some not as severe as Dennis Creed, but some who are. There's also this prevailing myth that a trans individual can't feel okay about the fact their outside and their insides don't match and that they need to be fixed so that people see them as normal.

In other words, the current movement is trying to make trans people feel normal by making them anything but trans, rather than point out that being trans is – well, I guess the best way to put this is first, not being a part of the norm doesn't make a person abnormal in a negative way, but what makes us different from each other – our individuality – is a beautiful thing. What they're trying to do to trans children is what they've tried doing to intersex children in the past – people are trying to tell trans children they need to pass to be accepted.

As someone who celebrates the fact she is gender non-conforming, who was told she couldn't be into things meant for guys such as superheroes and any genre other than romance, who was told she was limited to certain girly colors and expected to wear dresses, yet has developed such a masculine writing style that she's been mistaken as male online – yeah, I can't help but be appalled we're telling kids it's not okay to feel they way they feel, but that they need to be fixed by mutilating their bodies by doing things which are irreversible rather than waiting until they're adults and their brains fully developed for these decisions to be made.

Those who are "trans and their allies" that we're speaking of want us to believe that sex is assigned rather than observed at birth, yet I'd like to see them tell that to every female infant killed because of what was observed at birth, that they might have only lived to have an actual life if their parents had asked that their child be assigned male instead of female at birth, but someone wanting to get revenge on someone in a country where killing female infants is common practice simply needed to tell the parents, "oh, I assigned your child to be the female sex despite the fact what I observe is that they're actually male – I know that you will feel so disgraced you'll go and kill your own child."

Truth – there are plenty of trans individuals who are okay with the fact their outsides and insides don't mask, but by erasing the outside and claiming the outside is a social construct rather than biological fact, we've gone and erased not only transgender, intersex and gender non-conforming individuals, but also women and ones sexuality. We don't help the trans individual who is in denial that those two don't match, or who isn't okay with who they are by erasing the outside.

The "trans and their allies" don't want us to talk about any of this – they don't want people to realize they're not actually representing the trans community as a whole, yet some may believe they do because they are so vocal, not to mention outright attack the trans individuals who've spoken up against "trans and their allies" for not falling in line with their personal beliefs – that biological truth doesn't exist.

I'd like to say I'm disappointed in the HP actors/actresses who have sided against Rowling on all of this, but the thing is – I also know the "trans and their allies" actively try to censor the other side claiming it is "hate speech", thus making it difficult for people to actually find the information they want.

The reason I know what I know is because I honestly wanted to know more about trans individuals so I could appreciate them for who they are, but the definition the "trans and their allies" use of "doesn't socially conform to their assigned sex" fit me specifically, yet that label never felt right for me, not to mention there was a lack of consistency in defining anything regarding trans individuals, such as arguments over gender and sex being two different thing (depends on the context) and gender being (under certain contexts) something which is socially constructed.

A trans character in Tokyo Godfather put it in a way I understood. Said character talked about aching for the chance at motherhood, but never having it granted to them because they were born without the right parts, yet not once did this character deny the fact the outside didn't match the inside. Of course, some might also lambast the work because said character is also implied to have AIDS/HIV which is considered by some when used in a work to be transphobic and/or homophobic despite the fact this is a real fear and a major reality during a specific period of time.

Which brings me back to my point. Readers shouldn't expect writers to sugar coat reality for them. In fact, people shouldn't expect others to sugar coat reality for them either. Not sugar coating reality isn't hate speech, nor is it "conversion" therapy. In no way is getting a trans person to accept the fact their outside doesn't match the inside a conversion therapy, not when that is the very definition of what being trans is. Helping someone who dislikes their outside whose inside does match realize this isn't conversion therapy either – it's kind of like helping someone whose bisexual who keeps trying to shove them into a binary for their sexuality realize they don't have to.

Anyways, while I am open to healthy debate, I am also not open to arguments based on logical fallacies, such as calling me transphobic for simply not agreeing with anything the "trans and their allies" say – not when I've seen this wave of activism stomp on the trans activists of the past, some of whom I do look up to for the simple fact they embrace who they are, but played a major role of me accepting that being gender non-conforming is okay. Same goes for certain Drag Queens, some of whom are trans and others are not – they taught me being myself is okay.