#The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling

[onelatenight-longago]

"There is a huge appeal .... to black and white thinking. It's the easiest place to be and in many ways the safest place to be. An 'all or nothing' position on anything; you will definitely find comrades, you will easily find a community. We should mistrust ourselves the most when we are certain and we should question ourselves the most when we receive a rush of adrenaline by doing or saying something. Many people mistake that rush of adrenaline for the voice of conscious. ...Conscious speaks in a very small and inconvenient voice and its normally saying to you "Think again, look more deeply, consider this.""

[cinemaocd]

God, there's this whole section of the podcast that sort of implies that transgender people were invented on Tumblr, which I'm not even gonna get into...

Wake up babe...

[harmonyofdisintegration]

The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling | ContraPoints

[cyberneurotism]

love this screenshot from The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling by ContraPoints

[mithridas]

Video essay about the bridges between hateful feminists and right-wing women, the trend of elevating 'civil debate' over rejection and protest, the effects of deradicalisation from hate movements,... 

Overall a well-argued look at JK Rowling's transphobia and current transphobia / homophobia conservative rhetoric.

[silverity]

i didn't hear about Alice Walker defending JK Rowling! she's a womanist/Black feminist who speaks so much on the unique Black female experience, which is often ignored and depreciated as Black women often are, so is it any wonder she questions the erasure of the female experience for all women? it's mad for anybody intimately familiar with her work to be surprised by this, madder still to construe this as "cis feminist ignorance" when this is so in keeping with everything she's been about.

for any fems unaware she received backlash from within the Black community after 'The Color Purple' film was made based on her novel, as it depicts Black male violence against Black women. Black men particularly accused her of being "anti-Black men". certainly she knows how important the discussion of sex, sexuality, sexual violence and exploitation is for feminism and isn't concerned about disrupting male supremacy.

i really love her for it & i'm sad Black folks, particularly Black women, are shutting her down instead of listening and considering her perspective. she is one of the Greats of Black literature and Black feminist thought, having coined the term womanism to mean Black feminism. it's insane to dismiss or even "cancel" an elder as great as she is.

[nataliewynn]

I know you’re all very busing inventing the genders, but I posted a new video uwu

[maaarine]

“These people don't understand the emotional burden placed on marginalized people who are asked to defend their rights.

Like if you're straight, do you want to publicly debate whether your marriage is valid?

Andrea Dworkin claimed that penetrative heterosexual intercourse is inherently an act of violence.

I've noticed most straight men don't want to have calm, civil discussions about that.

So imagine how they'd react if there was powerful political movement to criminalize penetration or revoke their right to marry.

Add in a lifetime of ostracism, family rejection, bullying and discrimination, and maybe then you'll begin to understand the "hysteria" of a lot of queer people.”

The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling | ContraPoints

[harrypotterfuryroad]

Did you see the creators of The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling came out with a sequel called "Reflector?" Essentially an update on what's been going on since that podcast. Their next episode they'll have back their 'favorite guests' Contrapoints again... Because she created such a nuanced view before...

yeah i haven't listened yet, but always interested in hearing helen lewis talk about this stuff. and honestly they could do a lot worse than contrapoints - i know he's close to being patient zero for a lot of this stuff but he's still a lot more reasonable than other big name wig streamers (which in the case of the podcast amounted to saying "joanne is a meanie :(" with no explanation instead of giving a thirty minute diatribe about how exactly he'd murder her)

i know i said before i wasn't crazy about the witch trials podcast (and tbh didn't even finish it) but if it's easy enough to skip around the hemming and hawing the followup might be worth a listen at least

[fall-and-shadows]

Ok radblr, I have to know: who has listened to The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling and what did you think?

[nitro502]

Where did JKR say that the death eaters were based on LGBT people? Not trying to defend her. Just curious. Cause that's the first time I've heard of that and that's fucking wild. She's vile.

Actually after looking it up again, she only compared trans people/trans rights activists to death eaters:

If that somehow makes it better lol.

This is from an article about her podcast The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling about a year ago.

