Three notes on this tweet yesterday from Rowling and the several she has made about the case before Scotland’s Supreme Court, For Women Scotland Ltd (Appellant) v The Scottish Ministers (Respondent):

(1) What the Case is About: Per the Supreme Court website page on the case:

Issues

Is a person with a full gender recognition certificate (“GRC”) which recognises that their gender is female, a “woman” for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010 (“EA 2010”)?

Facts

In this appeal, the Appellant challenges the lawfulness of statutory guidance issued by the Respondent, which has the effect that a GRC recognising that a person’s gender is female brings them within the EA 2010 definition of a “woman”.

The Gender Representation on Public Boards (Scotland) Act 2018 is an Act of the Scottish Parliament (“ASP 2018”). It sets targets for increasing the proportion of women on public boards. The original ASP 2018 definition of a “woman” included people: (i) with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment; (ii) living as a woman; and (iii) proposing to undergo / undergoing / who have undergone a gender reassignment process. In a 2022 legal challenge brought by the Appellant (“FWS1”), the Court of Session found that this statutory definition was unlawful, as it dealt with matters that fall outside the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament.

Following FWS1, the Respondent issued new statutory guidance. This is the guidance currently under challenge. It states that, under the ASP 2018, the definition of “woman” was the same as under the EA 2010. It also stated that a person with a GRC recognising that their gender is female has the sex of a woman.

The Appellant challenged the lawfulness of the Respondent’s statutory guidance in the Court of Session. The Appellant’s arguments included that the guidance failed to respect the decision in FWS1. On 13 December 2022, the Outer House dismissed the Appellant’s petition. The Appellant appealed. On 1 November 2023, the Inner House upheld the decision of the Outer House and dismissed the Appellant’s appeal.

The Appellant now appeals to the Supreme Court.

The case was heard today and will be decided tomorrow.

(2) Importance of Case: Rowling believes this case is, per a re-tweet, “one of THE most important legal cases in the UK/world right now. It will impact women’s & girls lives EVERYWHERE.”

What’s at stake that makes this important?

Scotland, incredibly, has legislated that having a ‘Gender Recognition Certificate’ stating that your gender is different than your biological sex means that you are effectively — and legally — a member of the opposite biological sex.

If the Court agrees with the Appellant, a women’s rights group protesting the government’s insistence that sex can be changed by the say-so of a bureaucratic agency, this nonsense will be reversed and all legislative bodies in the UK will have this decision as a blocking precedent to passing such laws and direction in the future.

If the Court agrees with the Respondent, the “transgender” over-reach into women’s safe spaces continues with the force of law as an enforcer to this delusion. Resistance to its contra-factual basis and provable harms to women will no doubt continue but victory will be delayed indefinitely.

(3) Another Break With Her Past: One of Rowling’s only jobs as a non-writer was as a translator for Amnesty International; “While she was working temporary jobs in London, Amnesty International hired her to document human rights issues in French-speaking Africa” (Wikipedia). It was a fit for her progressive views, especially those about resisting oppressive and autocratic political regimes, and her ideas of virtue, specifically sacrificial love, empathy, and courage. Rowling has now officially broken with ‘Manesty’ over their siding with the Gender Theory Extremists about women’s safe spaces and the core issue of whether biological men and women can ever change into their opposites. File this break along with her separation of self and identity with the Labour Party.

 

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: Chapter Two: A Peck of Owls

1. Mrs. Figg could not have helped Harry against Dementors because she’s a what?
2. What was the name of the cat Mrs. Figg had set to watch as Harry’s erstwhile bodyguard?
3. Who is Mrs. Figg furious at for leaving Harry completely unguarded?
4. Mrs. Figg tries her best to kill the unrepentant guard with a string bag full of what?
5. True or False? While Harry was trying to explaining to the Dursleys about Dementors, Aunt Petunia supplied that they guard the wizard prison Azkaban.
6. The two letters Harry received from the Ministry of Magic were sent from which office?
7. What words did the Howler sent to Aunt Petunia scream?
8. True or False? After hearing Voldemort is after Harry, Uncle Vernon tries to force him out until Aunt Petunia stops him.
9. Uncle Vernon thought Dudley had fought off the dementors by doing what?
10. How many owls flew into the Dursley’s kitchen overall that night?

