JK Rowling Backlash

[AlucardNoir]

I think that we really need to evaluate "Chain of Command" differently in the future.

Picard was really the bad guy here. Gul Madred was the good guy here. Picard was just an evil bigot who refused to accept that they identified as five lights.

Yeah, how dare he not recognize the obvious four lights as five?

[AlucardNoir]

Or, you could just believe people when they tell you how they experience gender. That seems a lot more likely to make the world better.

For three days this has been bothering me and I could not tell you way. Now I can. That's how medicine used to work. Kings used to invite doctors to court when they were sick and used to tell doctors what they had and the doctors just agreed because you know, it's not like they were supposed to be the experts... and there was the small fact of kings actually being able to have you hanged, or shot, or decapitated etc.

Nowadays you can read symptoms for any disorder online and go to your doctor and convince him you're sick and you need that sweet, sweet Vicodin release.

And then there are all those otehrkin that actually have no basis in biology whatsoever - but I guess doctors should just believe them as well.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Yeah you didn't consider the kings and the doctors and all that hierarchical nonsense that happened in 1572.

[Darth Wedgius]

Self-ID is the only ethical public policy. The possibility of abuse beyond the scope of things that are already illegal anyway are both remote and not worth the trade-off of making it possible to exclude the majority of trans people from accessing transition.

You're going to probably think I'm being flippant, but, objectively, would someone be able to self-identify racially too? Rachel Dolezal could get surgery and treatments to pass for black, couldn't she? And if it makes the world a happier place, what's the harm?

Honestly, you could answer this yeah or nay, but if you have logic behind your answer I'd be curious about the reasoning either way.

If the answer is just "No, that's different because it isn't the same," that's fine, too.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

My take is that reflection of issues facing a demographic is part and parcel for ethnic social groups. While there's certainly disconcert for blackface and subsequently other certain groups, joining a black community that's specifically geared towards disparity awareness promotes an understandable conflict of interest, which is perhaps an even more specific concern for the likes of Rachel Dolezal. There's really not that much said on generically crossing genders to the same fold.

[clearspira]

Self-ID is the only ethical public policy. The possibility of abuse beyond the scope of things that are already illegal anyway are both remote and not worth the trade-off of making it possible to exclude the majority of trans people from accessing transition.

You're going to probably think I'm being flippant, but, objectively, would someone be able to self-identify racially too? Rachel Dolezal could get surgery and treatments to pass for black, couldn't she? And if it makes the world a happier place, what's the harm?

Honestly, you could answer this yeah or nay, but if you have logic behind your answer I'd be curious about the reasoning either way.

If the answer is just "No, that's different because it isn't the same," that's fine, too.

I see no difference between choosing your sex and choosing your race.

[CmdrKing]

You're going to probably think I'm being flippant, but, objectively, would someone be able to self-identify racially too? Rachel Dolezal could get surgery and treatments to pass for black, couldn't she? And if it makes the world a happier place, what's the harm?

Honestly, you could answer this yeah or nay, but if you have logic behind your answer I'd be curious about the reasoning either way.

If the answer is just "No, that's different because it isn't the same," that's fine, too.

The oversimplified answer is basically that Race, as a category, is inseparable from historical and present oppression/othering/discrimination, so it really is something where what you're born to and how you grew up is paramount.
Put another way is Dolezal feels closer to the black community and wishes to change her presentation to better fit with her chosen community, that's between her and them, but that's more a matter of ethnicity than race. Think of converting to Judaism, where ultimately if the community accepts you as sincere then they have a set of prescribed rules to do so, but that still doesn't mean you experience antisemitism directly.

Gender based discrimination is certainly a thing that exists historically and in modern times, and that does create a rift between trans folk and their cis peers, but it also encompasses a bunch of other stuff that doesn't change much based on assigned sex.

Or, you could just believe people when they tell you how they experience gender. That seems a lot more likely to make the world better.

For three days this has been bothering me and I could not tell you way. Now I can. That's how medicine used to work. Kings used to invite doctors to court when they were sick and used to tell doctors what they had and the doctors just agreed because you know, it's not like they were supposed to be the experts... and there was the small fact of kings actually being able to have you hanged, or shot, or decapitated etc.

Nowadays you can read symptoms for any disorder online and go to your doctor and convince him you're sick and you need that sweet, sweet Vicodin release.

And then there are all those otehrkin that actually have no basis in biology whatsoever - but I guess doctors should just believe them as well.

Generally speaking? For anything more complex than the sniffles or a broken bone you actually do have to basically go in and tell the doctor what you have and hope they know a test to confirm you figured it out.
Turns out that if you tell 99% of doctors "I have The Gender" they don't know what that means, so you also have to say "look refer me to an endo, I'll tell them what my hormone level targets are and get a scrip" to get anywhere.

