November 26, 2024

"When J.K. Rowling said that denying any relationship between sex and biology was 'deeply misogynistic and regressive,' a prominent L.G.B.T.Q. group accused her of betraying 'real feminism.'"

"A few angry critics posted videos of themselves burning her books. When the Biden administration convened a call with L.G.B.T.Q. allies last year to discuss new limits on the participation of transgender student athletes, one activist fumed on the call that the administration would be complicit in 'genocide' of transgender youth, according to two people with knowledge of the incident. Now, some activists say it is time to rethink and recalibrate their confrontational ways, and are pushing back against the more all-or-nothing voices in their coalition...."

From "Transgender Activists Question the Movement’s Confrontational Approach/Facing diminishing public support, some activists say all-or-nothing tactics are not working. 'We have to make it OK for someone to change their minds'" (NYT).

How many "minds" does "someone" have?

98 comments:

Kirk Parker said...

Our name is 'Legion', for we are many.

wild chicken said...

Haha. It was the lesbians who wrecked second wave feminism. And now the trans are wrecking the lesbians.

Wreckers, all the way down!

gilbar said...

please Don't expect the NYT's to understand Basic Grammar..
They're not even sure if "They" is plural

RCOCEAN II said...

Truth on one side, labels, insults, '-isms" and "-ists" on the other.

Leland said...

Oh come on, one used to think how many genders someone could have and now look where we are.

RideSpaceMountain said...

For the parents (mostly women) who made their "minds" up for their kids, there is a special place in hell. If you want a roadmap that takes you to the origins of "all-or-nothing", start with feminism.

Peachy said...

The corrupt trans movement are doing all they can to wreck and ruin young children with their deception and lies.
They are very bad people and deserve nothing but scorn.
AS for trans-adults - be yourself and live your life - but just because some of you are some dude in a dress - I don't want to see your ugly mug in the women's bathroom or locker-room.

(*note- this is not about respectful adult trans people)

Why are leftists so anti-feminist? So anti-women? Keep males out of women's sports. This is not difficult.

Cancel the they-them movement.

doctrev said...

You're acting like this is a matter of logic. Any number of transsexuals suffer from testosterone poisoning, partly due to feedback from cheap hormone drugs and partly because of pre-existing mental illness. That aggression needs an outlet, and is why some women actually don't want such people in domestic abuse shelters. NATALT, of course, but the surest cure for desiring pure trans equality is to actually meet one.

Peachy said...

It is a social contagion - and it hit my family too. A six year old - has a mommy who pushed her into the they-them BS. Six year old.

n.n said...

Ah, in the Pro-Choice religion, reality is Diversified. The transgender spectrum is celebrated under the umbrella philosophy of class-disordered ideologies. Damn albinophobes.

Levi Starks said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Aggie said...

Does that mean we've finally 'tried real Feminism?'

Quayle said...

Sacrificing children to false Gods is an ancient practice.

Kate said...

These activists see the world as progressive. Gay marriage was eventually accepted, therefore if they push for trans issues they believe they'll succeed. Small steps, little changes, and it's all a straight road.

They don't see that including children changes the whole formula. They don't see that women will push back (eventually). And they don't see that sport has an inherent bias toward fairness that they can't break.

Sebastian said...

"How many "minds" does "someone" have?"

And don't they know they/their is singular now?

CJinPA said...

The Progressive Movement pushes maximum "change" until it meets resistance, then stops and regroups. Then it pushes again. This incremental approach has been a century-long success.

Trans activists are simply doing what they've been taught. They just didn't have their attack properly calibrated and pushed too far. They misjudged their power as the heroes of "The New Civil Rights Movement" (a phrase they didn't come up with but happily embraced.)

wild chicken said...

Perhaps if transwomen didn't so publicly threaten to "punch TERFs," slit their throats or beat them senseless?

Just a thought.

RideSpaceMountain said...

Women are judgy. They are more judgmental of women than anyone else. A huge proportion of this madness is women trying defend their children and - more importantly - their parenting against other women. Academia, drug companies, and politicians are only ever too happy to prey upon the insecurities of women, and their children have paid the price.

