0:02

This episode contains explicit language

0:04

and references to sexual violence. It

0:06

is not suitable for young listeners.

0:11

So when I first became interested and

0:14

then deeply troubled by

0:16

what I saw as a cultural

0:18

movement, that was a liberal

0:20

in its methods and

0:22

was very questionable in its ideas.

0:26

I absolutely knew. That

0:30

if I spoke out, many

0:32

people who had loved my books would

0:34

be deeply unhappy with me. I knew

0:36

that. I knew

0:39

because I knew that they I could see

0:41

that they believed they were living the values

0:43

that I had espoused in those books.

0:45

I could tell that they believe they were fighting for

0:48

underdogs and difference and

0:51

fairness. And

0:53

I thought it would be easier

0:55

not to. You know that this could

0:57

be really bad. And honestly, it has

1:00

been bad. Personally, it has not been

1:02

fun. And I have been scared at times

1:04

for my own safety and I overwhelmingly

1:06

for my family's safety. Time

1:10

will tell whether I've

1:13

got this wrong. I

1:16

can only say that I've thought about it

1:18

deeply and hard and long,

1:20

and I've listened a promise to

1:22

the other side, and I believe

1:25

absolutely that there

1:27

is something dangerous about

1:30

this movement and it must be challenged.

1:57

Chapter five, the

1:59

tweets. Let's talk about

2:02

the tweets. Let's talk about them.

2:04

On the nineteenth of December twenty nineteen,

2:07

JK Rowling finally jumped into the public

2:09

conversation around sex and

2:12

gender. By that point, she'd

2:14

spent years following the debate and

2:16

had become increasingly concerned about

2:18

what she saw as a vocal group of trans

2:20

rights advocates unfairly targeting

2:23

feminists who disagreed with them. So

2:25

she weighed in with a

2:28

tweet. Would you be willing

2:30

to read the tweet that you wrote that day?

2:32

Yeah. I

2:35

tweeted, dress however

2:38

you please. Call yourself

2:40

whatever you like. Sleep with

2:42

any consenting adult who have you.

2:44

Live your best life in peace and security,

2:47

but force women out of their jobs for that

2:50

sex is real, hashtag I

2:52

stand with Meyer. Hashtag,

2:55

this is not a drill. What

3:00

did you want to accomplish with that tweet?

3:03

This tweet was in response to

3:07

the MyoForce data case Maya forcedata

3:09

had posted a series of messages on

3:11

social

3:12

media, opposing the government's proposals

3:14

to reform the gender recognition act

3:16

by a forced letter posted a number of tweets

3:19

expressing her beliefs and her

3:21

contract with her employer was not

3:23

renewed after a number of her colleagues complained.

3:27

The incident that would finally push Rowling

3:29

into speaking publicly involved

3:31

woman named Maya Forrester, who

3:33

had spoken out online against the so

3:35

called self ID proposal in the UK.

3:39

She asserted that biological sex was

3:41

unchangeable, and that this law

3:43

would undermine women's rights. After

3:46

posting tweets like men cannot change

3:48

into

3:48

women, She

3:49

was accused of offensive language and

3:51

lost her job. She

3:55

was called a bigot, a transverb,

3:57

and a danger to trans people.

4:00

Some of her colleagues complained, and ultimately,

4:03

the nonprofit where she worked did not renew

4:05

her contract.

4:07

And so she decided to fight this, claiming

4:09

that she'd been the victim of unlawful discrimination.

4:12

Disagreement is not harassment. People

4:14

can have different views, and we ought to be able

4:16

to talk about them.

4:18

This is ForeStatter speaking with a

4:20

journalist for Sky News. Gender

4:22

critical belief, which is the absolutely

4:25

ordinary belief about sex

4:27

that your mother and your grandmother

4:29

a women being female is a

4:31

thing, is worthy of

4:33

respect in a democratic society, and

4:36

people who hold that belief shouldn't be

4:38

discriminated against or harassed for

4:40

expressing it.

4:42

In the UK, they have what's known

4:44

as an employment tribunal. Which

4:46

is a dedicated part of the legal system

4:48

that exclusively deals with disputes between

4:51

employers and employees.

4:53

When ForeSadder took her former employer

4:55

to this court, she said that

4:57

as a citizen of a democracy, she

4:59

had a right to voice her criticism of a

5:01

proposed law in public, but

5:04

a few of her colleagues saw her words

5:06

as crossing the line into Transphobia. Forrester's

5:10

comments in dispute before the court read

5:12

in part. Everyone's equality

5:15

and safety should be protected, but

5:17

women and girls lose out on privacy.

5:19

Safety and fairness if males are

5:22

allowed into changing rooms, dormitories,

5:24

prisons, and sports teams. She

5:27

also wrote, of course, in social

5:29

situations, I would treat any trans women

5:32

as an honorary female and use

5:34

whatever pronouns, etcetera. I

5:36

wouldn't try to hurt anyone's feelings, but

5:38

I don't think people should be compelled to play

5:41

along with literal delusions like

5:43

trans women are women. In

5:45

December twenty nineteen, the

5:48

judge ruled against Forrester.

5:51

In the published ruling, he wrote that forced

5:53

actors believe, quote, is

5:55

not a philosophical belief protected

5:58

by British law. He wrote

6:00

I consider that the claimant's view in

6:02

its absoluteest nature is incompatible

6:05

with human dignity and fundamental rights

6:07

of

6:07

others. The judgment said

6:10

that basically her speech, in

6:12

this case, could not be protected because

6:15

it was not worthy of

6:17

respect in a democratic

6:18

society. This is Kathleen

6:21

Stark, a philosopher, writer,

6:23

and for

6:24

many years, a professor at the University

6:26

of Sussex.

6:27

This was shocking to me, very

6:29

shocking to me because it first of all, it seemed

6:31

like the judge had completely lost the plot.

6:34

And Secondly, it made a

6:36

big material difference to any other woman

6:38

who was in a employment situation

6:40

and who went online to express

6:42

reasonable worries about a policy

6:45

that says that any man can legally become a woman

6:47

just by saying that he is. Over

6:49

the past few

6:50

years, Stock has become one of the most

6:52

vocal academics in all of the UK

6:54

on behalf of the feminist side in

6:56

the debate about self ID.

6:58

And she saw this ruling as a danger

7:01

to free speech in a Democratic society.

7:04

So I then went

7:06

to my blog in a fury,

7:08

really, and typed out

7:11

quite a short piece called this is not a drill.

