"Any sport where the man is wearing panties is not a sport."

Said Riley Gaines's father, when college recruiters were interested in Riley both for both swimming and for softball.

Quoted in "Riley Gaines: If JK Rowling agrees with me, I’m doing the right thing/America’s most famous opponent of transgender athletes in women’s sports is celebrating a Supreme Court win. She is ‘vindicated’ — and emboldened by her British husband" (London Times).

There's also this quote from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: "Maybe if you channeled all this anger into swimming faster you wouldn’t have come in fifth."

That's from last October, when JK Rowling tweeted, "@Riley_Gaines doesn’t defend women’s rights for attention or money, any more than I do. We fight because it’s the only thing to do if you’re not a coward, a pick me or a living doormat."

The London Times is very interested in the British husband, Louis Barker, who, we're told, "is on his way to becoming a jeans-wearing, truck-driving, job-creating American man, with a beard and a mullet and a construction company. Gaines says she has recently caught him saying 'y’all' and 'ain’t.'"

Gaines says:

"If you're the mother who was reading Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone aloud to your child..."

"... on the LNER train from London to Edinburgh yesterday, one of my grown up children was listening and says you did the voices brilliantly "

Writes J.K. Rowling, on X — a particularly fine use of X.

I love that there are responses right there, including the crabby ones, like: "Was reading it loud not disturbing others even though your child enjoyed it?"/"I’m the mother and I don’t care what your grown up children thinks"/"Hopefully she verbally edited all the grammatical and editorial errors you so carelessly left throughout the book"/"The best education lies in reading the Bible; fairy tales or magic wands don't solve everyday problems."

But isn't there a magic wand in the Bible though? See Exodus 7:8-13, Exodus 7-8, Numbers 17, Numbers 17:8, Numbers 17:10, Hebrews 9:4.

Jeffree Star demonstrates how it's done.

On TikTok:

"Students at the University of Glasgow have been cautioned that Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone contains 'outdated attitudes, abuse and language.'"

"The work by JK Rowling appears alongside a number of titles, including Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, the dystopian 2001 novel Noughts & Crosses by Malory Blackman and Edith Nesbit’s 1899 book The Treasure Seekers, assessed as having the potential to cause offence."

From "Trigger warning slapped on Harry Potter for ‘outdated attitudes’/Students at the University of Glasgow are also being warned about Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll and The Treasure Seekers by Edith Nesbit" (London Times).

Maybe college students need to be warned to move on beyond children's books. 

"It’s about generational politics; mothers against daughters; an older, tougher feminism versus 'woke' millennials."

"It’s about whether 'being kind' is truly important or just another way to get women to be submissive.... Here we have what we so rarely see in movies, two powerful women in a showdown over something other than a man...."

From "Why did J K Rowling pick now to hit back at Emma Watson? The author has posted a withering statement about the actress’s views on trans issues, says Helen Rumbelow."

"I'm not owed eternal agreement from any actor who once played a character I created. The idea is as ludicrous as..."

"... me checking with the boss I had when I was twenty-one for what opinions I should hold these days. Emma Watson and her co-stars have every right to embrace gender identity ideology. Such beliefs are legally protected, and I wouldn't want to see any of them threatened with loss of work, or violence, or death, because of them. However, Emma and Dan in particular have both made it clear over the last few years that they think our former professional association gives them a particular right — nay, obligation — to critique me and my views in public. Years after they finished acting in Potter, they continue to assume the role of de facto spokespeople for the world I created."

Writes JK Rowling, on X, responding to a video you can see at the link.

Rowling has kept a silence as long as her antagonists were children, but now she's decided to speak — to write — and no one can out-write her. She continues:

"Your movement seeks to remove rights from others. It is anti-truth and critical thinking, pro-violence, pro-dehumanisation of those who disagree with you..."

"... and you are so lacking in self-awareness you cannot see that you are precisely what you pretend to hate."

Said JK Rowling, at X.

"As another man who once worked with me declares himself saddened by my beliefs on gender and sex, I thought it might be useful to compile a list..."

"... for handy reference. Which of the following do you imagine makes actors and directors who aren’t involved with the HBO reboot of Harry Potter so miserable?"

