Thread by @FreyaHolmer

what just happened to JK Rowling?

the definitive thread on questions like

• why is everyone upset?
• what’s wrong with saying sex is real?
• she seems supportive, how is her tweet bad?

...as well as why we're now talking about Hatsune Miku

so, first off, here's her tweet!

it starts off seemingly supportive of LGBT rights, and cryptically ends referring to someone who was forced out of their job for "stating sex is real", followed by a #IStandWithMaya hashtag

so, who is Maya and what happened?

this is my source, by the way, thought I'd link it here if you want to read it yourself

Maya Forstater v CGD Judgement 2019
scribd.com/document/44030…

so, let's jump in and see what this is about

(Maya is referred to as The Claimant, just to clarify)

• Maya was a consultant at the Center for Global Development since January 2015
• Her contract ended on 31 December 2018
• Maya claims that her contract was ended because she expressed "gender critical" views

so what does "gender critical" mean?

it's the philosophical position of:

"trans people *are* their assigned sex at birth, and are merely dressing up or pretending to be their identified gender. there are only two immutable sexes

trans men are not men
trans women are not women"

It resembles "race realist", which is another whitewashed term that is the (unscientific and incorrect) belief that:

"IQ is a valid & relevant genetically heritable measurement of general intelligence that varies between races"

more info by @shaun_vids

okay, so, that looks really bad, but maybe Maya's personal philosophy isn't that bad? maybe she doesn't subscribe to all of those bad things about "gender critical" beliefs, maybe she uses the term differently

so let's look at what she's actually said to see what she believes!

there's a lot to unpack here. this is a classic straw man

I've highlighted in green the parts that non-"gender critical" people like me would agree with.

crucially, Maya believes non-"gender critical" people like me *don't* believe in these things or are working against them

as far as I know, most LGBT people and/or feminists (like myself) would say there there are some useful differences between the terms "sex" and "gender", where "sex" refers to the many bimodally distributed and gendered biological traits, while "gender" is more a social category

now let's talk about her "sex is a material reality" statement

it's true, to some extent, but only on a surface level, coarse-grained analysis

nobody would deny that sexual reproduction exists, or that there are cases where a binary view of sex can be a useful simplification

it's like saying "temperature is a material reality", and when someone who knows more about it says

"heat is electromagnetic radiation emitted by vibrating particles"

...you then outright deny that it's real and claim they are making conversations about temperature difficult

in addition, sex is, fundamentally, a concept we made up

this gets into philosophy quickly, but, are chairs a material reality?

like, yeah, chairs exist, but

the way in which we decide how to categorize what is and is not a chair, is ultimately a socially constructed *choice*

similarly, there are *many* sexual traits that can vary a *lot* between people, which means that, yes, sex too is a social construct, in that it's a simplified shorthand for the most common cases, but there are loads of exceptions

reading on the topic nature.com/news/sex-redef…

so looking closer at sex, even sex is on a spectrum, and yes, its categorization and delineation is socially constructed, even though it is based on biological facts about the state of bodies. here's a useful infographic of, well, a literal spectrum of sex

I may be nitpicking too much on that statement alone, so let's move on to the core of her statement

"Being female is an immutable biological fact, not a feeling or an identity"

this is where it starts sliding into, well, transphobia

Maya is specifically using the word "female" rather than "woman", but, she considers them to be the same based on her other statements denying transgender people's identities

this, right here, is outright transphobia

she considers trans women to be men/male

being a woman has almost nothing to do with biology

this might sound ludicrous to some of you, but that's because you are likely equating it with the traditionally female reproductive roles, chromosomes, hormones and genitals

why do I say this?

well, if you have a coworker who's a woman - how do you know?

did you check if she's able to get pregnant? if she's got XX chromosomes? if she's got a vagina?

no you didn't

you consider her to be a woman because she told you, and that she appears like a woman to you. that's it

anyway, back to Maya

when talking about gender identity, a useful term is cisgender, which means non-transgender

it's similar to heterosexual as opposed to homosexual, which is useful when talking about sexuality

Maya is saying the equivalent of "hetero is an offensive term"

and here she draws an absolutely wild connection that "trans activists" are exploiting children and converting "gamergaters, incels, narcissists, extreme porn advocates" to their side (???)

this is *exactly* the kind of garbage arguments that homophobes use to hate on gay people

the classic "I'm not a racist but..."

also don't go along with the literal delusion that cars are vehicles everyone

Maya is a transphobe. like, there's no question about it

having her at a workplace with people who are trans directly opens up a strong risk of discrimination, which, happened. so they didn't renew her contract

now back to JK Rowling! wow I barely remember that's how this thread started. here's her tweet again

she's *defending Maya and her statements*, who is a transphobe

"Dress however you please" in this context went from supportive to transphobic pretty quickly huh

anyway, that's the story of how Hatsune Miku wrote Harry Potter

isn't that neat? she made minecraft and all too, amazing what she can achieve, a true inspiration 💞