7:13

In

7:14

the hours after the ruling, she wrote

7:16

a call to action directed at

7:18

her fellow academics. So

7:20

I made a call in this blog post to

7:23

them directly, I call upon

7:25

you to stand

7:27

up and say that there should be

7:29

free speech on this issue. And

7:31

I was always very careful to distinguish between

7:34

the position of someone like Maya who thinks that there

7:36

are significant problems with the idea

7:38

you can change your sex, for instance, and

7:41

the right of us to say it even if

7:43

we're wrong. So my

7:46

plea to academics was

7:48

to stand up for the principle that you should be

7:50

legally permitted to believe and say

7:53

that biological sex is immutable. Without

7:56

fear of losing your job. Even if

7:58

it turns out that we're

7:59

wrong, we should still absolutely

8:02

have the right to say it. The

8:06

whole point of a university is to

8:08

contest groupthink

8:11

or received wisdom maybe

8:14

that that contestation will only serve

8:16

to reinforce the group think,

8:19

but at least it would have been tested. And

8:21

it has to be tested because there's so many

8:23

instances from history of where

8:27

group think can go wrong, severely

8:29

wrong, either empirically or ethically. So

8:32

academics should have central role in

8:34

the culture of testing, received

8:37

wisdom, and introducing

8:39

controversial ideas in order that they may

8:41

be rationally and empirically discussed.

8:46

And while this post didn't cause a

8:48

flood of support from her colleagues, It

8:50

very quickly found its way

8:53

to JK Rowling. The

8:55

conclusion was reached that her belief that

8:58

sex is fundamentally immutable

9:00

was not worthy of respect. You

9:02

couldn't hold that as philosophical

9:04

belief. Seeing other feminists

9:07

stand up in support of Maya, and

9:09

against the notion that a person

9:11

might have to lose their job, just for

9:13

stating this view, Rolling decided

9:15

that the time had come for her to speak

9:17

up. I felt that

9:20

the tribunal was wrong. I think

9:22

there is in my view considerable

9:25

evidence for the fact that a woman is

9:28

the producer of the large gamut and

9:30

I found it outrageous. That

9:33

this employment tribunal had decided,

9:35

no, that belief wasn't worthy of respect. So

9:39

I decided, I'm I'm starting

9:41

up. I'm starting up right now. I'm done. I

9:48

drafted the tweet, and then I was considerate

9:50

enough to phone my management team and

9:53

say,

9:55

you cannot argue me out of this. And

9:57

I read out what I was about to say because

9:59

I felt they they needed warning because I

10:01

knew it was gonna cause a massive storm.

10:07

I tweeted, dress

10:10

however you please. Call

10:12

yourself whatever you

10:13

like. Sleep with any consenting

10:15

adult. Within seconds

10:18

of her hitting publish, the replies

10:20

started pouring in and I

10:22

knew what was coming and sure

10:24

enough it came. You

10:27

are so disappointing, turf. You've gone

10:29

turf. Watching your book sales plummet

10:31

will be lovely. Say whatever you love investing,

10:33

but don't be surprised when you're called out as a

10:35

turf. You don't have to be a transphobia in

10:38

our car too. You could also just say

10:40

nothing. Pretty sure that Hitler and Nazis

10:42

have the same view as you and Maya when it

10:44

comes to being a certain sex. They

10:46

gas trans people and anyone else

10:48

must have.

10:53

Within hours, Glad, an

10:55

organization that prays Rowling as

10:57

a writer who helped LGBT fans

11:00

find their identities and communities. Said,

11:04

JK Rowling has aligned herself with

11:06

an anti science ideology that

11:08

denies the basic humanity of people

11:10

who are transgender. Amnesty

11:13

International, a place where Rowling

11:15

had actually worked for a time in her twenties,

11:17

in which she credits as having a profound effect

11:19

on her worldview. Tweeted face

11:22

palm emojis along with

11:24

just in case anyone needs reminding, trans

11:27

rights equal human rights, over

11:30

and over again. There were

11:32

a lot of people who were genuinely troubled,

11:35

and they posted sincere questions about

11:37

what Rowling was thinking. Like

11:39

the actress, Marrow Wilson, who asked,

11:41

what exactly is to be gained by

11:44

using your platform to be cruel an

11:46

exclusionary to one of the world's most vulnerable

11:48

populations. And

11:50

many of those responding were

11:52

among the most passionate fans of Harry

11:55

Potter. I

11:59

have been a huge fan of yours for long

12:01

as I can remember, and it breaks my

12:03

heart to see this. Such

12:06

a shame that you've become the evil that you

12:08

taught so many of us to stand up to.

12:11

You're on the wrong side of history with this one.

12:13

I hope you come to realize this with time.

12:17

Your open, disdain towards the trans

12:19

community is the most disappointing revelation

12:22

my generation has witnessed regarding

12:24

people we once looked up to. This

12:27

makes me so sad from millions of children

12:29

that grew up reading your books. Trans

12:32

women are women and you have

12:34

broken this heart that your book so often

12:37

healed. As

12:39

a gay man that found safety in Hogwarts

12:41

throughout my childhood, knowing

12:43

that trans people wouldn't be able to have that

12:45

safety, breaks my heart.

12:55

Mugglednet, the original Harry

12:58

Potter fan site that Rowling had embraced

13:00

all those years ago. Published

13:02

a statement alongside a trans rights

13:04

flag saying, we want

13:06

every single Potter fan out there

13:08

to know that the MuggleNet community stands

13:10

with you. We see you.

13:13

We hear you. We support you.

13:16

Harry Potter Conference Runners, YouTubers,

13:19

and Podcasts started tweeting

13:21

things like I am baffled

13:23

that the woman who created such a loving,

13:25

welcoming, and accepting community can

13:28

be openly transphobic. I

13:30

don't understand how you can write seven

13:32

books about acceptance, but then

13:34

not accept everyone. It's

13:36

truly disappointing. From

13:39

the outside, it really looked like the entire

13:41

Harry Potter Internet world, these people

13:43

who had largely placed you on this

13:45

pedestal, in a way that you said made you

13:47

uncomfortable, was now saying you were

13:49

a disgrace.