J.K. Rowling has a useful list, at X, where she also engages with many of her commenters.

It's a long list, so go to the link. I'll just highlight one item, the belief "[t]hat gay people shouldn’t be pressured to include the opposite sex in their dating pools, nor should they be smeared as ‘genital fetishists’ when they don’t?"

The UK supreme court has ruled that the terms 'woman' and 'sex' in the Equality Act refer to a biological woman and biological sex....

"Five judges from the UK supreme court ruled unanimously that the legal definition of a woman in the Equality Act 2010 did not include transgender women who hold gender recognition certificates (GRCs). In a significant defeat for the Scottish government, the court decision will mean that transgender women can no longer sit on public boards in places set aside for women. It could have far wider ramifications by leading to much greater restrictions on the rights of transgender women to use services and spaces reserved for women, and prompt calls for the UK’s laws on gender recognition to be rewritten. The UK government said the ruling 'brings clarity and confidence' for women and those who run hospitals, sports clubs and women’s refuges. A spokesperson said: 'We have always supported the protection of single sex spaces based on biological sex. Single-sex spaces are protected in law and will always be protected by this government...."

The Guardian reports.

"The gender critical campaign group For Women Scotland, which is backed financially by JK Rowling, said the Equality Act’s definition of a woman was limited to people born biologically female...." So, let's check out what Rowling is saying on X:

"Congratulations to every single person on the left...."

Congratulations to every single person on the left who’s been campaigning to destroy women’s and girls’ rights. Without you, there’d be no images like this. pic.twitter.com/mzR7l5k1OW

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) February 6, 2025

ADDED: "What a nice picture this is":

Donald Trump has done more for women and children in a few weeks than the democrat party has done in the last decade.

The left, under the guise of “feminism” has slowly eroded and erased women’s rights, we are now winning them back. pic.twitter.com/BYykWkBmzR

— World Hall Of Fun (@WorldHallOfFun) February 7, 2025

I saw Musk's "Nazi salute" in real time, but failed to jump up and blog it.

Now, it's so old, I'd have to add something of value. I've been thinking of saying about what I'd have said if I'd jumped up right away: He's doing something like blowing a kiss. He's slapping his heart, then throwing it toward the audience, to say my heart goes out to you.

Or what I felt like saying earlier this morning: This is such a social-media meme — so easy to see and comment on that it's working incredibly well as a distraction. Therefore, the Musk/Trump haters are getting conned. And: I wonder if Musk did all this on purpose — to divert critics from the main highway of policy substance into a cultural cul de sac.

But I worked on other things, as you can see below, and even more time passed. I was about to let it go entirely, but then 2 things I saw on X made me laugh, so I'll give you this:

"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?

"Joshua Kaplan, 45, the American playwright... [a] longtime 'Harry Potter' fan... said that the idea for ['TERF' came when he saw] that Daniel Radcliffe... had written a blog post..."

"... criticizing Rowling’s social media posts. It felt like witnessing a bitter family feud 'playing out in the public eye,' Kaplan said in an interview — perfect material for a play. Onstage, Rowling (Laura Kay Bailey) attends an upmarket dinner with three actors from her films: Daniel Radcliffe (Piers MacKenzie), Emma Watson (Trelawny Kean) and Rupert Grint (Tom Longmire). When the stars confront Rowling about her social media comments, the cordial dinner descends into farce and detours into imagined scenes from Rowling’s life that have nothing to do with transgender people."

From "A Play About J.K. Rowling Stirred Outrage. Until It Opened. The muted reaction to the Edinburgh Fringe show 'TERF' suggests that when activists engage with potentially inflammatory art, offense can quickly vanish" (NYT).

"Barry Church-Woods, a producer of 'TERF,' said that a handful of would-be protesters had attended the play’s premiere. They sat with signs in their laps, apparently ready to demonstrate, he said, but they never raised them. The play, which presents views from both camps, was too balanced to cause serious upset, he added."

Which way were the protesters planning to protest?

I like that the playwright conceptualized the socio-political issue as a family squabble. Family squabbles make the best theater, no? That reminds me, my tickets for APT's "King Lear" arrived in the mail yesterday.

