Jeremy Peters wrote an Op-Ed piece for The New York Times late last month. The title suggests that Peters ‘gets’ just how out of line the Gender Theory Extremists have been in the ongoing Trans War about “transgender” rights versus the rights of biological women and of children.
‘Transgender Activists Question the Movement’s Confrontational Approach‘ points to some kind of reflection on just how bad the threats and cancellations were during the darkest days of the madness, when every influencer and twitter celebrity proclaimed “Transgender women are women” in Orwellian surety. The sub-title of Peters’ piece, though, points to it being a story focused on the ‘news’ that the activists are realizing that their attacks on the sane percentage of the population isn’t working: ‘Facing diminishing public support, some activists say all-or-nothing tactics are not working. “We have to make it OK for someone to change their minds”.’
J. K. Rowling, however, is having none of this “rewriting of history.” Over a screen shot of Peters’ lede paragraphs in which she is mentioned, she wrote a long form response on her twitter account to stop the “mealy mouthed retconning” and minimization of the crimes committed by “trans activists” against those unwilling to chant in obedient conformity that “Men can be Women — and have to be allowed access to their safe spaces and sporting events (and children must be allowed to be surgically mutilated or chemically castrated).” She wrote:
The rewriting of history begins.
Opponents of gender ideology haven’t merely ‘endured unsparing criticism’. I haven’t simply been told I ‘betrayed real feminism’ or received a few book-burning videos.
I’ve been sent thousands of threats of murder, rape and violence. A trans woman posted my family’s home address with a bomb-making guide. My eldest child was targeted by a prominent trans activist who attempted to doxx her and ended up doxxing the wrong young woman. I could write a twenty thousand word essay on what the consequences have been to me and my family, and what we’ve endured is NOTHING compared to the harm done to others.
By standing up to a movement that relies on threats of violence, ostracisation and guilt-by-association, all of us have been smeared and defamed, but many have lost their livelihoods. Some have been physically assaulted by trans activists. Female politicians have been forced to hire personal security on the advice of police. The news that one of the UK’s leading endocrinologists, Dr Hillary Cass, was advised not to travel by public transport for her own safety should shame everyone who let this insanity run amok.
Lest we forget, gender apostates have been targeted for crimes such as doubting the evidential basis for transitioning children, for arguing for fair sport for women and girls, for wanting to retain single sex spaces and services, especially for the most vulnerable, and for thinking it barbaric to lock in female prisoners with convicted male sex offenders.
Now the political landscape has shifted, and some who’ve been riding high on their own supply are waking up with a hell of a hangover. They’ve started wondering whether calling left-wing feminists who wanted all-female rape centres ‘Nazis’ was such a smart strategy. Maybe parents arguing that boys ought not to be robbing their daughters of sporting opportunities might, sort of, have a point? Possibly letting any man who says ‘I’m a woman’ into the locker room with twelve-year-old girls could have a downside, after all?
Mealy-mouthed retconning of what has actually happened over the past ten years is predictable but will not stand. I don’t doubt those who’ve turned a blind eye to the purges of non-believers, or even applauded and encouraged them, would rather minimise what the true cost of speaking out was, but ‘yes, maybe trans activists went a little over the top at times’ takes are frankly insulting. A full reckoning on the effects of gender ideology on individuals, society and politics is still a long way off, but I know this: the receipts will make very ugly reading when that time comes, and there are far too many of them to sweep politely under the carpet.
Someday I will write up what happened to me personally and professionally in the years following Rowling’s taking a stand contra mundum with respect to the “transgender” ideologues. What happened to me when I spoke in her defense and criticized her critics was “NOTHING compared to the harm done to others,” as Rowling wrote today, but in the life of my family, dad’s no longer being welcome at Harry Potter fandom events, my no longer being invited to speak at universities, and having to retire from podcasting on MuggleNet meant a remarkable shift in our relation to the world.
More on that revelation of whose one’s friends really are on another day (I’ve kept the receipts). What I want to say here is that, as with the Covid debacle (which may at last be about to receive its Truth Telling Commission moment in the incoming Presidential administration), those of us who remember what happened in the fandom 2020 to the present are delighted that Rowling is standing on her barricade athwart history and demanding that the extremists and their facilitators not be allowed to “sweep” their crimes and cowardice “under the carpet.” Thank you, Mrs Murray, for once again taking the point in this battle.
Mr Galbraith speaks!