13:50

Yeah, there was absolutely fury

13:53

and in comprehension. You know, we

13:55

talked about this before when you got that criticism

13:58

from the right. Mhmm. And it was so wide

14:00

of the

14:00

mark, as you say, that it didn't really touch

14:02

you. Yeah. I wondered, like, did it

14:04

feel that way from the left as well? No. Because

14:06

you if you if it's

14:08

coming from people that you would well,

14:11

you would have thought were

14:12

allies. Yes. That's absolutely

14:14

gonna hit differently. But I don't hold me

14:16

because you share those fundamental values. Yes. Because

14:19

I I would assume we

14:21

we share certain values. So yeah,

14:23

that that hits differently. Of course,

14:25

it hits differently. But

14:27

at the same time, I have to tell you

14:30

a ton of potty

14:31

fans. Were still

14:33

with me. And in fact,

14:35

a ton of pot of fans were grateful

14:37

that I'd said what I said.

14:40

It's hard to measure the weight of supporters

14:42

versus detractors over something like

14:44

a tweet. But it is true that

14:46

Rowling's post. Which was retweeted

14:48

and liked by hundreds of thousands of people,

14:51

had many responses in support and

14:53

appreciation. They said

14:55

things like The number of likes

14:57

for this tweet will never convey to you

14:59

how much it mattered that you were willing

15:02

to tweet in. It felt like

15:04

you stood with ordinary women, and men

15:06

who support them, as well as with

15:08

Maya. And it was a joy and a

15:10

relief that the woman who gave us Harry

15:12

Potter was prepared to do that.

15:15

Rolling also told me that she received

15:17

thousands of private emails of support

15:20

to her fan mail address. Many

15:22

of them saying that the sender was too

15:24

scared to post publicly on Twitter,

15:26

and she shared some of these with me with

15:28

names

15:28

redacted. And Rowling's

15:31

post seemed to surprise and

15:33

encourage several of the feminists who'd been

15:35

targeted by campaigns to get them removed

15:37

from their jobs and by protests. Women

15:41

like Kathleen Stark. I

15:43

was delighted to

15:45

see. Absolutely delighted because

15:47

at the time it felt very like there's

15:50

just a bunch of relatively

15:52

insignificant women, including

15:54

myself howling into the void about

15:57

it, to be honest, and getting no traction in the

15:59

media. Getting no traction

16:01

politically. Everyone treating us as if we

16:03

were just total

16:03

deferrables, which we were not.

16:06

What's interesting is

16:10

the fans that have found themselves in positions

16:12

of power online did

16:15

they feel they needed to take this position because

16:18

they themselves had followers? Possibly.

16:21

I don't know. I mean, I I do

16:23

know that there is huge pressure on

16:25

people to take certain positions at the moment,

16:27

and I know that there is a huge amount of fear around

16:29

it. Some of them I don't doubt

16:32

sincerely felt it. They just couldn't understand

16:34

why? Why? Why aren't you simply

16:36

repeating trans women and women? Why aren't you doing

16:38

that? That is the kind and good and righteous thing to

16:40

do. I don't understand. And

16:43

I'm constantly told I don't understand my

16:45

own books. I'm constantly I'm told

16:47

that I have betrayed my own

16:49

books. My position

16:51

is that I am absolutely upholding the

16:53

positions that I took importer. My

16:56

position is that this activist

16:59

movement

17:00

in the form that it's currently taking,

17:03

echoes the very thing that I was warning against

17:05

in Harry Potter. You

17:11

know, I've been trying to hold out that, like, this

17:13

person who created

17:15

a universe that led to this community

17:17

that has meant so much to me and taught

17:19

me so many of these values of talents

17:22

and acceptance and unconditional

17:23

love, that she wouldn't really believe

17:25

this. Right? No way. This

17:28

is Jackson Bird, an author whose

17:30

memoir tells the story of how his

17:32

Harry Potter fandom helped him

17:34

find his true self. After

17:37

Rowling's tweet, he wrote an essay

17:39

for The New York Times titled, Harry

17:42

Potter helped me come out as trans,

17:44

but j k Rowling disappointed me.

17:47

But as you can hear in this excerpt from

17:49

his appearance on Potter cast, like

17:51

many fans in December twenty

17:53

nineteen, he wasn't ready to totally

17:55

turn his back on rolling. In

17:57

some way, like tried to put myself in her shoes and I'm

17:59

like, well, you know, she probably lives in this kind of you

18:01

know, when you are that wealthy and you've had so

18:03

much success like you're not necessarily going

18:06

to be meeting all kinds different people in your

18:08

life and It is a confusing

18:10

topic, and so maybe she came across this

18:12

stuff from turf land, and it made

18:14

a little bit of sense to her. And and she is

18:17

such a staunch feminist, and so she kind of

18:19

fell for some of it maybe. And I

18:21

I still kinda wanna believe that. I wanna

18:23

believe that after she

18:25

gets over whatever

18:27

defensiveness she's gonna have from this reaction,

18:30

maybe she will be willing to listen and

18:32

learn and grow a little bit. But

18:38

then, she tweeted again. Only

18:41

this time, it was during the chaotic

18:43

political moment that was the

18:45

summer of twenty twenty. We'll

18:54

be right back.

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22:33

dot com slash witch trials.

22:43

After that single tweet in December of

22:45

twenty nineteen and the backlash from

22:47

many fans, JK Rowling

22:49

and her Twitter account went

22:51

quiet. She didn't

22:53

release any statements. She didn't

22:56

respond to either supporters or critics.

22:58

And although the story of the fans disappointed

23:01

in her made its way around the world and news

23:03

articles and tabloids, The story

23:05

seemed to fade from public consciousness pretty

23:07

quickly. There were no widespread

23:10

calls for boycotts. Her book sales

23:12

did not suffer. And quickly,

23:15

much bigger stories dominated the world's

23:17

attention.

23:19

We do have breaking news tonight, a deeply

23:22

divided moment playing of American history

23:24

as we come on the

23:25

air. President Trump has just been impeached

23:27

on both Article one abuse of power.

23:30

The

23:30

very same week that Rowling sent

23:32

her I stand with Maya tweet. Now

23:34

Donald Trump has become only the third

23:36

US president to be impeached.

23:38

The American president was impeached. For

23:41

the first time since Clinton in the nineties.

23:44

It's the single greatest witch hunt

23:46

in American history, probably in history,

23:49

but in America. And

23:51

then

23:52

China has more than two hundred confirmed cases

23:55

of coronaviruses called A

23:58

new virus was spreading around the world.

24:00

A SARS like virus, which has infected

24:03

hundreds in

24:03

China, has now reached the United

24:05

States. The World Health Organization has officially

24:08

called it COVID nineteen.

