"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).

"We said 'never again.' The UK was a safe haven. Now..."

"... after the biggest massacre of Jews since the holocaust, British Jewish children are being advised to hide their identities as they walk to school, for their own safety. There should be mass outrage that this is necessary."

Writes J.K. Rowling, at "X," showing us this letter to the editor of the London Times from London resident Dr Sarah Nachshen:

Sir, On advice from her school our teenage daughter has gone off without her blazer this morning. Her male classmates have been advised to cover their skullcaps with baseball caps. On her pre-school dawn run yesterday she ran past the broken glass of a kosher café’s windows and a fresh anti-Israel slogan painted on a bridge. All my grandparents were Holocaust survivors who found safe haven, and built new lives, in the UK, so of course I am twitching with latent anxiety and the creeping dangers of the masses not speaking out against terrorism. I sincerely hope Rishi Sunak honours his pledge to stand with Israel and protect British Jews. 

"Now let the snivelling apologists for rape, murder and torture explain how this, too, was justified."

Now let the snivelling apologists for rape, murder and torture explain how this, too, was justified. https://t.co/8h7DLHKofD

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) October 10, 2023

"Why is my chest now deemed inappropriate or illegal when I show it off? However, before coming out as trans, it was not."

"All you are doing is affirming I’m a woman. All you're doing is saying that trans women are women, because, for some reason, people like to sexualize women's bodies and say that they are inappropriate. My transmasculine friends were showing off their top surgery scars and living in joy. I wanted to join them. And because it is perfectly within the law in Washington, D.C., I decided to join them — and cover my nipples, just to play it safe, because I wanted to be fully free in myself. I had zero intention of trying to be vulgar or be profane in any way. I was simply living in joy — living my truth and existing in my body. Happy Pride!"

Said Rose Montoya, in video I watched at "White House Condemns 'Disrespectful' Trans Model for Baring Breasts at White House Pride Event/'Individuals in the video will not be invited to future events,' a White House spokesperson tells The Messenger of footage Rose Montoya posted to social media" (The Messenger).

I transcribed the quote, only some of which appears at The Messenger, which is a new publication to me. It's been around since May and was started by the former owner of The Hill. I'll keep an eye on it. Here, it seems focused on protecting President Biden, who invited Montoya to a White House event and apparently needs distance from this kind of exuberance.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Rose Montoya 👑🌹 (@therosemontoya)

AND: Checking out The Messenger, I see "Johns Hopkins Says It Pulled Lesbian Definition from Its LGBTQ Glossary After Backlash/Critics accused the university of erasing women when it wrote that a lesbian is a 'non-man attracted to non-men.'" 

"... No cultural moment lasts forever. Yesterday's fanatics realise they joined the wrong mob. ..."

You lie and smear, assuming you'll live out your days as a hanging judge and never find yourself in the dock. No cultural moment lasts forever. Yesterday's fanatics realise they joined the wrong mob. Populist movements shrivel and fall apart. Robespierre ended on the guillotine. pic.twitter.com/mlQhd22s2i

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) May 30, 2023

Face it, being called a Nazi by this crowd is like being called a lizard mutant from the plant Zorb. Let's both be careful to keep hiding our imaginary tails from those who're onto us.

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) May 30, 2023

I think we can assume that J.K. Rowling will live out her days as a brilliant writer.

Though she might still do typos: "plant Zorb"? Probably, planet Zorb.

"No one ever thinks that! No one ever thinks they’re Umbridge!"

Said J.K. Rowling, in Chapter 7 — "What If You're Wrong?" — of the podcast "The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling" (transcript), responding to this question from the interviewer, Megan Phelps Roper:

I’m really interested in the question of discernment. I think of this scene from one of your books. It was “Harry Potter in the Order of the Phoenix,” where Hermione, the hero, and Professor Umbridge, who was clearly in the wrong, have this showdown in class. Hermione says in a moment of defiance that she disagrees with something in her textbook and Umbridge berates her like, who are you to disagree with this expert who wrote this textbook and punishes her. Now to anyone reading this, it is so frustrating and unjust. But I venture to say that no one thinks they are the Umbridge.

"Women are the only group — to my knowledge — that are being asked to embrace members of their oppressor class — unquestioningly, with no caveat."

Said J.K. Rowling, interviewed in Chapter 7 — "What If You're Wrong?" — of the podcast "The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling."

AND: Here's the full transcript, which I'm delighted to see. I wanted to highlight the part where Rowling agonizes over the politics of the left wing, which she wants to be a part of. It's very difficult without a transcript. The interviewer, Megan Phelps Roper, prompts: "There are a lot of critics who say, you and your comments are giving fuel to the right."

Rowling answers:

J.K. Rowling quotes Andrea Dworkin.

“Men often react to women’s words—speaking and writing—as if they were acts of violence; sometimes men react to women’s words with violence...Most women have experienced enough dominance from men—control, violence, insult, contempt—that no threat seems empty.” Andrea Dworkin pic.twitter.com/ZJwHZeR5hh

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) March 25, 2023