Stephen King helps J.K. Rowling with the mathematics of fuck-giving.

I think you may mean "not giving a fuck squared." The square root, I believe, would mean a *smaller* amount of giving a fuck. I could be wrong. https://t.co/7lzylpInVV

— Stephen King (@StephenKing) July 17, 2024

Help me with the math here. Seems to me, if you don't give a fuck, you're already at zero. Rowling is talking about the smallest possible amount of fuck-giving and being silly about the math. King admits he could be wrong, and isn't he? She doesn't want more than zero, and zero times zero wouldn't give you more than zero anyway. But she wants to go smaller. 

Ah, wait! Rowling writes back: "But I was going for a fraction of a fuck. I barely give a tenth of a fuck. So I stand by my square root. What we really need here is a certified fuckologist."

 

Perfect. JK won. Reeled him in and won. Good for King, though, for expressing his idea with respect.

ADDED: Actually, JK's explanation — that she was talking about fractions (and not 0, as I assumed) — put King in the right. As Matt says in the comments: "King is correct. The square root of 1/4 is 1/2. For numbers less than 1 the square root makes it larger. 1/2 * 1/2 = 1/4." 

"One of us didn't understand..."

Link.

Have you ever understood implications of the meaning of a book that perhaps the author did not intend? Is the author the supreme interpreter of her works? Do you adhere to originalism in the interpretation of novels? Do you think that anyone who doesn't is a laughable fool?

ADDED: There are 2 dimensions of understanding here.

JJ's back....

Aw, JJ's back ❤️ I missed you, buddy. pic.twitter.com/20Mq0jfVVK

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) April 5, 2024

J.K. Rowling's powerful defense of free speech in Scotland — #ArrestMe.

It's hard to overstate how important - and strategically brilliant - @jk_rowling's power move was today, a first-move checkmate that effectively
neutered Scotland's dangerous new #HateCrimeBill. By openly and unambiguously breaking this law - on a massive public platform - on… https://t.co/dWKhCSERud

— The Heretical Liberal 🇨🇦🏳️‍🌈 (@Rob_ThaBuilder) April 2, 2024

Here's what she did.

ADDED: Oh, how I love "your friend History":

"The UK’s first transgender national news anchor has reported 'Harry Potter' author JK Rowling to the police for 'misgendering' her as a 'man' on social media."

"India Willoughby, 58, reported having 'contacted Northumbria Constabulary' over a series of X posts Sunday by the outspoken author. Rowling, also 58, called Willoughby 'just a man reveling in his misogynistic performance of what he thinks "woman" means: narcissistic, shallow and exhibitionist.'... 'I’m legally a woman, she knows I’m a woman, and she calls me a man. It’s a protected characteristic and that is a breach of both the Equalities Act and the Gender Recognition Act...' Willoughby wrote."

The New York Post reports.

An excellent teaching demonstration, but who is this man? He's so relaxed and on point, that I suspect it's scripted.

Critical thinking should be the first thing taught to kids https://t.co/8dhvilUKRc

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 4, 2024

"As her work has shifted, a generation of Potter enthusiasts have been increasingly disillusioned by Rowling’s evolution from saint-like Labour Party-supporting children’s author..."

"... to polemical political activist, seemingly obsessive about the tabloid media, Scottish nationalism and, most provocatively for her millennial readers, gender-critical feminism. It is a disillusionment that Rowling shares, but for all her books’ world-weary criticism of a political world polarised by social media, they show little self-awareness.... In another world, JK Rowling could be a character in a book by Robert Galbraith: brittle, insecure, cruel. When she assumed the Galbraith pseudonym a decade ago, Rowling was putting on a mask. The mask of anonymity, the mask of detachment, the mask of adulthood. But on another level, she was taking off a mask – and showing herself in full, nasty glory for the first time."

Writes Nick Hilton, in "JK Rowling, Britain’s gloriously nasty novelist/Her electric Robert Galbraith novels portray a Britain populated by paedophiles, domestic abusers, rapists and terrorists" (The New Statesman).