24:10

A virus is more power for

24:13

in creating

24:13

political, economic, and social

24:15

upheaval than any terrorist attack.

24:19

The virus is spread, then

24:21

led to lockdowns. Around the world.

24:24

From this evening, I must give the British people

24:26

a very simple instruction.

24:29

You must stay at home.

24:32

Offices were closed, schools

24:35

closed, churches closed,

24:38

restaurants, bars, beaches,

24:40

and even public parks. People

24:43

stayed home, and according

24:45

to data that came out later, they were

24:47

spending more time online and especially

24:49

on social media than ever

24:51

before. Days turned

24:54

into weeks, weeks turned into

24:56

months, And by May, anti

24:59

lockdown protests started erupting

25:02

around the world. Enough

25:07

of being told what I can

25:09

and cannot do. Then

25:17

a video came out of a white police

25:19

officer, kneeling on the neck of

25:21

a black citizen named George

25:24

Floyd, Outrage

25:28

spread across the country. IN

25:34

THE

25:34

WORLD. Reporter:

25:35

MASK PROTESTS HERE IN THE UNITED STATES

25:37

HAVE SPARKED A GLOBAL MOVEMENT AGAINST

25:40

RACIAL DISCRIMINATION. Leading

25:42

to one of the largest protest movements

25:44

of the twenty first century.

25:47

But also You can see police

25:50

here now firing tear gas into

25:52

the crowd, they are trying to push these

25:54

folks down. The

25:57

most costly and deadly riots in

25:59

America. Since the LA riots in

26:01

the nineties. Earlier today, just

26:03

a few blocks away, there was looting

26:06

underway nearby. Police seemed

26:08

to have

26:08

had a night

26:13

The social contract is broken.

26:16

You broke the contract. Far as I'm concerned

26:18

it can burn his bitch to the crowd. This

26:26

unrest was also present online,

26:29

where social media was full of outrage

26:31

and anger and uncertainty.

26:33

About COVID nineteen and its origins, about

26:36

racism in the US, and what should be

26:38

done to remedy in, about the

26:40

gap between the haves and the have nots.

26:43

And about whether the current systems could remedy

26:46

these problems or whether those

26:48

systems needed to be dismantled entirely.

26:51

There was a reckoning about the past, about

26:54

historical figures and their statues, but

26:57

also about prominent people in

26:59

the present.

27:00

We live at a time now where it we have what

27:02

we call cancel culture, man.

27:05

If you do something

27:06

wrong, years supposed to be out

27:08

of here. And it could have been five minutes ago or it could have been

27:10

twenty, thirty years ago. When

27:12

the Twitter mob wants to cancel somebody, they're

27:14

basically saying that a person has done something

27:16

harmful. This comes from famous

27:18

journalists and writers faced backlashes over

27:21

tweets and op eds and lost their jobs.

27:23

Actors and musicians faced backlashes

27:25

for insensitive lyrics or jokes and

27:27

released apology videos. And

27:30

it was into this environment that

27:32

on June sixth twenty twenty, JK

27:35

Rowling tweeted again.

27:38

So can you set this up for me? Like, where were

27:40

you? I was angry. Yeah. I was getting

27:42

really angry. Mhmm. What

27:44

happens was I

27:46

flipped open Twitter and

27:48

I saw this article. It

27:50

was actually at the top of my feed. Creating

27:53

a more equal post COVID nineteen

27:56

world for people who menstruate.

28:00

This article that Rowling saw was

28:02

using this sort of language that's become

28:05

both more common and more polarizing

28:07

in recent years. Where outlets

28:10

avoid using gendered words like women

28:12

or mothers, and instead use phrases

28:15

like cervix havers, uterous

28:17

hovers, or pregnant people,

28:20

or in this case, people who menstruate.

28:23

The idea is that It's more inclusive

28:25

to those who don't identify as women, but

28:27

who are still experiencing things like menstruation

28:30

or

28:30

pregnancy. But to many feminists,

28:33

it's also seen as removing women

28:35

from the center of experiences that directly

28:37

affect them. You know, there is

28:40

power to words with

28:42

history, both good and ill,

28:44

and to me, the word woman, has

28:46

its own power. And I do

28:48

not believe we can meaningfully analyze

28:51

the harmstone women and girls without

28:53

using language that has concrete

28:55

meaning. And I felt there's an obfuscation

28:58

here. Now, I'm coming to that

29:00

article on the background of what I see is

29:02

huge injustice and people trying to women down.

29:05

And I don't doubt that I too

29:07

was being affected by the

29:09

incredibly febrile oppressive atmosphere

29:12

that we are all currently living

29:13

in, and that was inflaming my sense

29:15

of injustice on behalf of women. Rolling,

29:18

just like so many others over the COVID lockdowns,

29:21

had been spending more time online, in

29:23

her case on Twitter. And there,

29:26

she continued to see how many women

29:28

labeled as terfs were attacked

29:30

as hate figures and told to shut up and

29:32

go away and sent threats of violence

29:34

and harassment, day in,

29:36

and day out. So I was

29:38

angry and I was flippant.

29:41

So seeing this article, she

29:43

just reacted you'll notice

29:46

there was no courtesy call to my management at

29:48

this point. And a few seconds later,

29:50

she sent a tweet to her fourteen

29:53

million

29:53

followers. And I tweeted

29:56

in quotes, people who menstruate.

29:59

I'm sure they used to be a word for those people.

30:02

Someone helped me out. Womban,

30:05

wompered, woman, and

30:08

that was like dropping a

30:10

hand grenade into Twitter.

30:15

Did I mean to drop a hand grenade in?

30:18

No. I was just

30:21

keeping a rein on my own

30:23

fury. So

30:26

awful went. Jacob

30:29

Rolling is back at her bullshit again. Nope.

30:31

Men have periods too. Stop hating

30:33

trans people you awful

30:35

weirdo. And

30:36

again, Within seconds, you fucking

30:38

suck. The

30:39

fact that women can have penises and

30:41

men can have vagina. The

30:44

responses started pouring in. Each

30:48

shit at JT Rowling, shut the

30:50

fuck up turf. You are ruining my

30:52

childhood. First of all, eat shit

30:54

and die, eat turf fast faster.