[360degreesasthecrowflies]

As someone who has been in the Harry Potter fandom since the 2000s, it becomes obvious that what really made the power go to J.K. Rowling's head wasn't her new fame and fortune - but rather, how the Harry Potter fandom practically worshipped her as a god when the books were still coming out. If you look at old interviews with J.K. Rowling and Emerson Spartz of MuggleNet, and Melissa Anelli of "The Leaky Cauldron" website, Rowling and her PR team specifically curated these interviews - much like with "The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling" - to only see and praise her in a good light. (Spartz was a fanatical JKR supporter in particular, even going as far as to mock and attack Harry/Hermione, or Harmony, shippers "on her behalf". Rowling laughed at it.)

The Harry Potter fandom and their militant support for J.K. Rowling as a deity-like figure in the 2000s, simply because she wrote the Harry Potter books, really went to Rowling's head. It's also probably where she gets this idea of, "I read my most recent royalty cheques, and find the pain goes away pretty quickly." She genuinely still believes that the Harry Potter fandom still supports her, and still has her back, because she still thinks that fans are putting her on a pedestal. However, in the 2000s, most of these fans were teenagers and young adults who didn't know any better, and weren't mature enough to see how this was unhealthy, for both them and Rowling.

However, I've encountered this issue before in the realm of YA authors and the book community in general, and what J.K. Rowling doesn't realize is that the only reason why Harry Potter fans supported her at the time was simply because she wrote the Harry Potter books - and was continuing to write the series at that time. They didn't care about J.K. Rowling, the person - they cared about J.K. Rowling, the content provider, who kept providing them new Harry Potter content. They only cared about her because she was writing new Harry Potter books.

Once Rowling finished the Harry Potter series, and started writing her adult mystery books, readers' interest in Rowling as a content provider dropped off sharply, and they lost interest, to the point where she had to publicly reveal that she was "Robert Galbraith" in order to boost flagging book sales. It became clear that people only cared about her Harry Potter series.

I feel this is also why J.K. Rowling's slide in to TERFdom is not only performative and self-seeking, but that the people who claim to support her only do so solely because she's anti-transgender. Much like with the Harry Potter fandom - which only cared about J.K. Rowling, in the sense that she was providing them new Harry Potter books and content - TERFs only care about J.K. Rowling because she supports being a TERF. Most TERFs don't actually seem to care about her as a person, and as such, I think J.K. Rowling is seeing them as a misplaced source of support.

It's also worth noting that J.K. Rowling seems to have sought out the TERF community to fill in the gap left by Harry Potter fans, and the fandom at-large, increasingly distancing themselves - or growing and maturing beyond - their single-minded support of J.K. Rowling. For years, Rowling had her ego constantly stroked and fed by Harry Potter fans, to the point that she internalized her entire sense of self-worth on "being the author of Harry Potter" and providing content to people. Or, in the mind of J.K. Rowling: "Without Harry Potter, who am I? What is my purpose?"

Unfortunately, Rowling decided that her new "purpose" was fighting "trans rights activists".

When the Fantastic Beasts film franchise - which J.K. Rowling co-wrote the scripts for - crashed and burned, and her attempt to win back Harry Potter fans and the fandom with new Harry Potter-based content failed, she turned to a new echo chamber for self-validation instead: TERFdom. The TERFdom provided easy and lazy source of validation for Rowling, as instead of putting in actual work to create new Harry Potter books and scripts, she can just rest on her laurels, and occasionally post low-effort tweets that she can post instead, and which garner her a lot of attention. Rowling tunes out all of the negative attention, and only focuses on those praising her, or even worshipping her as their own "Personal Jesus" - the same as she did back in the 2000s with her Harry Potter interviews, and then later on, with Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

The Harry Potter TV show reboot on HBO Max is now Rowling's third attempt - if not fourth, counting the travesty that was Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - to either try and win back the Harry Potter fandom, or to create a new Harry Potter fandom by exposing Gen Z and Gen Alpha to the series. However, things have changed a lot since the 2000s, and that includes far more support for LGBT rights, so I feel like this third attempt is going to backfire horribly on her.

quoted (but not formatted as a quote because it's too long for the new tumblr engine) from the comments to the r/Contrapoints thread on her 2023 JK Rowling video, a striking takedown/analysis of why it seems the author of Harry Potter has gone so far and so fast off the deep end away from the core principles that initially made her work so popular with a western millennial and down YA audience

[leandra-winchester]

This episode is so good. I wanted to quote a few lines, but I wouldn't even know where to start. JK is so well-spoken, nuanced, and compassionate.

