Rowling Tweets about Trump Executive Order Contra Gender Theory Ideology

President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Order today only hours after his inauguration, one titled, “DEFENDING WOMEN FROM GENDER IDEOLOGY EXTREMISM AND RESTORING BIOLOGICAL TRUTH TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.” As he pledged during his campaign almost a year ago, Trump delivered on “Day One” a Gender Critical feminist ‘magic wand’ wish list. Read the whole thing at the WhiteHouse.gov link above, but here is a handy summary of “Defending Women:”

Responses from Gender Critical feminists varied in their enthusiasm for this breakthrough Executive Order that sets the cause of Transgender Radical Activists back to zero.

On the one hand, many women lauded Trump for delivering on his pledge to “defend women” and “restore biological truth:”

Other feminists chose to lament that, though Trump’s Executive Order delivered everything that the Gender Critical community could have wanted from an American politician, that this man they despise was the one to do it.

Rowling tweeted about the “Defending Women” Executive Order in response to a Susan Dalgety tweet on the subject.

Dalgety, the editor of The Women Who Wouldn’t Weesht, despises Trump. Her twixter feed during Trump’s inaugural address featured a series of tweets that snarkily dismissed his pledges to pursue American energy independence (“Fuck the planet“), to “bring back law and order to American cities” (“Says the first convicted felon to be POTUS“), and to “extend our territories” even to Mars (“Thank you says Musk“). She even chose to mock Trump’s ‘air kiss’ to his wife with the suggestion that she wore a broad brimmed hat to prevent him from landing lips on her face (“Form meets function” reposted from ‘The Daily Show’). Most revealing, perhaps, of her Trump Derangement Syndrome was her tweeting “Crazy Stuff” as her verdict on his judgement that he was “saved by God to make America great again.”

Dalgerty’s take on the “Defending Women” Executive Order? Predictable — ‘It’s okay, but, y’know, Trump:’ [Read more…]

Is America’s Favorite Gender Critical Feminist Katie Hopkins or J. K. Rowling?

Katie Hopkins, perhaps the UK’s most outlandish stand-up comedian and shock-jock news commenter whose Instagram following is well over a million people, has landed in the United States to attend the inauguration of President Trump. She posted on her daily ‘Batshit Bonkers Britain’ (BBB) observations about a feminist protest march in DC this week (above) in a way that showcased her take no prisoners, suffer no nonsense commentary about the Gender Ideology true believers.

I couldn’t help but notice the correspondence between Hopkins’ post about a “transgender woman’s” claim to be suffering from polycystic ovary syndrome and Rowling’s December 2019 tweet that recreated her public image and blew up her status as a progressive icon:

A quick search shows that Rowling, as you probably expected, is not a Katie Hopkins fan. In 2017, when Hopkins reported that Britons were “cowed” following the knife attacks on Westminster, Rowling compared her to a famous American champion of appeasement. Hopkins has called London “Londonistan” and “Stab City” because of the attacks by machete wielding Muslims there. Per The Independent: [Read more…]

Rowling Bankrolls Gender Critical Resistance in UK and Australia

Today Rowling retweeted an X posting by Julie Bindell that included her recent podcast comments about Pink News, an interview she chose to caption with the brief and terse, “I sued Pink News.”

It was not news per se but Rowling’s retweeting it included her back and forth replies to Bindell that of course went out to Rowling’s 14 million plus followers on that platform. It had a startling finish:

The “shocked” bit is evidently sarcasm, meaning “this was very well known and you know very well how involved I was in that suit.” Bindel’s “I don’t like to mention it” is similarly sarcastic; she is not one to suffer injuries or fools quietly (her courage in reporting the Muslim rape gangs for many years speaks to her temperament in this regard). Rowling segues from that false humility or reserve to the subject of her having been rumored to be bankrolling this lawsuit against Pink News, which Bliden confirms.

And then Rowling drops what seems to be the point of the re-tweeting and the entire exchange. “I feel today’s a really good day to let the delightful Cohen and James know I was indeed backing you.” Rowling as a rule does not flaunt her private generosity in public. What has happened to make 18 January a “really good today” to reveal that she had been paying Blindel’s significant legal costs in her battle against Pink News, costs that would otherwise have bankrupted the independent journalist?

Two explanations are credible, I think.

The first is that this is Pink News specific. The two owners of this LGBTQ+ publication are facing a landslide of allegations from former employees of sexual misconduct and, at best, a “hostile work environment.” If you listen to the Blindel podcast comments about Pink News, the edited version makes sure to highlight Blindel’s comments that Pink News published almost 700 articles about J. K. Rowling to defame her as a “transphobe,” “bigot,” and “TERF.” Today would be the day to reveal to “Cohen and James” that their attempt to wait out Blindel and bankrupt her in a kind of “lawfare” had failed because the journalist had the barracuda barristers of a billionaire at her side; their fall from grace, Rowling seemed to think, was the right moment to reveal a la the Count of Monte Christo who their real persecutor is.

Hence the popularity of this meme today:

The message seems to be Rowling telling those who come for her that actions have consequences, i.e.,  F. A. F. O.

That makes sense except that the Pink News story is more than a week old by BBC time and Rowling said “today’s a really good day” to reveal she had Blindel’s back in this court case. This is beside the points that Rowling is not given to either flashing her generosity for social media credit or doing end zone dances. Why “today,” then?

Check out this story today in the UK Daily Mail about a Gender Identity case in the Australian courts: [Read more…]

Is Harry Potter’s Baptism Important?

This Sunday is the Feast of Theophany or the Baptism of Christ in the Orthodox Church and services began this morning to celebrate it with Royal Hours. Only Pascha, Pentecost, and the Annunciation outrank the appearance of the Triune God at the River Jordan among the right-believing Christian faithful; in other words, it’s bigger than Nativity and why there are twelve days of Christmas. Among Greeks, it is sometimes referred to as the Photismos or the Illumination, even Enlightenment, because this is their word for Baptism. Read about Orthodox Theophany here, here, and here.

In 2011, we had something of a Roundtable discussion at HogwartsProfessor on the subject of the importance of Harry Potter’s baptism. Elizabeth Baird-Hardy, Louise Freeman, and John Patrick Pazdziora checked in with their thoughts and I of course added my own ideas. It’s well worth revisiting that piece today as a jumping off place for a second look at baptism in Rowling’s work, which I think has to be expanded to include the symbolism of light, of water, and the revelation of God by “illumination.”

Today, though, let’s just reprint that 2011 piece: [Read more…]

A Year in The Life of J. K. Rowling (2007)