30:56

Only this time, there were magnitudes

30:59

more and more enraged. Never

31:01

thought I would say

31:02

this, but here we are. Fuck you,

31:04

JK. Your reductivism is harmful

31:06

and ignorant

31:07

JK will fuck you and shut the fuck up a

31:09

transphobic piece of shit. Journalism

31:12

and media figures started

31:13

responding. God, you're awful. Good

31:15

night and shut up. I actually appreciate

31:17

how much you are honest about being a huge

31:20

fucking turd so that no one is confused

31:22

about whether not, you're all doubling down on

31:24

your

31:24

terfiness. You're pathetic and embarrassing.

31:26

Your unapologetic ignorance is vile.

31:29

Celebrities with huge followings like Jamila

31:32

Jamila and Hall's tweeted that JK

31:34

Rowling had ruined her legacy. Jonathan

31:37

Van Ness shared a viral meme that

31:39

said, Harry Potter and the audacity

31:41

of this bitch

31:42

Christ. You are such a colossal disappointment.

31:45

And

31:45

it just kept going. You are

31:48

found with a nasty piece of work being used

31:50

to. But

32:01

this time, instead of just

32:03

sending the tweet and walking away, Rowling

32:05

started to try to engage with her

32:07

critics. I responded with,

32:11

if sex isn't real, there's no same

32:13

sex attraction. If sex isn't real,

32:15

the lived reality of women globally is

32:18

erased. I know and love

32:20

trans people, but erasing the concept

32:22

of sex. Removes the ability

32:24

of many to meaningfully discuss

32:27

their lives. It isn't hate to

32:29

speak the truth. Now

32:31

I I stand by every word that I

32:33

wrote

32:33

there. But the question is, what

32:35

is the truth? And I'm arguing

32:38

against people who are literally saying

32:40

sex is a construct. It's it's not

32:42

real. She tried to clarify

32:45

that first flippant tweet and wrote,

32:47

I respect every trans

32:49

person's right to live any way that

32:51

feels authentic and comfortable to them.

32:53

I'd march with you if you were discriminated against

32:56

on the basis of being trans. At

32:58

the same time, my life has

33:00

been shaped by being female. I

33:03

do not believe it's hateful to say so.

33:06

And yet, the more she responded, the

33:08

more the criticism grew.

33:12

I literally cannot wrap my head around the fact that

33:14

it is a global pandemic right now. There's like

33:16

a fucking revolution going

33:18

on. And JK Rowling sat down

33:20

and thought, Now is

33:22

a good time to be transphobic. Within

33:25

minutes, the responses were moving

33:27

from Twitter to other platforms like

33:29

YouTube and TikTok.

33:31

It is highly problematic that this woman

33:33

came out on Twitter as a full blown

33:35

transobe in the middle of a civil rights

33:38

revolution. When Let's

33:40

talk about how JK Rowling has been a piece

33:42

of shit for a hot ass minute, but

33:44

we were all just young and jaded and

33:46

infatuated with Harry Potter to really

33:48

see

33:48

it. Take care, Rowling. I hate you so

33:50

much. I hate you so much. You're

33:52

awful. As

33:59

you're tweeting these things, how do you feel it's going?

34:02

Well, I think it's important to say

34:04

that I'm not sitting there thinking How

34:07

am I doing here? How am I how

34:09

how am I positioning myself as though I'm a

34:11

brand? I am talking and

34:13

thinking and feeling as a an an individual

34:16

human being. Reading

34:18

it now today, I'm I'm amazed that

34:21

I was pretty measured because I wasn't feeling

34:23

measured at this point. A

34:25

lot of things had come together, and

34:28

I found it very enraging

34:31

to watch hashtag be kind

34:33

attached to tweets

34:36

that I thought were utterly dehumanizing of

34:38

women, utterly scathing

34:40

about women's concerns. JK

34:44

Rowling is a horror. Kindly fuck

34:46

off. You turf, hunt. You hateful,

34:48

spiteful, ignorant hag.

34:52

Ruling had said that part of the reason she spoke

34:54

up was seeing the way that other women

34:56

were harassed when they spoke

34:58

up. And now, That same

35:00

harassment was coming for her. At

35:04

j k Rowling choke on cock.

35:07

I'd really just loved to fucking punch JK

35:09

Rowling in her thick rectangle head.

35:13

JK Rowling, the Transfigure fuck,

35:15

can suck my dick and choke on

35:17

it. God,

35:19

JK Rowling can gargle my cock and balls

35:21

and hopefully choke on them right there and

35:23

then

35:24

so she can die and never write another

35:26

absolutely in

35:27

a transphobic tweet ever again.

35:29

JK Rowling can suddenly make trans I

35:32

do fuck JK. Watch this movement

35:34

behaving towards women in ways that I think are

35:37

absolutely abhorrent. JK

35:38

Rowling, Joe Gomez. As

35:42

she read tweet after terrible tweet.

35:45

Hey babe, you wanna suck my ass.

35:47

Far from changing her mind. They

35:49

all seemed to serve as evidence, as

35:51

confirmation that her concerns were

35:54

justified. Well, this is it, you see,

35:56

because The terf is

35:59

by her nature, a hate

36:01

filled bickett. Being

36:04

a terf is

36:04

evil. At j

36:06

k Rowling, you're a terf

36:08

and need to be stoned.

36:13

She's evil. She is evil. And that is said

36:15

openly. I mean, that that it is very biblical

36:18

language that is used of women

36:20

who say You know what?

36:23

I think any measure that makes it easier for

36:25

predators to get it at women and girls is

36:27

bad idea. That's, you know, and

36:29

that There are plenty of women who don't even

36:31

I wouldn't identify themselves as feminists

36:34

who are very concerned about this. But

36:38

once you've internalized the idea

36:40

that a terf is is vermin and scrum

36:42

and all the other words that are used and that

36:44

it's an easy step to

36:47

punch all

36:48

terfs, eye kill terfs, this

36:50

baseball bat will be used to smash

36:52

in the I've literally seen there is

36:54

no point in arguing with the terth.

36:56

We may need to make them too frightened to

36:58

speak.

37:00

As all these tweets and other responses

37:02

are coming in, and you're

37:04

sitting there reading them. How

37:07

did you feel? How did I feel?

37:09

Was it nice? Was it fun? No. It's horrible.

37:11

Mhmm. It's horrible. To

37:15

Because it's the scale. I think people

37:17

who have never been in

37:19

that position. It is the scale Even

37:22

though I knew it was coming -- Mhmm. -- but that's

37:24

like knowing you're about to be punched. You

37:26

know, this is gonna really hurt here.

37:29

It's still, you know, you really need to take the punch

37:31

to know how much it hurts. Was

37:33

it

37:33

fun? No. Was I enjoying myself? No.

