This post may cost me some people whom I mistook for friends. If that happens, it’s painful, but there’s no point in living with an illusion. It’s more important to point out unjust positions within your circles than with those outside, because you have a much better chance of having an effect. The danger when you speak up is that the people in your circles may turn on you, but I expect the number of people who do that to me will be small and won’t include anyone I truly value.

J. K. Rowling has been the target of extreme hostility from quite a number of people, including some within my circles. They don’t give reasons; they just spit. Sometimes they call her “transphobic,” but that’s a three-syllable word and is apt to promote a second of thought while saying it. The word “terf” is much easier just to spew (or should that be S.P.E.W.?).

The “transphobia” accusation

I know a number of trans people, some of whom I discussed and quoted in Tomorrow’s Songs Today, and I’m not aware of any of them engaging in this behavior. Since publishing the book, I’ve met more and encouraged a couple of them within the filk music culture, and I recently made the re-acquaintance of one I hadn’t heard from in a long time. Abby and Zanda, sadly, are no longer with us. I’m not worried about any of these people.

Treating phobias, invented or not, as moral defects is problematic by itself, but I’ve already written about that.

A major piece of “evidence” that Rowling is “transphobic” seems to be the novel Troubled Blood, which she wrote under the open pseudonym Robert Galbraith. Her crime was portraying a murderer who disguised himself as a woman to gain access to his victims. Criminals have been known to disguise themselves for tactical purposes. That has nothing to do with being transsexual. They aren’t expressing a gender identity; they’re just trying to sneak past whatever defenses are in the way. The notion that his portrayal is “transphobic” is nonsense.

I didn’t care for the book; the protagonist is an unpleasant person, and I don’t like that kind of story. That matters only to dispel any notion that I’m defending the book because I love it. I’ve enjoyed the Harry Potter books, but I’m not fanatical about them. Rowling is a great storyteller but a weak world-builder. Her writing stands or falls independently of her other actions.

She has been the target of a book-burning campaign. It’s not surprising that people whose argumentation consists of “Screw terfs!” resort to burning books.

Rowling’s views

Getting to the heart of the issue, what exactly is Rowling’s position on transsexual or transgender people? Here’s a quote from her website:

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.

Her alleged “phobia” comes from her concern that people are treating gender-switching too casually and may make choices that will be hard to reverse. This is a legitimate concern. The trans people I know went through a serious process of deliberation and then went through a difficult period adjusting their bodies to match their self-image. It’s hard both physically and socially. I understand a little of what they went through; one said he was tempted at times to jump off a tall building because of his dysphoria.

Today, the process is often much more casual, just a matter of declaring oneself to have a new gender. That’s not the same thing, and it offers a low bar to a decision with major consequences. Even some pre-adolescents are declaring gender changes. It’s legitimate to ask what harmful consequences this might have. Even if Rowling is wrong and people should be able to change sex as casually as they change clothes, the issue needs to be considered and debated, but to say so is to be a terf.

Eugene Volokh has provided some commentary on the controversy. He quotes an article which refers to “Rowling’s insistence that sex differences are real [biologically inherent] rather than mutable.” If she’s talking about the anti-scientific notion that people get “assigned” sexes rather than being born male or female (plus some hard-to-classify individuals who aren’t XX or XY), I agree with her.

We’ve learned, though, that not 100% of the population can be neatly classified as male or female. Society has made good progress in making room for those people, often in the face of bigoted opposition. But there are complications that we can’t just ignore. Most women don’t want to deal with physiologically male trans women naked in locker rooms. Those women often have a built-in advantage in athletics. Finding the best answers to these issues requires adjustment and discussion by everyone involved. We may ultimately have to recognize that certain people are male for some purposes and female for others. But you won’t get there by yelling “Terf!” and castigating those whose views differ from yours.

Will I be called a terf for saying that? No, I’ve got privilege. The term stands for “trans-exclusionary radical feminist.” While men can be feminists, in practice the insult is directed almost exclusively at women. In other words, it’s a sexist insult. For that matter, I’m not aware of any reason for calling Rowling a radical feminist. That part of the epithet is borrowed from the right.

The issues of how we should look at sex and gender always need debate and re-examination. There are people, though, who believe only in insults and denunciation. Rowling disagrees with them, so she is evil. If they come after me with pitchforks and torches, so much the worse for them.