Historically, it is always far easier to control a culture's women. You don't even need a gun, just a TV.

tim maguire said...

Our name is 'Legionette,' for there really aren't that many of us.

n.n said...

The homosexuals need to make detente with their brothers and sisters in the transgender spectrum (e.g. bisexuals). The feminists need to move on from their class-disordered ideology. #Judgment #TooManyLabels #HateLovesAbortion

wild chicken said...

I suppose they will get their way, until Literally Hitler comes along to stop it.

n.n said...

Civil unions for all consenting adults. #NoJudgment #NoLabels

Big Mike said...

How many "minds" does "someone" have?

Zero, if they’re Democrats.

Down in North Carolina there’s a young woman who has suffered a permanent brain injury after taking a volleyball spiked in her face by a teenaged biological male on the other side of the net. I propose that anyone publicly advocating for biological males participating in high school or collegiate female sports be assessed an annual fee to help cover the medical expenses, rehabilitation, and ancillary expenses of women injured in competition or team practices with biological males.

mikee said...

I have an anti-vaxxer relative. Her "reasoning" about the danger of vaccines is similar to those "real feminism" activists who insist that sex is separate from biology. In other words, they're both so convinced of their beliefs that they can't see how irrational they have become.

n.n said...

Progress is an unqualified monotonic process: one step forward, three steps backward. So-called "trans' activists note the bigotry in their homosexual transgender brothers and sisters, and "centrist" movements like #NoLabels.

n.n said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
chuck said...

"Mind" is a social construct.

n.n said...

The vaxxxers fail to realize that forcing an immune response is part of a risk management protocol with inherent and forward-looking risks, thus the conception of vaccine (i.e. sterilizing inoculation) schedules to reduce injuries caused by inflammation and toxic components.

Gusty Winds said...

Now, some activists say it is time to rethink and recalibrate their confrontational ways, and are pushing back against the more all-or-nothing voices in their coalition.... The confrontational ways are part of the psychosis and predatory practices. And if you think about it, voluntarily having your penis cut off is a major "all or nothing" decision, certainly more severe than a mere "recalibration." Can they really change their ways? The goal is to recruit children.

Ambrose said...

Real feminists shout get together with the true Scotsmen

n.n said...

Mind is an article of faith and pragmatic conception. That said, science cannot discern origin and expression.

John henry said...

How can I get someone to burn my books?

Seems like a great deal for an author. The burned book has already been paid for so no loss to the author.

It's one less book that an show up on the used market.

It's free publicity

Seems like a win for the author.

If anyone wants to burn my books I'll give them bulk discounts

John Henry

Enigma said...

Before the concept of mental illness was banned by the left in favor of open exploitation and medical industry corruption, this behavior was known as Factitious Disorder Imposed on Another or Muchanusens Syndrome by Proxy

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/9834-factitious-disorder-imposed-on-another-fdia

Also see the film and backstory of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (fantasy tall tales):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Baron_Munchausen

Christopher B said...

I'm not intimately familiar with everything JKR has posted on the topic but I don't see how she has denied a relationship between sex and biology. In fact I'd say she has advocated for a firm linkage between sex and biology (as did KJB in that infamous statement, though in a backhanded manner). The denial I see more often is a link between sex and gender identity.

Jim Armstrong said...

How many "minds" does "someone" have?
Well, I'm of two minds about this...
Oh, wait.

Breezy said...

LOL - we missed the fact that as often as we change genders we need to allow others to change their minds.

s'opihjerdt said...

Some people will not consent to sex with transgenders, so the concept of consenting adults is transphobic.

Paddy O said...

I'm of.two.minds on this

tcrosse said...

Trump hasn't even been inaugurated yet, and already the book-burning has started. Just like under Hitler.

Peachy said...

Many leftist-Democratic females hate Trump with such ferocity, (Also Christianity and all Republicans in general) they share a common hivemind trigger. This hatred (stoked by the Maddow-MSNBC-CNN NYT Soviet media) - propels them into hivemind reactions. Sticking it to the man! In concert. Female progressives are particularly susceptible to hivemind Social Contagions and willingly let these forces and propaganda control their emotions and hivemind reactionary responses.
Almost funny how they call everyone a Hitler.