37:37

When my producers and

37:39

I started going through the responses to Rowling's

37:42

tweets, even though we knew

37:44

there'd be many threads and unhinged

37:46

comments because Of course, this

37:48

is the Internet. We weren't

37:50

prepared for the sheer volume

37:53

of violent sexual threats that

37:55

we found. It's hard to

37:57

know exact numbers because Twitter has

37:59

a policy of removing these tweets. But

38:02

by our count, On top of the thousands

38:04

that we saw that are still public, hundreds

38:07

more have either been deleted by Twitter

38:09

or removed by the authors. Even

38:12

if you just go to Twitter right now

38:14

and type in JK Rowling's name,

38:17

you'll see that these sorts of comments are seemingly

38:19

endless. And

38:21

they aren't just coming from online trolls,

38:24

writing from behind anonymous profiles,

38:27

and they didn't just stay online.

38:31

Rolling's home address was docked,

38:34

and law enforcement contacted her

38:36

to say were investigating credible threats

38:38

of violence. Enrolling

38:41

in response to the hostility flowing in

38:43

her direction posted a tweet

38:45

that read, Feminency, turf,

38:49

bitch, witch. Times

38:52

change, woman hate is eternal.

38:55

But that just led to

38:57

hundreds of people accusing her.

39:00

One of the wealthiest, most privileged women

39:02

in the world of trying to paint

39:04

herself as a victim.

39:07

Over the next forty eight hours, the

39:09

denunciations continued. There

39:12

was a torrent of negative headlines in

39:14

news outlets around the globe, calling

39:16

her transphobic. Then,

39:18

the actors who'd starred in the Harry Potter

39:20

films began releasing statements

39:23

and distancing themselves from her, including

39:26

Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint,

39:28

Emma Watson, and Bonnie

39:30

Wright. All of whom had known

39:32

Rowling since they were children. Some

39:34

of the voices who've been critical include

39:36

the stars of her own movie, including the

39:38

biggest

39:39

star. Daniel Radcliffe. That's

39:41

right. Harry Potter himself responded.

39:44

And in that statement, he wrote transgender

39:46

women are women, any statement

39:48

to the contrary, erases the identity and

39:51

dignity of transgender people, and

39:53

goes again. Warner Brothers, the studio that released

39:55

Harry Potter films, released a statement

39:58

that didn't denounce JK by

39:59

name, but said they support the trans community

40:02

and inclusivity.

40:04

On June tenth twenty twenty,

40:07

four days after her initial tweets,

40:09

Rowling published an essay on her website,

40:12

expanding on her views. This

40:14

isn't an easy piece to write, she begins,

40:17

for reasons that will shortly become clear,

40:20

but I know it's time to explain myself

40:22

on an issue surrounded by toxicity.

40:25

I write this without any desire to

40:27

add to that toxicity. She

40:30

then listed her reasons for speaking up

40:32

that she had concerns for women only

40:34

spaces, like prisons and domestic

40:36

violence shelters. That she worried

40:39

about children not old enough to make life

40:41

altering medical decisions. That

40:43

as the author of a series frequently targeted

40:46

by book bands, She was alarmed

40:48

by the way conversations and debates were

40:50

being shut down. Then,

40:52

she shared a personal story, which

40:54

she hadn't revealed until this moment.

40:57

Not just that she had been abused by her ex

40:59

husband, but that separately, she

41:02

had also suffered a serious sexual

41:04

assault. She wrote,

41:07

I've been in the public eye now for over twenty

41:09

years and I've never talked publicly

41:11

about being a domestic abuse and sexual

41:13

assault survivor. This isn't

41:16

because I'm ashamed those things happen to

41:18

me, but because they're traumatic to

41:20

revisit and remember. I'm

41:22

mentioning these things now, not

41:25

in an attempt to garner sympathy, but

41:27

out of solidarity with the huge numbers of

41:29

women who have histories like mine.

41:32

Who have been slurred as bigots for having

41:34

concerns around single sex spaces.

41:36

If you could come inside you could come

41:38

inside my head, and understand what

41:40

I feel when I read about a trans woman,

41:43

dying at the hands of a violent man,

41:45

you'd find solidarity and kinship.

41:48

I have a visceral sense of the terror in

41:50

which those trans women will have spent their last

41:52

seconds on earth. Because I

41:54

too have known moments of blind fear,

41:57

when I realized that the only thing keeping me

41:59

alive was the shaky self restraint of

42:01

my attacker. I

42:04

believe the majority of trans identified people

42:07

not only pose zero threat to others,

42:09

but are vulnerable for all the reasons I've

42:11

outlined. Trans people

42:14

need and deserve protection. Like

42:17

women, they're most likely to be killed

42:19

by sexual partners. Trans

42:21

women who work in the sex industry, particularly

42:24

trans women of color, are at particular

42:27

risk, like every other domestic

42:29

abuse and sexual assault survivor I

42:31

know. I feel nothing but empathy

42:34

and solidarity with trans women

42:36

who've been abused by men. So

42:41

I want trans women to be safe.

42:44

At the same time, I do not want

42:46

to make natal girls and women less

42:48

safe. When you throw open

42:51

the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms,

42:53

to any man who believes or feels

42:55

he's a woman. And as I've

42:57

said, gender confirmation certificates

43:00

may now be granted without any need

43:02

for surgery or hormones. Then

43:04

you open the door to any

43:06

and all men who wish to come inside.

43:10

That is the simple truth.

43:18

Rolling ended her essay with the following.

43:21

I haven't written this essay in the hope that

43:23

anybody will get out of violin for me.

43:26

Not even a teeny weeny one. I'm

43:28

extraordinarily fortunate. I'm

43:31

a survivor, certainly not a victim.

43:34

I've only mentioned my past because,

43:36

like every other human being on this

43:38

planet, I have a complex backstory

43:41

which shapes my fears, my

43:43

interests and my opinions. I

43:46

never forget that inner complexity when

43:48

I'm creating a fictional character. And

43:51

I certainly never forget it when it comes

43:53

to trans people. All

43:55

I'm asking, all I want.

43:57

Is for similar empathy, similar

44:00

understanding, to be extended

44:02

to the many millions of women whose

44:04

sole crime is wanting their concerns

44:06

to be

44:06

heard. Without receiving

44:08

threats and abuse.