And if those statements of mine make you double-take and wonder, then especially listen to the podcast.

Form your own opinion!

[feminist-pussycat]

Guess who woke up early to listen to The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling!

I cannot recommend it enough. The first two episodes are out and they are an absolutely masterful telling of her story and it’s roots. The word that came to mind when I finished them was just “masterpiece”. So much research and attention and care went into making these and it shows.

The first episode is an interview on Joanne and a somewhat different take on her origin story that’s been part of the folklore, and the second on the cultural background of the 1990s and early 2000s that led to the book-burning Christian craze. There are fantastic parallel clips of preachers and fundamentalists fear-lingering about how Harry Potter is literally harming their children and the TRAs of today saying the exact same things. I actually cannot wait until next week, it’s amazing.

[nicklloydnow]

“This campaign against Rowling is as dangerous as it is absurd. The brutal stabbing of Salman Rushdie last summer is a forceful reminder of what can happen when writers are demonized. And in Rowling’s case, the characterization of her as a transphobe doesn’t square with her actual views.

So why would anyone accuse her of transphobia? Surely, Rowling must have played some part, you might think.

The answer is straightforward: Because she has asserted the right to spaces for biological women only, such as domestic abuse shelters and sex-segregated prisons. Because she has insisted that when it comes to determining a person’s legal gender status, self-declared gender identity is insufficient. Because she has expressed skepticism about phrases like “people who menstruate” in reference to biological women. Because she has defended herself and, far more important, supported others, including detransitioners and feminist scholars, who have come under attack from trans activists. And because she followed on Twitter and praised some of the work of Magdalen Berns, a lesbian feminist who had made incendiary comments about transgender people.

You might disagree — perhaps strongly — with Rowling’s views and actions here. You may believe that the prevalence of violence against transgender people means that airing any views contrary to those of vocal trans activists will aggravate animus toward a vulnerable population.

But nothing Rowling has said qualifies as transphobic. She is not disputing the existence of gender dysphoria. She has never voiced opposition to allowing people to transition under evidence-based therapeutic and medical care. She is not denying transgender people equal pay or housing. There is no evidence that she is putting trans people “in danger,” as has been claimed, nor is she denying their right to exist.

Take it from one of her former critics. E.J. Rosetta, a journalist who once denounced Rowling for her supposed transphobia, was commissioned last year to write an article called “20 Transphobic J.K. Rowling Quotes We’re Done With.” After 12 weeks of reporting and reading, Rosetta wrote, “I’ve not found a single truly transphobic message.” On Twitter she declared, “You’re burning the wrong witch.”

(…)

Phelps-Roper has taken the time to rethink her biases. She is now the host of “The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling.” The podcast, based on nine hours of her interviews with Rowling — the first time Rowling has spoken at length about her advocacy — explores why Rowling has been subjected to such wide-ranging vitriol despite a body of work that embraces the virtues of being an outsider, the power of empathy toward one’s enemies and the primacy of loyalty toward one’s friends.

The podcast, which also includes interviews with critics of Rowling, delves into why Rowling has used her platform to challenge certain claims of so-called gender ideology — such as the idea that transgender women should be treated as indistinguishable from biological women in virtually every legal and social context. Why, both her fans and her fiercest critics have asked, would she bother to take such a stand, knowing that attacks would ensue?

“The pushback is often, ‘You are wealthy. You can afford security. You haven’t been silenced.’ All true. But I think that misses the point. The attempt to intimidate and silence me is meant to serve as a warning to other women” with similar views who may also wish to speak out, Rowling says in the podcast.

