In JK Rowling's latest - and potentially most bigoted and dangerous - diatribe against transgender people and the LGBTQ+ community, she implies that Harry Potter's Death Eaters were stand-ins for queer people campaigning for equal rights.
It is incredibly funny that JK Rowling has convinced herself that her nazi-code villains were evil not because of all the fascism and racism but because they didn't like people "disagree[ing]" with their opinions.
It's like she's been bitten by a radioactive Times columnist.
This is fairly obvious revisionist Cope from JK Rowling.
Death Eaters did not hate people for "disagree[ing]" with them. They hated them for their lack of blood purity - literally for how they were born.
They, like Rowling and the TERF movement, were biological essentialists.
Death Eaters were "made to live in secret" because they were murderous fascists.
Trans and LGBTQ+ people are forced to live in the closet because we might get murdered for existing, & because people like JK Rowling work hard to make society as hostile as possible to queer lives.
In fact, it's not even true that Death Eaters lived in secret!
They had goddamn magic nazi tattoos no one ever commented on.
"Oh but how could they tell if they'd been mind controlled?" YOU WROTE IN FREAKING TRUTH POTIONS JOANNE!
... Rowling really is terrible at worldbuilding
Which might go some way to explain why her new conspiracy theory seems to have copied the homework of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Yes, that's JK Rowling, going full Alex Jones and describing those who support LGBTQ+ equality as "powerful" and "insidious".
Whenever conspiracy theorists claim that a marginalised and oppressed minority group are part of some secret, powerful, nefarious sect exerting sinister control from the shadows, it's worth taking a look at what's actually happening to that group in the real world right now:
JK Rowling has never condemned or commented on any of these.
Does she believe a murdered 16 year old girl, finally laid to rest on the same day JKR's conspiracies were published, was "insidious"?
Do you want to explain why replies have to be turned off on posts of mourning, Jo?
Well that's a problem for future JK Rowling to worry about, apparently.
We're not sure what "time" is going to tell Rowling that she isn't perfectly capable of finding out today if she wanted to.
If deaths, loss of rights, and calls for genocide aren't enough for her, what is?
JK Rowling has the luxury of being glib about "Time" because for her it doesn't matter.
What's she going to do if "Time" tells her she was wrong? Say "oops"? Bung a few quid to a charity to try to wash the blood from her hands?
LGBTQ+ people simply don't have time to spare.
But of course, JK Rowling is never going to acknowledge that she's wrong.
"you cannot argue me out of this" is an incredibly weird thing to admit to when you've claimed to be in favour of listening and "debate", but it's probably the most honest statement Rowling's made in years
When Rowling boasts "you cannot argue me out of this" she is ultimately admitting that no amount of logical reasoning, no amount of evidence, no amount of harm coming to the targets of her ideology, will ever be enough to pierce her iron-clad bigotry.
JK Rowling says No Debate.
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Only two days after the murder of 16-year-old trans schoolgirl Brianna Ghey, which elicited horrific comments and abuse from numerous "Gender Critical" activists, JK Rowling happily boasts that she will be featured on a podcast called "The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling".
In her announcement, JK Rowling claims that she wanted a "two-sided conversation".
Two-sided.
In a podcast that is literally titled "THE WITCH TRIALS OF J.K. ROWLING"
With, of course, a cis person rather than any of the trans people actually harmed by her bigotry.
The idea that JK Rowling is some well-meaning buffoon who has "accidentally-ed" her way into becoming a messiah-like figure for transphobic extremists is farcical and it is genuinely embarrassing that anyone pretends to to believe that there is some hidden nuance to her actions.
"Just how reliable are the media when it comes to fact-checking their articles attacking trans people?"
Well, this week an incredibly obvious parody account claimed trans people wanted a song banned and pretty much every paper you can think of uncritically reported it as real.
A lot of people's first reaction to this is "Haha, look how stupid and gullible bigots are", but its important to understand for queer people it's a lot more frightening than funny.
Imagine how scary it is, watching the media uncritically amplifying obvious lies to demonise you.
There is virtually no fact-checking for anti-LGBTQ+ articles in the media, including in supposedly liberal papers.
And there are absolutely no consequence for media platforms when they lie about LGBTQ+ people - except, of course, for LGBTQ+ people themselves.
JK Rowling opens by mentioning two opponents of GRA reform, Maya Forstater and Helen Joyce.
Forstater has recently been throwing a fit about a non-binary alien children's character.
Joyce was recently photographed smiling over a desecrated pride flag.
JK Rowling flies into a libellous rage against musician Billy Bragg after Bragg agrees that media should talk to trans people about trans issues rather than JK Rowling.
In response, Rowling implies that Bragg has thrown his "support behind rape and death threats".
A furious JK Rowling has responded to Billy Bragg by smearing him as a misogynist and - bloody hell - seemingly describing his refutation of her libellous claim that he supports rape and death threats as "complaining that a woman has a view on woman’s rights."
Helen Joyce, the anti-trans campaigner, has suggested that the fatwa declared against Salman Rushdie - who was literally stabbed yesterday - is the same as JK Rowling receiving criticism and mockery for her transphobia and bigotry.
Update from Leo Kearse:
Actually JK Rowling is *more* victimised than Salman Rushdie - who, once again, has just been stabbed - because publishers are "too scared to even acknowledge [her] existence."
JK Rowling has a new book coming out this month.
Excusers of JK Rowling's bigotry are currently spreading images of the first of these screenshots, trying to demonise her critics and trans people.
They are - accidentally or deliberately - ignoring that the person in question is a Rowling defender attempting to be sarcastic.
Imagine how incompetent a literary agent you would have to be in order to fail at selling books by white guys.
The comment section, as ever, is a delight
When confronted with evidence from about half the internet that - statistically speaking - being white is quite a benefit in the publishing world, Joyce Carol Oates graciously accepted that "there are [exceptions]" to her claim while also doubling down.