Also of course since your particular medical requirements will vary, the "just believe trans people" thing is also for broader society, since it's a way of signalling both how to treat you and what sort of social roles you're intending to fill and a dozen other things. We attach a lot to gender.

(Both answers here are also ignoring that the more accurate answer gets into the ways a binary gender model is simply inadequate and most of the modern language around trans issues is simply a best fit way of building out from that flawed model, but that's a whole other topic.)

[Yukaphile]

You know, looking back on it as I kid, I really thought even then JKR had... kind of a warped way of looking at the world. Not just her humor, but... in some ways, HP is basically glorified fanfiction. Animorphs has a much higher level of sophistication - that sadly gets overshadowed by Potter. I mean, there's the stuff with Aberforth and his goats, there's Hagrid's parents (don't try and visualize that, you'll burn your corneas out and have nightmares for the rest of your life!), there's the fact the Weasley twins are smuggling in date-rape drugs, and there's almost kind of a... pro-feminine bent? And not in a good way. It's very minor a lot of the time, but in other areas, it's hard to ignore. Like the aforementioned date-rape drugs that everyone is totally okay with the girls using on boys, which is horrifying. Played for laughs on Ron. Hell, look at Ron running out on them AGAIN in the seventh book. And for all their preaching to equality and treating Muggles better, they are condescending right to the end. If they had had support from the Air Force, or set up a decent minefield, the so-called "Battle of Hogwarts" would have last five effing minutes. These are not Kryptonians or Jedi or Saiyans or Time Lords or something else. These are mostly squishy wizards barely distinguishable from humans. Point being, JKR hasn't been relevant in years. And HP is still mostly relevant in terms of crossover fanfiction material. That's about it.

[clearspira]

You know, looking back on it as I kid, I really thought even then JKR had... kind of a warped way of looking at the world. Not just her humor, but... in some ways, HP is basically glorified fanfiction. Animorphs has a much higher level of sophistication - that sadly gets overshadowed by Potter. I mean, there's the stuff with Aberforth and his goats, there's Hagrid's parents (don't try and visualize that, you'll burn your corneas out and have nightmares for the rest of your life!), there's the fact the Weasley twins are smuggling in date-rape drugs, and there's almost kind of a... pro-feminine bent? And not in a good way. It's very minor a lot of the time, but in other areas, it's hard to ignore. Like the aforementioned date-rape drugs that everyone is totally okay with the girls using on boys, which is horrifying. Played for laughs on Ron. Hell, look at Ron running out on them AGAIN in the seventh book. And for all their preaching to equality and treating Muggles better, they are condescending right to the end. If they had had support from the Air Force, or set up a decent minefield, the so-called "Battle of Hogwarts" would have last five effing minutes. These are not Kryptonians or Jedi or Saiyans or Time Lords or something else. These are mostly squishy wizards barely distinguishable from humans. Point being, JKR hasn't been relevant in years. And HP is still mostly relevant in terms of crossover fanfiction material. That's about it.

Oh, these books are horrific if any sort of Fridge Logic is applied. Did she mean them to be? Maybe.

Speaking of a feminine bent, remember how girls can enter the boys dorms but not the reverse? And the stated explanation for it is lame. Honestly i think Rowling was secretly going down the every man and boy is a potential rapist route.

[TGLS]

You know, looking back on it as I kid, I really thought even then JKR had... kind of a warped way of looking at the world. Not just her humor, but... in some ways, HP is basically glorified fanfiction. Animorphs has a much higher level of sophistication - that sadly gets overshadowed by Potter. I mean, there's the stuff with Aberforth and his goats, there's Hagrid's parents (don't try and visualize that, you'll burn your corneas out and have nightmares for the rest of your life!), there's the fact the Weasley twins are smuggling in date-rape drugs, and there's almost kind of a... pro-feminine bent? And not in a good way. It's very minor a lot of the time, but in other areas, it's hard to ignore. Like the aforementioned date-rape drugs that everyone is totally okay with the girls using on boys, which is horrifying. Played for laughs on Ron. Hell, look at Ron running out on them AGAIN in the seventh book. And for all their preaching to equality and treating Muggles better, they are condescending right to the end. If they had had support from the Air Force, or set up a decent minefield, the so-called "Battle of Hogwarts" would have last five effing minutes. These are not Kryptonians or Jedi or Saiyans or Time Lords or something else. These are mostly squishy wizards barely distinguishable from humans. Point being, JKR hasn't been relevant in years. And HP is still mostly relevant in terms of crossover fanfiction material. That's about it.

Oh, these books are horrific if any sort of Fridge Logic is applied. Did she mean them to be? Maybe.

Speaking of a feminine bent, remember how girls can enter the boys dorms but not the reverse? And the stated explanation for it is lame. Honestly i think Rowling was secretly going down the every man and boy is a potential rapist route.

Given how casually Rowling added Time Travel to the setting, I think "Didn't think this through" may very well be a plausible answer.