Dogma and Pony Show said...

I think you misread the quote. JKR is CRITICIZING those who deny a relationship between sex and biology.

Ann Althouse said...

"Please Don't expect the NYT's to understand Basic Grammar."

1. The NYT is quoting someone and that's what they said.

2. Even if the subject is plural, "mind" should be singular. For example, you can tell a whole group of people to "use their head." It's not "heads," because each has only one head. Those people are out of their mind. Not: Those people are out of their minds. That's not a rule everyone recognizes, but it is the better rule and it's what I learned in high school. But clearly when you're using the singular — someone lost his/her/their mind — you want the singular "mind."

Paddy O said...

Rowling's twitter feed is a thing of beauty.

CJinPA said...

"Small steps, little changes, and it's all a straight road."
Yes. I didn't see this when I posted a similar reply below.

tcrosse said...

Rowling to trans: Women are a big club, and you ain't in it.

Dogma and Pony Show said...

The article seems focused on the "feminists'" tactics -- but what about their strategy? They apparently think it'd good for women if society obliterated any distinctions between men and women. IOW, it's not good enough for women's status in society to be elevated to that of men's; rather, society needs to forget that "man" and "woman" are even two different things.

Apart from noting the obvious folly of such a project, I fail to see why "feminists" think it would be good for women to be reduced to mere persons. If you want to advocate for women, you have to celebrate womanhood.

Enigma said...

The trouble with ideological progressives is that they NEVER declare victory and stop. They will happily move away from an optimal solution that may have been decades in the making. Change for the sake of change.

Rebellion is instinctive with teenagers and those finding the footing in the world, so the 20th century "progress"-driven chaos follow from confused reactions to new technology by ordinary explorers and change seekers. It has been made much worse by the break down of generational relationships (fathers in the house, grandparent involvement), and lots of children raising themselves. The Woke generation is basically composed of mental children in adult bodies.

Social media is just the latest technological disruption that changed human relationships. See Rudoph Valentino in silent films 100 years ago. See the Beatles in the 1960s. Girls established fantasy 'relationships' with celebrites and melted down.

n.n said...

Act your sex is homophobic, thus the invention of gender ideology to replace sex in Healthcare, but gender refers to sex-correlated attributes. Back to the drawing board.

n.n said...

What lies beneath? Maybe.

Marcus Bressler said...

I enjoy it when Althouse grammar fisks the so-called writers

Marcus Bressler said...

It all went downhill when they allowed "gender" to be substituted for "sex"

Jeff Weimer said...

The trans "genocide" is just bleating from people who don't care about definitions, only effects. If it creates the emotional response they want, it's the right word. It's "tactical face noises" and should be ignored as the childish manipulation it is.

MadTownGuy said...

"We have to make it OK for someone to change their minds'" (NYT).
How many "minds" does "someone" have?
"

I took it to mean 'someone' (on the 'correct' side of the issue) needs to be able to change the minds of the dissenters.

Jersey Fled said...

I’m of two minds on the subject.

Tina Trent said...

Historically true, but I don’t think all lesbians ruined the second wave feminist movement. It was a small handful of elite women writing and speaking for the rest. Ironically, it is now these same political feminist leaders who are loudly siding with activist transgenders demanding access to women spaces, sports, and even dating choices.

Most lesbians and (the few) transgender people I know just want to be left alone by the political elites.

Jersey Fled said...

JK is one of my heroes, so whatever she said I agree with.

Justabill said...

Classic case of mind over matter.

Tina Trent said...

Nobody allowed it. Activist academicians and politicians forced it into our vocabulary and legal code, then set the rules about what it would mean for all of us.

The same goes for the slur “cis.”

Howard (not that Howard) said...

When they claim opposition to their dysphoria is "genocide" they're telling on themselves: the only way for them to procreate is conversion.

Shines a whole new sinister light on drag queen story time.

Real American said...

