>#JK Rowling: Sturgeon is deaf to women’s concerns over gender ID
>As a new poll suggests the first minister is out of step with voters, Rowling argues that if any woman suffers under new gender ID rules, the blame will rest with Holyrood
>JK Rowling
>Saturday October 15 2022, 6.00pm BST, The Sunday Times
>Just over a week ago, I posted a picture of myself wearing a T-shirt printed with the words “Nicola Sturgeon: Destroyer of Women’s Rights” on Twitter. I did this to show my solidarity with women who were protesting outside the Scottish parliament against the proposed Gender Recognition Act reform bill.
>Some of the women, like Maya Forstater and Helen Joyce, have public profiles, but most of the women protesting do not. They also knew they might be taking a risk in demonstrating. It takes guts for Scottish women to stand up for their rights these days — not, I should emphasise, anywhere near the same guts as Iranian women are currently displaying, but guts nonetheless. They risk being targeted by activists, police complaints being made against them and even the threat of a spell in jail for posting what are seen as “transphobic” comments or images by their complainants.
>Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, believes the protesters outside parliament on October 6 have nothing to complain about. The woman who calls herself a “real feminist” said to the BBC that her proposed new Gender Recognition Act “doesn’t give any additional rights to trans people nor does it take any rights away from women”.
>I disagree. So, to name just a few who were also protesting that day, do Rhona Hotchkiss, the retired prison governor with a masters in law and a qualification in research methodology; Isabelle Kerr, former manager of Glasgow and Clyde Rape Crisis Centre, who was awarded an MBE for her international work helping rape and sexual assault victims; all-female independent policy analysis collective Murray Blackburn Mackenzie; and For Women Scotland, a grassroots feminist group that has emerged as a leading voice for Scottish women over the past few years.
>If Sturgeon’s new act passes into law, a person will be able to change their legal gender as long as they’ve lived in their acquired gender for three months, and made a statutory declaration that they intend to keep doing so. Remarkably, nobody seems able to explain what living in an acquired gender actually means, so how those granting certificates can judge whether the criteria has been met is anyone’s guess.
Under the current act, those who wish to change their gender need a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, ie, persistent distress and discomfort with their natal sex. However, all medical gatekeeping has been removed from Sturgeon’s revised bill. I presume this is in response to the strong push from the trans activist lobby to “depathologise” trans identities. The argument is that trans people aren’t mentally ill: being trans is as natural as being gay. As Rachel Cohen, campaigns director of Stonewall wrote in 2017: “Being trans is not about ‘sex changes’ or clothes, it’s about an innate sense of self.” You may ask how anyone can assess the authenticity of somebody else’s “innate sense of self”. I haven’t a clue.
>Soon, then, in Scotland, it may be easier to change the sex on your birth certificate than it is to change it on your passport. In consequence, intact males who are judged to have met the meagre requirements will be considered as “valid” and entitled to protections as those who’ve had full sex reassignment surgery, and more male-bodied individuals will assert more strongly a right to be in women’s spaces such as public bathrooms, changing rooms, rape support centres, domestic violence refuges, hospital wards and prison cells that were hitherto reserved for women.
>In 2019, The Sunday Times made a freedom of information request to the Ministry of Justice that revealed almost 90 per cent of sexual offences committed in changing rooms happened in those that are unisex.
Imagine being one of the richest people in the world and spending all of your time attacking a marginalized group for a hobby.
I’ve never seen a gender critical individual be able to argue against GRC reforms be able to explain what they are or what they actually mean in terms of what impact they’ll have.
Every single time they argue that it’ll give “anyone who feels like it” access to women’s spaces which is completely and utterly nonsense.
No one needs a GRC to enter spaces that fit the gender they identify with. That’s already protected in law. The only way people can object to the amendments is by lying about what it is they do and what it means going forward.
>it is dangerous to assert that any category of people deserves a blanket presumption of innocence.
JKR doesn’t understand the justice system at all, does she?
Just another day on terf island.
Ugh, JK, much like most of these middle and upper class white women who have too much time on their hands complaining about 0.01% of the population having the same rights as everyone else.
“Saving single sex spaces” isn’t even the issue here, its their misguided attempt at saying they as women feel unsafe in their spaces already and instead of wanting to increase their confidence in their spaces or statistically feel safer in their spaces by active positive changes they’d rather just negatively affect a tiny minority out of fear of a fictional boogeyman.
I know that most people with a platform like JKR are simply in this culture war for the money and attention which is even worse, but the real people who eat their BS up are most of the time just being misled to hate a minority, similar to Germans believing the Nazi’s fear propaganda in the 30s and 40s only a small minority of the idiots parroting these TERF talking points actually straight up hate these minorities.
So if I’ve got this right, her main concern is that anyone can legally change their gender after 3 months of living as that gender? I think that in itself is not unreasonable for her to have concerns about. Is she against trans people per say or worried that there aren’t enough safeguards in place? I am genuinely asking the question and would appreciate someone explaining to me if I’ve missed the point.
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>#JK Rowling: Sturgeon is deaf to women’s concerns over gender ID
>As a new poll suggests the first minister is out of step with voters, Rowling argues that if any woman suffers under new gender ID rules, the blame will rest with Holyrood
>JK Rowling
>Saturday October 15 2022, 6.00pm BST, The Sunday Times
>Just over a week ago, I posted a picture of myself wearing a T-shirt printed with the words “Nicola Sturgeon: Destroyer of Women’s Rights” on Twitter. I did this to show my solidarity with women who were protesting outside the Scottish parliament against the proposed Gender Recognition Act reform bill.