44:12

What in the living fuck

44:14

did I read? IIII

44:19

If her hope in writing that essay was

44:22

to win over some of her critics, in

44:24

the days following its

44:25

publication. But this is a matter

44:27

of free speech darling. I

44:29

suppose everyone is also conveniently

44:31

forgotten that I was

44:33

poor.

44:34

There was plenty of evidence that

44:36

it didn't work.

44:37

Let the Julius news display the

44:39

weakening of which had lost his name.

44:43

Many saw Rowling's essay as her

44:45

death knell and started sharing videos

44:48

and memes. Some saying that

44:50

they were explaining j k Rowling's

44:52

essay so you don't have to read it. Others

44:55

saying, dinged dong the

44:57

witch is dead. Seeing

45:00

as JK Rowling is such a terrible person. I'm

45:02

here with an official statement from the government

45:04

to say we no longer recognize her as author

45:06

of the Harry Potter

45:07

series. From now on, we're telling the future

45:09

generations, look, kid, we don't know who wrote

45:11

that. Just popped out of the nail like the Bible.

45:14

JK Rowling uses the fact

45:16

that misogyny is real, it does exist,

45:19

to be the constant victim. And

45:22

in her warped awful

45:24

morality, she thinks being a

45:26

victim entitles her to victimize

45:29

anyone that she wants to. It

45:32

kept Rowling's opinions about trans

45:34

issues, literally get trans people killed,

45:36

but stay comfortable, I guess.

45:38

A trend started on TikTok

45:41

where users began burning their Harry

45:43

Potter

45:43

books. So let me talk about the infamous

45:45

book burning video for a second. I

45:48

am not just offended by

45:50

what JK Rowling says. I am

45:52

fearful because of what she is promoting

45:54

on her platform. Or tearing them into

45:57

pieces.

46:00

What am I doing? You might ask? I'm

46:02

making recycled paper out of

46:05

this book that I used to love

46:08

wrote by a transphobic author. Campaigns

46:12

were started to boycott her books and merchandise

46:15

need to stop buying Harry Potter

46:17

books because the very homophobic transphobic

46:20

and racist woman would be profiting

46:22

off of and others organized to get

46:24

her books removed from schools.

46:26

Now J. K. Rowling will not be

46:28

the last author that we need to vet and

46:30

remove from our classrooms. Our job as

46:32

educators is to create safe

46:34

and inclusive spaces for all

46:37

our students. We cannot do this if we have

46:39

authors on ourselves that perpetuate hate

46:41

and racism. So, vet your books

46:43

and get rid of problematic authors. Done.

46:47

After Rowling's essay, Muggled

46:49

meant called her comments harmful to

46:51

trans people. And then, like

46:53

other fan forums, they removed

46:56

their photos of Rowling from the site.

46:58

Hardcore fans got their Harry Potter tattoos

47:00

removed. At least

47:02

two British schools removed Rowling's name

47:05

from houses they had titled in her honor.

47:07

Players of Quidditch, the fictional sport

47:09

she invented, ultimately changed

47:12

its name to dissociate themselves from

47:14

her. An I Love JK

47:16

Rowling poster that was hanging in a

47:18

Scottish railway station was criticized

47:20

as hate speech by some members of the

47:22

public. And then removed by

47:24

transportation authorities.

47:26

But the backlash had far more

47:28

impact on women who lack Rowling's

47:30

power and privilege.

47:32

Gillian Philip, a children's book

47:34

author, added the hashtag iStand

47:37

with jK Rowling to her Twitter bio

47:40

igniting a wave of rape threats,

47:42

death threats, and a campaign for

47:44

her to be dropped by her publisher. And

47:47

just twenty four hours later, She received

47:50

a call from HarperCollins and was fired

47:52

on the spot. Unlike Rowling,

47:54

she still needed income and now works

47:56

as truck driver. Rosa

47:59

Friedman, a human rights lawyer and professor,

48:02

came out publicly against self ID laws

48:04

and received death and rape threats.

48:07

Along with calls for her to be fired, and

48:09

even urine poured on her office door.

48:12

Joe Phoenix, a criminology researcher

48:14

who works with women prisoners, spoke

48:16

publicly in support of female only

48:19

prisons and was pushed out of her position

48:21

at open university after a petition

48:23

was passed around, calling her, fundamentally

48:26

hostile to the rights of trans people.

48:29

Jenny Lindsey, a prominent Scottish

48:31

poet who only spoke up to oppose

48:33

calls for violence directed at so called

48:36

terfs. She became the object

48:38

of such intense threats that the police

48:40

counseled her to avoid public events for

48:42

her own safety. And Kathleen

48:45

Stock, the philosophy professor,

48:47

whose essay, this is not a drill, was shared

48:49

by Rowling, who was advocating for

48:51

academic freedom to debate these questions.

48:54

Even if her side turned out to be wrong.

48:56

She became the object of fierce campus

48:59

protests.

49:06

In twenty twenty one, a group

49:08

of students formed to demand that

49:10

stock be fired. This group

49:12

started coming to campus with

49:14

big signs. They were letting off flares.

49:16

They were taking photos for this website

49:19

that they'd started called Kathleen Stock is

49:21

a tough or something like that.

49:23

The website's actually called Anti

49:25

Turf Sussex, and their mission

49:27

statement reads in part.

49:29

Trans folks like stock are anti feminist,

49:32

anti queer, and anti intellectual.

49:35

They are harmful and dangerous to trans

49:37

people. Their spiteful bootlickers.

49:40

They camouflage their transphobia in academic

49:43

language, in fake feminism, and

49:45

then we suffer the real material consequences

49:48

of it. We are not up for debate.

49:51

We cannot be reasoned out of existence. We

49:54

fucking had enough. Our

49:56

demand is simple. Fire

49:58

Kathleen's stock. It's

50:00

just crazy. They just don't have a clue

50:02

who I

50:03

am. And yet, they were

50:05

happy to stand there and try and get get me

50:07

out. Stock, who is herself

50:09

a lesbian? Rejects the accusations

50:12

that she is antiqueer or anti

50:14

trans, but the protesters continued

50:16

their campaign. They put up

50:18

posters all over campus saying things

50:20

like, Kathleen stock makes

50:22

trans students unsafe. They

50:25

graffitied the walls of nearby subway

50:27

tunnels and underpasses with the simple,

50:30

stuck out. After that,

50:32

I was advised to stay at home and teach from home.