The trans activists main problem is that their entire movement is based on a massive lie and people know it. Sure, some people play long with the delusions, but for the most part, the American people just rejected their their position and are being more vocal about it. Men are men. Women are women. Men can become women and women can't become men. That doesn't change regardless of any mental illness.

Curious George said...

Funny thing was back when I was in high school (1975) they had what wass called senior leaders gym. Boy and girl athletes. The lesbian female gym teacher thought it would be great to have us play volleyball, boys versus girls. She thought since there was a girls interscholastic team but no boys team the girls could compete. That idea lasted until the first scrimmage when multiple girls took spikes to the face. She then made the teams boy/girl but it didn't eliminate the danger, still girls taking spikes. For the most part the girls started to turn their back or run away. No more senior leaders volleyball.

Quaestor said...

Certain "somebodies" have less than one.

Clark said...

People are out of their minds. Each person is out of his or her mind. A bit of googling around suggests to me that what you were taught in high school is nonstandard. It's an easy one to get wrong in the flow of speaking, and people know what you mean either way . . .

gilbar said...

sorry Prof.. I should have said: " Don't expect the NYT's sources to understand basic grammar.
(then my apostrophe would have be more correct too!)
I guess i was out of my minds*

minds*
Roses are Red
Violets are Blue
I'm schizophrenic
and so am i

Creola Soul said...

Step One: We want you to acknowledge that we exist.
Step Two: We want acceptance.
Step Three: We want equality.
Step Four: We want your advocacy for our cause.
Step Five: Bake us the fucking cake or else.

minnesota farm guy said...

Long ago I discovered a meme with a picture of a female track athlete the headline was: " Women's sports are not a backup option for mediocre male athletes". I felt that said it all. I earnestly hope that the tide has turned on the "trans" madness. Where the hell the feminists have been on this madness has always been a wonder for me.

gilbar said...

to be fair..
The "genocide" of the Palestinians has resulted in MASSIVE population increases.
Since the Trans population has Also EXPLODED, they MUST BE suffering from "genocide" too!

Tina Trent said...

Heterosexual feminists learned their place in the coalition of the Left a long time ago: submit, or else. The Left is the bad boyfriend they thought they were leaving.

Women on the Right are leading the legislative charge against this insanity. So are a lot of not-particularly political men and women who are instinctively protecting children.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

I remember G Gordon Liddy railing against this way back in the late '80s early '90s when he had a radio show on after Rush.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

You may want to write off your "anti-vax" relative as a lost cause, because unfortunately for you, reality has conspired to reaffirm her beliefs and destroy the arguments many of us took for granted, such as unquestioning trust in Public Health professionals and assuming something a doctor calls a "vaccine" is actually a vaccine that's benefits have been proven in double-blind trials. Throw in the censorship and raft of unnecessary "vaccines" pushed on today's infants (human papilloma virus? Hep B?) by the medical field and it's harder still to find the reasonable middle between anti-vax and nutball Brave New World bullshit.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

Munchausen's by Proxy is a crime, straight up child abuse, not a mental illness. It needs to be treated as such.

Rusty said...

MFG. Those women and girls are the real feminists. They aren't demanding special privileges and then blaming men when they can't get them.

Tom T. said...

"Even if the subject is plural, "mind" should be singular."

These people may each have 2 spirits.

Gator said...

People are sick of a community that is 3% of the population but demands 90% of the attention. They are sick of their narcissistic ways

hombre said...

Lesbians and gays made a mistake aligning themselves with bis and trannies. Overwrought feminism and child mutilation are not generally appealing. The anti-Christian crusade was going well with gay clergy and gay marriage. This new stuff not so well.

Rabel said...

Where have all the drag queens gone?

They all but disappeared from public view a few months ago.

Former Illinois resident said...

Transgendered folks have trumped feminist women, truly a sexist pretzel-nut.

Jupiter said...

Yeah, right. There are "transgender people", and they have no political objectives. They just call themselves "transgender" because they want everyone on Earth to do whatever they say.

Former Illinois resident said...