For Your Reflection: As Joyce Odell was the first to point out, Order of the Phoenix largely mirrors the action of Philosopher’s Stone, the first Harry Potter novel. Every Potter novel has its ‘Wizarding World makes Contact with Muggledom Moment at Privet Drive,’ though, when Harry leaves for school or comes into conflict with the Dursleys. Sometimes those world-meeting instances are comic — see Dobby and the pudding in Chamber and the ‘Blowing Up’ of Aunt Marge in Prisoner — and sometimes the Dursleys’ home is really invaded and turned upside-down — see the first, fourth, and seventh books, the ‘axis’ novels, for those. What makes the revelations of ‘A Peck of Owls’ (side question: isn’t the collective for these animals a parliament of owls? What is Rowling saying here by using the word ‘peck’?) significantly different than those Magic-Muggle meetings in Harry’s safe-house? What makes it resonant with the Hogwarts Letter invasion of Philosopher’s Stone?

Answers: 1. A Squib (20); 2. Mr. Tibbles (20); 3. Mundungus Fletcher (20); 4. Cat food cans (23); 5. True (31); 6. Improper Use of Magic Office (27-33); 7. ‘REMEMBER MY LAST, PETUNIA.’ (40); 8. True (38-41); 9. Giving them ‘the old one-two.’ (34); 10. Five (26-28-32-34-39)

A myth has arisen on social media that J. K. Rowling chose the name Robert Galbraith in honour of Robert Galbraith Heath, further, the myth states that she did this because Robert Galbraith Heath is known as “the father of conversion therapy” because of his experiments into electrical stimulation of the brain to “cure” homosexuality. The argument goes that Rowling, or her people, must have searched the name, and so must have known about so famous a man as “the father of conversion therapy”.

The Cuckoo’s Calling was first published in April 2013, so by late 2012 the name Robert Galbraith must have been decided on. If we look at the list of ‘Robert Galbraiths” on Wikipedia before our author joined the list in July 2013 it looks like this:

A photojournalist, a soldier a politician and a judge. Our Dr Heath is listed as “see also” because of course his name is Heath rather than Galbraith. The article on Heath at this time looks like this:

No mention of conversion therapy, but there is a link to a paper he co-authored that would be considered conversion therapy today.

The truth is Dr R. G. Heath or Bob Heath to his friends and colleagues was almost completely unknown before an article published by Robert Colevile in 2016. It was part of a series called “Great Forgotten Stories of Neuroscience” because as Colevile says “because everyone had forgotten it”. 

If there is one critical moment, say ‘a year,’ in Rowling’s life as a writer, a credible argument can be made that it was not 1990-1991, the so-called “year of misery” that featured the inspiration for the Hogwarts novels and the demise of her mother, but 2012 when Casual Vacancy was published and Rowling began her career in post-Potter publishing.

This interview is one of many she gave that year, every one of which has several gems of ‘Lake and Shed’ material, especially, I think, for Serious Strikers, those novels having already been plotted by this point. Enjoy!

It’s the end of the first week of a tumultuous month — and our friends at The Rowling Library have posted their latest issue! Founder and Chief Wizard at TRL, Patricio Tarantino, wrote this about the current issue:

Welcome to Issue #95 of The Rowling Library Magazine! As we do every November, we’re celebrating another anniversary. We’re  now entering our 9th year—way back in November 2016, we began a magazine about J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter, not knowing  how far we’d go. After all this time, here we are, still creating new content, analysis, news, and more. Here’s hoping we’ll keep  going for many more years to come!

In this particular issue, Oliver Horton returns with his Scene Autopsy, and he’s chosen a scene from Mike Newell’s Goblet of Fire. From Italy, A. Dalla Palma closes out his piece ‘Solve et Coagula‘ with the second part.

We also have a review of the new book Christmas at Hogwarts, and we take a look at five lesser-known editions of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone published by Scholastic.

Mona Morsy (a former contributor to our magazine) shares details about her new project: a physical magazine on the Harry  Potter Trading Card Game. And, as always, we have the Wizard of the Month!

Thank you for continuing to support and choose us.

You can download the pdf copy of Issue #95 here, read it online via your web browser via this link, and support all that TRL does by making a contribution on this secure page.