>Some of the women, like Maya Forstater and Helen Joyce, have public profiles, but most of the women protesting do not. They also knew they might be taking a risk in demonstrating. It takes guts for Scottish women to stand up for their rights these days — not, I should emphasise, anywhere near the same guts as Iranian women are currently displaying, but guts nonetheless. They risk being targeted by activists, police complaints being made against them and even the threat of a spell in jail for posting what are seen as “transphobic” comments or images by their complainants.
>Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, believes the protesters outside parliament on October 6 have nothing to complain about. The woman who calls herself a “real feminist” said to the BBC that her proposed new Gender Recognition Act “doesn’t give any additional rights to trans people nor does it take any rights away from women”.
>I disagree. So, to name just a few who were also protesting that day, do Rhona Hotchkiss, the retired prison governor with a masters in law and a qualification in research methodology; Isabelle Kerr, former manager of Glasgow and Clyde Rape Crisis Centre, who was awarded an MBE for her international work helping rape and sexual assault victims; all-female independent policy analysis collective Murray Blackburn Mackenzie; and For Women Scotland, a grassroots feminist group that has emerged as a leading voice for Scottish women over the past few years.
>If Sturgeon’s new act passes into law, a person will be able to change their legal gender as long as they’ve lived in their acquired gender for three months, and made a statutory declaration that they intend to keep doing so. Remarkably, nobody seems able to explain what living in an acquired gender actually means, so how those granting certificates can judge whether the criteria has been met is anyone’s guess.
Under the current act, those who wish to change their gender need a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, ie, persistent distress and discomfort with their natal sex. However, all medical gatekeeping has been removed from Sturgeon’s revised bill. I presume this is in response to the strong push from the trans activist lobby to “depathologise” trans identities. The argument is that trans people aren’t mentally ill: being trans is as natural as being gay. As Rachel Cohen, campaigns director of Stonewall wrote in 2017: “Being trans is not about ‘sex changes’ or clothes, it’s about an innate sense of self.” You may ask how anyone can assess the authenticity of somebody else’s “innate sense of self”. I haven’t a clue.
>Soon, then, in Scotland, it may be easier to change the sex on your birth certificate than it is to change it on your passport. In consequence, intact males who are judged to have met the meagre requirements will be considered as “valid” and entitled to protections as those who’ve had full sex reassignment surgery, and more male-bodied individuals will assert more strongly a right to be in women’s spaces such as public bathrooms, changing rooms, rape support centres, domestic violence refuges, hospital wards and prison cells that were hitherto reserved for women.
>In 2019, The Sunday Times made a freedom of information request to the Ministry of Justice that revealed almost 90 per cent of sexual offences committed in changing rooms happened in those that are unisex.
Imagine being one of the richest people in the world and spending all of your time attacking a marginalized group for a hobby.
I’ve never seen a gender critical individual be able to argue against GRC reforms be able to explain what they are or what they actually mean in terms of what impact they’ll have.
Every single time they argue that it’ll give “anyone who feels like it” access to women’s spaces which is completely and utterly nonsense.
No one needs a GRC to enter spaces that fit the gender they identify with. That’s already protected in law. The only way people can object to the amendments is by lying about what it is they do and what it means going forward.
>it is dangerous to assert that any category of people deserves a blanket presumption of innocence.
JKR doesn’t understand the justice system at all, does she?
Just another day on terf island.
Ugh, JK, much like most of these middle and upper class white women who have too much time on their hands complaining about 0.01% of the population having the same rights as everyone else.
“Saving single sex spaces” isn’t even the issue here, its their misguided attempt at saying they as women feel unsafe in their spaces already and instead of wanting to increase their confidence in their spaces or statistically feel safer in their spaces by active positive changes they’d rather just negatively affect a tiny minority out of fear of a fictional boogeyman.
I know that most people with a platform like JKR are simply in this culture war for the money and attention which is even worse, but the real people who eat their BS up are most of the time just being misled to hate a minority, similar to Germans believing the Nazi’s fear propaganda in the 30s and 40s only a small minority of the idiots parroting these TERF talking points actually straight up hate these minorities.
So if I’ve got this right, her main concern is that anyone can legally change their gender after 3 months of living as that gender? I think that in itself is not unreasonable for her to have concerns about. Is she against trans people per say or worried that there aren’t enough safeguards in place? I am genuinely asking the question and would appreciate someone explaining to me if I’ve missed the point.
Oh, yeah, I’m sure people just have “[legitimate concerns](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ou_xvXJJk7k)”.
“it is dangerous to assert that any category of people deserves a blanket presumption of innocence” – JK Rowling
So she’s just outright pushing fascist rhetoric now then, if she doesn’t believe in the presumption of innocence?
Edit: For Rowling’s wee fan club downvoting this, please explain how it’s not fascist to deny the basic right to presumption of innocence?
Love Sturgeon’s response to all this: since when did men need to “change gender” to attack women?
It’s utterly confusing why why they’re spending so much energy attacking trans people. Confusing and ridiculous.