My friend's mother was a proud 60s-era feminist, a divorced white-collar well-heeled professor with four school-age kids at home; my friend was her only daughter, the high-schooler "housewife" deemed responsible for the household chores and dinner-time meals. Behind every feminist, there seems to be another burdened woman now responsible for her housewife responsibilities, if that feminist was in fact a married straight woman.

Smilin' Jack said...

“Those people are out of their mind. Not: Those people are out of their minds.”

No. The first implies that multiple people have only one mind.

“The walking dead are out of their graves. Not: The walking dead are out of their grave.”
They didn’t all come from the same grave.

I suppose you can justify “Those people are out of their mind” if you interpret “out of their mind” as an adjectival phrase rather than literally, i.e.as a synonym for crazy.

n.n said...

Live by Diversity, suffer affirmative discrimination in color blocs.

Normalize through political congruence ("="), celebrate proudly with transitory currents.

Throw another baby on the barbie, it's over?

effinayright said...

I would love to ask asshole "scientists" like Neil Tyson whether a girl hit by a 200-pound tranny colliding on a soccer field is able to "shake off" the powerful forces of the collision, forces much greater than she would ever experience playing against an all-girl team.

C'mon Neil, give us some physics!

p.s. some say Neil DeG Tyson is as strange as he is because as a kid he received regular beatings from his older brother Mike.

Stoutcat said...

It may be small steps or incrementality to these people. The rest of us clearly see it for what it is: a very slippery slope.

traditionalguy said...

NB: It’s not the activists that are to blame. It’s totally the College Professors that will do or say anything for Tenure and guaranteed salaries and fat pensions. They are the ones who hate us so passionately.

traditionalguy said...

NB: It’s not the activists that are to blame. It’s totally the College Professors that will do or say anything for Tenure and guaranteed salaries and fat pensions. They are the ones who hate us so passionately.

Mr. T. said...

Our name is Legionthem/their/xer, for we have purple-blue hair, and enjoy watching minors naked in locker rooms.

Mom said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Mom said...

Althouse, I've argued with you before about saying "their mind" (actually, I think last time it was "their nose"). I know your mind is probably made up and it's pointless to try to interfere. But I'm a writer too, and I care about good writing, and apparently I can't help saying one last thing about WHY "their mind" is wrong. It's not wrong because it obeys or disobeys some obscure grammar rule. Rule-following is not the point, not at all. It's wrong because you are a writer. As such, you are trying as hard as you can, with every word you use, to communicate clearly with your readers. I've been reading your writing for something like 20 years and I know this is true. I see how hard you try to keep anything out of your writing that will distract from your meaning, and you do it well. Like any good writer, you don't want anything in your writing to get in your readers' way. You want your writing to be transparent, so that the reader doesn't even see the writing, just the meaning beyond the writing, like seeing through clean glass. Most of the time, that's what you do. But when you pair two words that don't go together-- here, the plural "their" with the singular "mind"-- you are violating this goal. You are putting a smear on the glass. You are interfering with the reader's ability to clearly see your meaning. (Not very different from calling a single person "they/them" and bewildering everybody!)

"Their" is plural. "Mind" is singular. If you put them together you're going to trip up your readers. You're going to make them wonder why you did that. When you write, is your goal to make people think about your content, your meaning, your purpose -- or is your goal to make them wonder why you chose your possessive pronouns? It's not a question of rule-following. It's a question of good writing. Look at how many people in this comment thread are pushing back on this seemingly trivial question. It's not because some rule you learned back in high school was right or wrong, or standard or nonstandard. It's because we're your readers, and we usually enjoy the fierce clarity of your writing, and this quirk of yours interferes with that enjoyment, for no apparent reason that has anything to do with the substance of your message. That bothers us. Is that really what you are trying to achieve when you write?

Bruce Hayden said...

How many times have you had COVID-19? Turns out that if your answer is >=2, then statistically, you are almost assured to have been heavily Vaxed with the Pfizer and/or Moderna ModRNA vaccines. Both Biden and Fauci have had it maybe 5 times, and were fully vaxed and boosted. Those who have never been vaxed almost never get it more than once. On the flip side, Fauci was one of the highest paid federal employees ever, partially off his royalties from the big Pharma companies. So, maybe, for him, all those COVID-19 episodes were worth it.