50:35

Ultimately, after nearly two

50:37

decades at the University of Sussex, stock

50:40

felt forced to resign. The

50:42

UK's minister of higher education said

50:45

it is absolutely appalling that

50:47

the toxic environment at the University

50:49

of Sussex has made it untenable

50:52

for professor Kathleen stock to continue

50:54

in her position

50:55

there. The sustained campaign

50:57

of harassment and intimidation she

50:59

has faced is deplorable, and

51:02

the situation should never have got this

51:04

far. I mean, it's an extension

51:06

of the whole experience, which is that you

51:08

do feel alternating

51:11

between feeling that you're going crazy,

51:13

feeling anger,

51:16

feeling total defeat.

51:18

And then also feeling all the feelings of

51:20

shame and guilt and, you

51:23

know, that they want you to feel because to

51:25

just suddenly have all fingers pointing at

51:27

you. You feel you can't

51:29

help but take on the feelings that they want you

51:31

to have for a bit. You have to really defend yourself.

51:33

Against it. You have to remind yourself, you have to keep

51:35

going back to what you actually wrote. And,

51:38

you know, you almost expect there to be

51:41

some terrible inflammatory language

51:44

there or some terrible threat to

51:46

somebody that somehow you didn't notice

51:48

that you'd written, but then you remind myself,

51:50

no. I just wrote this sort of

51:52

relatively centrist, moderate,

51:54

in the middle compassionate thing.

51:58

So, yeah, it's really a psychological battle

52:00

to stay strong and not take on

52:03

the projections that are coming at you.

52:05

In the moment. That's how it felt. And

52:07

I I didn't always succeed.

52:10

What do you say to the people who say

52:12

that's just accountability? Look, I

52:14

I've heard this all the time. We're holding you accountable.

52:17

We're holding you accountable. Well, I would say this.

52:19

I'm a great believer in

52:21

looking at not what people say. But

52:24

what they do. How are

52:26

you behaving? If

52:28

you are threatening, if

52:30

you are threatening to remove livelihoods, If

52:33

you are saying this person

52:35

is canceled, that

52:38

is the language of a dictator. I

52:40

cancel you. I obliterate you. You are

52:42

dead. I mean, I've literally lost

52:44

count of the numbers times. I've seen the hashtag

52:47

RIP JK rowling floating around.

52:49

But this isn't about me. You

52:51

know, clearly, I'm pretty resilient.

52:54

I don't call that being held accountable. If

52:56

you want to debate with me, I am absolutely

52:59

open to that, and I think I have proven that. I'm

53:01

very willing to engage on the ideas. But

53:04

I notice a remarkable disinclination

53:07

to engage on the ideas. The response

53:09

is, well, we

53:11

can't listen to you. You are evil. You

53:14

must not be listened to. That

53:16

to me is a is intellectually

53:19

incredibly cowardly. I don't

53:21

believe that any righteous movement behaves

53:24

in such a

53:24

way. One

53:27

of the reasons that many people are

53:29

interested in what Rowling has done

53:31

Even if they've never read Harry Potter, even

53:34

if they don't follow this debate between some

53:36

feminists and some trans rights activists, is

53:39

because this experience she's

53:41

describing feels like it's

53:43

become much more familiar over

53:45

the past decade. When it comes

53:47

to controversial issues, whether

53:49

it's abortion or racism, Brexit,

53:52

or Trump, vaccines, or COVID

53:54

school closures, it's becoming

53:56

much more common, not just for

53:58

disagreement to be heated and fierce. But

54:01

for people to see anyone who doesn't

54:03

share their view, as evil.

54:07

For many onlookers, even ones

54:09

who vehemently disagree with the questions

54:11

and objections that JK Rowling is

54:13

raising, She is highlighting

54:15

a breakdown in the fabric of a pluralistic

54:18

society, one of my

54:20

very dearest friends. Is

54:23

committed and perhaps in Catholic. And

54:25

it's also pro life. Now, I'm

54:27

a feminist. I'm pro choice. I

54:30

understand exactly what his arguments

54:32

are. And I respect his

54:34

argument, and he's prepared to

54:36

make his argument. I don't

54:38

agree with his argument, but he

54:41

respects my argument, and

54:43

we are both able to find shades of gray

54:45

within our beliefs. I

54:47

think that is healthy. I think that is productive.

54:50

I am not gonna cut that person

54:52

out of my life because we

54:54

disagree on something albeit something that

54:56

is very important to me. We

54:59

have lost that in this particular

55:01

debate.

55:03

What do you say to the people who say that

55:05

you, mainly because of your experiences,

55:09

that you can't see that you've actually become

55:11

like the villains in your book. That

55:14

this fight you jumped into is

55:16

a betrayal of some kind.

55:19

I

55:19

suppose the thing I would say above

55:21

all to those who seek to

55:25

seek to tell me that I don't understand my

55:27

own books. I will say this.

55:30

Some of you have not understood

55:32

the books. The

55:34

death eaters claimed we have been made

55:37

to live in secret and now is our

55:39

time. And any

55:41

who stand in our way must be destroyed.

55:44

If you disagree with us, you must

55:46

die. They demonize and

55:48

dehumanize those who were not like

55:50

them. I am

55:53

fighting what I see as a

55:55

powerful, insidious, misogynistic

55:58

movement that I think has gained

56:00

huge purchase in very

56:02

influential areas of society. I

56:04

do not see this particular

56:07

movement as either benign or powerless.

56:11

So I'm afraid I stand with the women

56:13

who are fighting to be heard against

56:16

threat of loss of livelihood and

56:18

threats their personal safety.

56:32

But as

56:36

passionately as Rowling feels, and

56:39

as much as the experience of speaking up

56:41

has served to confirm her feelings. There

56:44

are many Harry Potter fans, especially

56:47

transgender fans who feel

56:50

that the threats and harassment she's received

56:52

don't speak for them. And

56:54

who bristle at the idea that their side

56:57

is the side with power. And

56:59

some of these fans, are

57:01

still holding out hope that

57:03

Rowling

57:05

will change her mind. What

57:08

would you wanna say to JK Rowling?

57:11

I

57:11

just kind of hope she could try

57:13

to see why so

57:16

many trans people are angry

57:18

and hurt by this I

57:20

that that means asking for a second to,

57:23

like, leave her

57:26

own position of feeling her

57:28

and threatened. But

57:30

that's what she says that she wants to do.

57:33

And to me, what doing that

57:35

would look like would be

57:38

understanding why people who

57:41

are sort of being constantly rejected and

57:43

humiliated by our

57:44

families, by the government, who

57:47

are either losing our access to healthcare

57:49

or