02/07/2020
The International Business Times says that controversial author Joanne Rowling, who adopted her monicker JK at the suggestion of her publisher so that more boys would buy her debut novel “Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone”, is once again making a mess of her twitter feed. Ms Rowling has recently been publishing various tweets referencing articles that argue that trans women are guilty of invading women's spaces and attacking females. It should be noted that this is a minority view within feminism and that the majority of feminists and women's organisations have little concern about this allegation. Although there have been some vocal lesbian feminists to crticise transwomen, the overwhelming majority of the lesbian movement are quite comfortable with the proposed reforms to the Gender Recognition Act which have triggered the wrath of Rowling. Even some lesbians who do have concerns, have cautioned Rowling and others from getting into political alliances with figures who are profoundly anti-women and in some cases have been linked with white supremacist groups. They say that even if you have some trans critical views, it is not worth betraying the whole women's movement by joining with male misogynists, anti-abortionists and others who hate feminism. Back to Rowling, and the IBT reports that she lavished praise on the great horror writer Stephen King last week. Mr King, whose works include legendary spinechillers such as “IT” and “Tommy Knockers” had posted an essay by Andrea Dworkin, a radical feminist active in the 1970's. Rowling was effusive in telling Mr King what an inspirational figure he was. However, a couple of days later, these comments were mysteriously removed by Rowling and she went uncharacteristically quiet. Some have suggested that the reason was a clarification by Mr King that he felt that transgender women were valid as women. If so, it seems that Rowling is prepared to burn bridges with one of the great writers in whose debt she acknowledged she was. As for Andrea Dworkin, although the seventies style feminist was not popular with many gay men and lesbians for her anti-pornography crusades in the eighties, she did always say that there was more to gender than a binary divide. See her essay in “Women Hating”, a book she published in 1974.