Do you know the risk of death from COVID-19 in those under 20 or so? Turns out to be less than one in a million. On the flip side, we had a slew of high school athletes dropping over dead from heart attacks, and a slew of other highly probable side effects from these vaccines. All starting in 2021, and accelerating in 2022. I asked by daughter about her daughter. Vaxed at 4 months on te recommendation of her 2nd best friend, a pharmacist. Never mind that giving vaccinations has become big business for a lot of pharmacies. Follow the money. There have been maybe 30 infants under 2 who died from that virus.

I am not a zero vax absolutist. I knew kids permanently disabled with Polio. Every vaccination has a cost/risk and a benefit (except maybe the COVID-19 ModRNA vaccines). I think that they should be compared, vaccine by vaccine. The public health experts and authorities don’t seem to be doing that very well right now. And no, I don’t trust pharmacists, whose employers have a financial stake in administering them to provide this.

Aggie said...

You neglected to mention what your recommended wording and sentence construction would have been, in this situation.

"Trolling": Isn't this an interesting word development, here in the short history of the internet? I am guessing its original application to the internet had to do with its meaning in fishing, i.e. dragging a baited hook through the water in an attempt to fool game fish into thinking it's a live bait fish, and trying to get them onto the hook, to be dragged in.

In the internet world, this came to mean baiting someone into an immature, emotional argument, in order to make them look foolish. But: How did the person acting as the antagonist, come to be known as a 'troll', i.e. the ugly, unreasonable creature under the bridge? Aren't they more properly, the 'Troller', one who trolls? Interesting, how the actual meaning of two different words have been put to a different use, and their meaning treated as 'close enough' in the world of the internet !

Bruce Hayden said...

I think that lumping bisexuals with the transgendered is inaccurate. Sure, there is some crossover, as there is with gays, lesbians, and even the cis(normal) gendered. Guys declaring their womanhood, getting transferred to women’s prisons, then raping (or even just impregnating) the female convicts are as straight as most of us - just a bit more opportunistic. What’s a trans lesbian? Most often, a straight guy with some issues.

Michael said...

Grammar aside, the problem with Progressivism is that it has no limiting principle. Too much is never enough for these people, because the "rush" for them is never in the winning; it's in the acting out. As somebody said, the issue is never the issue. The issue is the Revolution (or the 'fundamental transformation"). Compromise is betrayal.

Saint Croix said...

Spot on. Gender is academic ideology. Hence there can be as many genders as you want, since it's an idea.

Sex is a biological reality, how babies are made. Trans people are opting out of human reproduction and making it impossible for themselves.

If you are making a baby, there are two sexes, period. If you are not reproducing, there is any number of sexes and sexualities you can have.

Liberals have been lying about reproduction for decades, ever since they defined unborn children out of existence. This new idea, that we can't teach human biology, that it's not a science, emerges from that.

The Godfather said...

The enemy isn't "feminism". Feminism is about opening opportunities for women and girls. That's a battle that's been largely won -- don't give the victory away. Letting men (who pretend to be/or have the delusions they are/ women) into female sports and spaces is NOT feminism. But in our era, men are not the most effective advocates for preserving female sports and spaces, because idiots will say that we are anti-woman when we are in fact pro-women but anti-men-pretending-to-be-women. Women: Defend the rights you won for your children and grandchildren!

Saint Croix said...

For a writer, you're a horrible reader. She's quoting the NYT and mocking them with her one sentence. Hello.

Mom said...

No, Saint Croix, you have it wrong. I'm not responding to the main post, but to Althouse's comment at 11/26/24, 9:39 AM. Read it again and see if you can take my point. Hello.

pious agnostic said...

I worked quite closely with a lesbian woman -- she marched in the Pussy Hat Parade -- nice person, smart -- who came to me almost in tears to learn that her beliefs marked her out as a terf. She couldn't fathom that the scorpion had stung her.

pious agnostic said...

Millstone Attracted Persons