It would never, ever in a gazillion years occur to me to be mad if trans activists set up a support service for trans-identified people.
It's always struck me as curious that activists and their deep-pocketed funders don't do this. If the need is so urgent and if women are so unwilling to share our spaces and resources (because we still need these things!), it seems like such an obvious move. Who would oppose it?
Unless trans activism isn't really about helping trans-identified people. Trans activism puts ideology over real people and their real needs. It’s evidently more important to activists to erase any recognition of sex difference by insisting that “transwomen are women” and so belong in women’s shelters than to actually provide the services trans-identified people need. People’s real needs—the needs of women for single-sex spaces, the needs of children for developmentally-appropriate care, the needs of trans-identified people for social supports—will be sacrificed wherever and whenever doctrine requires it.
What are we supposed to make of the insistence that only women's spaces, only women's language, only women's legal categories will do? And what are we supposed to make of the rage over a woman who says no, whose no can’t be overridden or twisted into submission?
Rowling inspires this particular rage because she cannot be made to bend. Because she can refuse, endlessly. And because she can create something that activists who have captured so many policymakers and enforcers cannot touch.
There are some men out there—and curiously so many of them are drawn to trans activism—who don't want women to have spaces where we can meet without them, even if only to heal. Or words we can use to describe experiences that are ours and ours only. Or movements that center those experiences and those experiences only. These are men who don't want women to be able to say no and insist on that refusal.
Rowling can afford to say no until the end of time and they hate her for it. They hate her far more than they love what they profess to love, or they would do for trans people what she's done for women.
In case you missed it, Suzanne Moore’s interview with JK Rowling is fantastic:
“I have no irrational fear of or hatred towards trans people in the slightest – as, God knows, I've said so many times. But if you're going to say it’s ‘hate’ not to believe in a gendered soul, then we cannot have a discussion. We can't. There's nowhere to go. The tactic has been no debate, but it is changing.”
It began to change when Rowling broke cover, and cracks are now appearing everywhere. “Women are becoming much braver at expressing their opinions,” she feels.
But this comes at a cost. I still get so many emails and letters from women who just want to ask questions: teaching assistants who see no big deal in little boys wearing dresses, endocrinologists no longer allowed to use the words ‘male’ and ‘female’. Women who feel bullied into silence for fear of losing their livelihoods by saying the ‘wrong thing’.
That’s what made Rowling speak up. Three years ago, she saw this happening and she realised: “It’s going to have to be, me, isn’t it? Because I will always be able to feed my kids, even if everyone boycotts my books for the rest of my life. That is a phenomenally privileged position to be in. I consider myself one of the most fortunate people on Earth.”
…
Rowling replies: “There’s been a retreat. I feel like mainstream feminism has been moving towards this very individualistic model for a while, probably over the last 20 years. The argument goes that any choice a woman makes is, by definition, a feminist choice, because it was made by a woman. But where is the analysis of the limited options that some women have? I feel frustrated by what I see as a very elitist view. If we rebadge certain experiences, there: we’ve redefined the problem out of existence. I feel as though language games have taken the place of actual activism. Are we just going to sit around, sipping Chardonnay and talk about all of this in the correct terminology ? But where is our actual solidarity with those women?
“The line that I have met in a couple of places is that there is no universal experience of womanhood. Well, there is a common experience: it's being female. But if you remove that from any serious analysis, everything falls apart. I have been shocked at how many women have reached out to me and said, ‘We cannot fight unless it is on the basis of our sex class.’ No sex class: no activism.”
I really try not to idealize celebrities but it gets harder not to every time JK does something admirable. She highlights the incredible power of women helping women. THIS is why our detractors sow seeds of division between us -- they don't want women getting too strong. And that's why trans activism is ultimately a mentitlement movement. It's never been about "trans rights", it's always been about silencing women, reminding us of our status, and keeping us apart from each other. That's why supporting one another is so powerful -- it's in direct opposition to their whole project.
All opposition to what JK Rowling is doing is absurd. All she is doing is setting up a safe space for biological women. It is not "trans-exclusionary," as any "transman" is welcome. That is, any biological female is welcome. The only people excluded are biological men and I don't think most men have a problem with that. Is the idea that there can no longer be any designation of a space or resource based on biological sex? If so, why? Even if there could be some basis for spaces for "people who think of themselves as women" (although I'm not sure what this means, since, other than biology, I'm not sure what characteristic all women share), I don't see why this would mean there can't also be spaces set up just for biological women. And, while I'm thinking about it, if we are going to divide bathrooms up and not just have all bathrooms for all people (unisex), why would we make that division based on people's inner thoughts about who they think they are? What does a mental sense of who one would like to be have to do with using a bathroom? Same for sports. JK Rowling is wonderful, but it's sad that it has become a heroic act to simply exercise common sense and basic compassion.