It was no April Fool’s joke.
Harry Potter author-turned culture warrior J.K. Rowling kicked off the month with an 11-tweet social media thread in which she argued 10 transgender women were men — and dared Scottish police to arrest her.
Rowling’s intervention came as a controversial new Scottish government law, aimed at protecting minority groups from hate crimes, took effect. And it landed amid a fierce debate over both the legal status of transgender people in Scotland and over what actually constitutes a hate crime.
Already the law has generated far more international buzz than is normal for legislation passed by a small nation’s devolved parliament.
I’m not quite sure why anybody gives a fuck about what she tweets.
She wrote a handful of successful books (I can’t comment on the content, I never read them), made a fucktonne of money, wrote a few other plays and books under a rando name… and yet she’s being quoted and reported on every five seconds.
Taking a step back a bit - my entirely personal opinion is that 95% of the people ranting and raving about this new law are the people who are gobshites anyway. The other 5% are quite rightly asking the question whether the law is proportionate, whether the police service is the right way to enforce the laws, and whether this could have been delayed to launch with the misogyny bill.
edit while I’m on a soapbox: as for Musk and Rogan, who gives a fuck what they have to say? Musk has probably been in Scottish airspace more than he’s been on Scottish soil, and Rogan is so far removed from Scotland politics that he might as well be on Pluto.
Well, in this case people care because she breaking a law…
I didn’t quite catch your username first time round, a happy co-incidence!
I was under the impression that her tweets weren’t illegal - even if she is being a bit of a bellend about it. I’m not sure whether it is outright legal, or whether it just doesn’t meet the threshold to secure a likely conviction.
Not 100% sure but:
The recent law is against “deadnaming” so Rowling keeps dead naming people on Twitter and daring cops to do something about it.
Which I don’t think they will, because she’ll throw millions of dollars worth of lawyers at them.
So she is (as far as I know) breaking the law
Have you heard of the paradox of tolerance? It states, “if a society’s practice of tolerance is inclusive of the intolerant, intolerance will ultimately dominate.”
Seems to me like something we all have to care about.
I have yeah, it’s a fine line where to draw the line though. That can equally be used to silence people whose views are entirely sensible but inconvenient to whoever is writing the rules.
The question I’m struggling to grasp is why her? How come she’s the lightning rod for these opinions when she’s just spewing nonsensical bollocks and bile?
She might be “just spewing nonsensical bollocks and bile” OR she might be publicly and seemingly proudly flouting Scottish law.
So why not her?
Yes, we have all heard about the paradox of tolerance, because it gets posted in every thread.
It doesn’t really add much to the conversation, because it’s really not that insightful - if you let the wolves amongst the sheep then eventually there won’t be any sheep left.