We can’t know for sure, and I won’t definitively say it or use male pronouns for her. But a lot of her past comments hint that she may actually be a repping trans guy. Hell, some of the broader themes of Harry Potter are trans-coded. It would explain a lot. This seems very personal to her.
And at this point, if she really is a repping trans guy, could she even come out and transition? If she did, it would be a very lonely experience. It’s not like she would be welcome in the trans community. You can’t do that much harm to a group, even while secretly a member of that group, and expect to be accepted by them. And she would in turn lose all her connections among the TERF crowd.
It’s not the first time I’ve heard that idea. I recall a comment once in which it was claimed that JKR said that if she were a teenager in the present time, she would probably have transitioned. Unfortunately I could not find any source for that claim, but given just how insane she’s been on the matter, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was something going on there. Same for Linehan, honestly.
Personally I would forgive her, IF that turned out to be true, AND she made a public apology for everything awful she ever said, AND threw her financial weight behind actually fighting for trans rights, AND opened a school or something specifically for disadvantaged trans kids, and kept doing such things to the point that it actually made a positive impact, then I would say she had redeemed herself.
But I’m not holding my breath for even one picosecond, thinking that it would actually happen.
What I remember is an interview where she said “I should have been born a boy” or something to that extent.
It is all too easy to see how you can fall into the TERF mindset as a transmasc in denial because it probably makes about as little sense to her why anyone would want to be a woman as it makes to me why anyone would want to be a man, therefore anyone who wants to transition to a woman must have ulterior motives. But it really shouldn’t be a high ask to have a modicum of empathy to realize other people just feel different lol
Okay so I’ve read a LOT of analysis of that line, and done a fair amount Myself. There are two camps on it: One group says Robert is a repressed trans guy. The other group says Joanne is pretending to lean trans, in order to present herself as an insider and speak from a position of both authority and sympathy, so she can lie to people better.
We can’t know for sure, and I won’t definitively say it or use male pronouns for her. But a lot of her past comments hint that she may actually be a repping trans guy. Hell, some of the broader themes of Harry Potter are trans-coded. It would explain a lot. This seems very personal to her.
And at this point, if she really is a repping trans guy, could she even come out and transition? If she did, it would be a very lonely experience. It’s not like she would be welcome in the trans community. You can’t do that much harm to a group, even while secretly a member of that group, and expect to be accepted by them. And she would in turn lose all her connections among the TERF crowd.
It’s not the first time I’ve heard that idea. I recall a comment once in which it was claimed that JKR said that if she were a teenager in the present time, she would probably have transitioned. Unfortunately I could not find any source for that claim, but given just how insane she’s been on the matter, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was something going on there. Same for Linehan, honestly.
Personally I would forgive her, IF that turned out to be true, AND she made a public apology for everything awful she ever said, AND threw her financial weight behind actually fighting for trans rights, AND opened a school or something specifically for disadvantaged trans kids, and kept doing such things to the point that it actually made a positive impact, then I would say she had redeemed herself.
But I’m not holding my breath for even one picosecond, thinking that it would actually happen.
I don’t think I can say I’d forgive her, but I’d give her a chance to do more good than harm
That’s fair, I mean there’s so many awful things she’d have to make up for before I even started to feel any sort of forgiveness.
What I remember is an interview where she said “I should have been born a boy” or something to that extent.
It is all too easy to see how you can fall into the TERF mindset as a transmasc in denial because it probably makes about as little sense to her why anyone would want to be a woman as it makes to me why anyone would want to be a man, therefore anyone who wants to transition to a woman must have ulterior motives. But it really shouldn’t be a high ask to have a modicum of empathy to realize other people just feel different lol
Okay so I’ve read a LOT of analysis of that line, and done a fair amount Myself. There are two camps on it: One group says Robert is a repressed trans guy. The other group says Joanne is pretending to lean trans, in order to present herself as an insider and speak from a position of both authority and sympathy, so she can lie to people better.
Personally, I only found out about that interview during the research phase of a blog article I had already decided to write, about how Robert really hates women and views womanhood negatively, so maybe he’s trans. https://medium.com/@viridiangrail/does-jk-rowling-want-to-be-a-man-568cb1aa4ca5