J.K. Rowling and Her Twitter Transphobia
By: Veronika Jel
Tags: Transphobia, Gender, Gender Equality, LGBTQ, Equality

Last night, J.K. Rowling, the author of Harry Potter, took to Twitter. Again.

She reposted an article with a headline that included the phrase ‘people who menstruate’. She criticised the article for not using the word ‘women’.

Screenshot took by me on 7 June 2020

Many people have responded to her, pointing out that by saying this, she was being transphobic. Not everyone who menstruates is a woman.

This led to her tweeting some more. She shared this thread in which she defends herself, stating that while she “respects every trans person’s right to live any way that feels authentic and comfortable to them”, she cannot agree with people saying that sex isn’t real.

Screenshot took by me on 7 June 2020

She also retweeted a reaction to one of her tweets, in which the author of the tweet says that many gay people are “concerned about the new version of trans activism”. They argue, again, that there are many extremists who insist that biological sex is an illusion.

Screenshot took by me on 7 June 2020. I deleted the name of the user.

Sex or gender?

Sex refers to someone’s biology. Sex is female, male, intersex/DSD. It describes our anatomy and chromosomes.

Gender is different from sex. It has more to do with how we perceive ourselves, what we identify with. Some gender options are woman, man, non-binary (but there are, of course, more). Gender isn’t related to our biology — you can be a different gender than the one you were assigned at birth. It’s about how you feel and who you are, not about what you look like.

Some people are cisgender. They see themselves, for example, as both female and woman. But not everyone is cisgender.

People who menstruate

If you take into consideration what we know about the difference between gender and sex, it becomes clear why the headline didn’t state ‘women’. ‘Woman’ is a term used to describe someone’s gender and has little to do with one’s anatomy.

There are some people who menstruate but do not identify with the label ‘woman’. Does this mean that issues such as period poverty don’t concern them? Of course not! We all experience the same when it comes to problems like these, no matter how we identify.

Had the article said ‘women’, it would have been discriminatory to all those people who suffer from the same yet are excluded from the headline. ‘People who menstruate’ doesn’t exclude anyone. It includes women, but it also includes everyone else (e.g. non-binary people). You can’t use the term ‘woman’ to describe everyone (unlike the term ‘people’).

Does it erase women’s suffering?

J.K. Rowling argues that by claiming that sex isn’t real, “the lived reality of women globally is erased”. The issue with this statement is, again, the confusion of gender and sex. No one claims that sex isn’t real. Sex is anatomy. It’s gender that people argue against. Many argue that gender is a social construct, often used to promote gender roles and stereotypes.

Yes, women have suffered. But others have suffered as well. By admitting that gender is a made-up concept and isn’t something rigid and binary (and is rather a more fluid spectrum), the suffering of women is not erased. The only thing this does is that it sheds some light on the suffering of so many other people who not only suffered because society views them as a specific gender and therefore discriminates against them, but also because society views them as a gender that they do not and cannot identify with.

No one is arguing that sexism isn’t real, that issues such as the glass ceiling don’t exist. But is it really necessary to protect this suffering of women by means of denying others their right to their identity?

No one is trying to erase the word ‘woman’. It’s just that in this case, it wouldn’t be an accurate way to describe the situation.

Trans women are women. Trans men are men. Non-binary people are non-binary. Someone menstruating tells you nothing about their gender.

Should gay people be concerned about trans activism?

In the retweet J.K. Rowling shared, the user says that many gay people are concerned about trans activism because of sex-erasure. I have already covered this, but I wanted to say one more thing.

It’s June now, and June is Pride month. In case you didn’t know, Pride month is in June because it commemorates the Stonewall riots that happened at the end of June 1969. Stonewall is one of the most important events of LGBTQIA+ history. It’s why we have Pride. And it helped a lot in our fight for freedom and rights. Without Stonewall, we might not be where we are now.

Many of the people who were at Stonewall were trans. Marsha P. Johnson, a black trans activist, was one of the most prominent figures of the Stonewall uprising. We owe her and many others a lot. We should not be afraid of trans activism, we should support it. Be there with our people because we owe them that. Educate ourselves if we don’t understand something.