“And I say that because I have seen it used that way,” Rowling continues. She says other women have told her they’ve been warned: “Look at what happened to J.K. Rowling. Watch yourself.”

(…)

Phelps-Roper told me that Rowling’s outspokenness is precisely in the service of this kind of cause. “A lot of people think that Rowling is using her privilege to attack a vulnerable group,” she said. “But she sees herself as standing up for the rights of a vulnerable group.”

Rowling, Phelps-Roper added, views speaking out as a responsibility and an obligation: “She’s looking around and realizing that other people are self-censoring because they cannot afford to speak up. But she felt she had to be honest and stand up against a movement that she saw as using authoritarian tactics.”

As Rowling herself notes on the podcast, she’s written books where “from the very first page, bullying and authoritarian behavior is held to be one of the worst of human ills.” Those who accuse Rowling of punching down against her critics ignore the fact that she is sticking up for those who have silenced themselves to avoid the job loss, public vilification and threats to physical safety that other critics of recent gender orthodoxies have suffered.

(…)

In the words of Fiennes: “J.K. Rowling has written these great books about empowerment, about young children finding themselves as human beings. It’s about how you become a better, stronger, more morally centered human being,” he said. “The verbal abuse directed at her is disgusting. It’s appalling.”

Despite media coverage that can be embarrassingly credulous when it comes to the charges against Rowling, a small number of influential journalists have also begun speaking out in her defense. Here in America, Caitlin Flanagan of The Atlantic tweeted last year, “Eventually, she will be proven right, and the high cost she’s paid for sticking to her beliefs will be seen as the choice of a principled person.

(…)

Because what Rowling actually says matters. In 2016, when accepting the PEN/Allen Foundation award for literary service, Rowling referred to her support for feminism — and for the rights of transgender people. As she put it, “My critics are at liberty to claim that I’m trying to convert children to satanism, and I’m free to explain that I’m exploring human nature and morality or to say, ‘You’re an idiot,’ depending on which side of the bed I got out of that day.”

Rowling could have just stayed in bed. She could have taken refuge in her wealth and fandom. In her “Harry Potter” universe, heroes are marked by courage and compassion. Her best characters learn to stand up to bullies and expose false accusations. And that even when it seems the world is set against you, you have to stand firm in your core beliefs in what’s right.

Defending those who have been scorned isn’t easy, especially for young people. It’s scary to stand up to bullies, as any “Harry Potter” reader knows. Let the grown-ups in the room lead the way. If more people stood up for J.K. Rowling, they would not only be doing right by her; they’d also be standing up for human rights, specifically women’s rights, gay rights and, yes, transgender rights. They’d also be standing up for the truth.”

“But I do like the phrase, implying as it does a refusal to bow down to the establishment. Although we had a Labour government from 1974, it’s fair to say that the establishment of the 1970s was a fusty right-wing thing, sexist and racist and snobbish. But funnily enough, it’s still sexist and snobbish, in that women and the working-class are expected to obey (transvestite) men and the liberal elite respectively; it’s not racist in the old vulgar way but in a modish, middle-class way, dealing in the poverty of low expectations, seen best in that hilarious Labour election promise that only Jeremy Corbyn ‘can be trusted to unlock the talent of black, Asian and minority ethnic people’ when the Tory cabinet already featured more black, Asian and minority ethnic people than a Labour one ever had. Oh, and racism is also judging people on the colour of their skin as opposed to the content of their character – as Martin Luther King preferred – which is inherent in every diversity and inclusion drive, every taking of the knee, every ‘black-out’ theatre performance. When people of colour refuse to lose their agency by identifying as underdogs and waiting for whitey to save them (some to the point of becoming Conservative politicians), they may be called ‘coconuts’ and all sorts of nasty names – but in a caring, anti-racist way.

(…)

Punk wasn’t ever left-wing – it was anti-establishment, so whatever the establishment is for, punk was against it. The anti-Lydon lot will always bring up The Clash as an example of a left-wing punk band, but this was more a difference of class origin than of politics proper; Joe Strummer was a lovely fellow, but he was also an upper-middle public schoolboy and thereby prone to a bit of P’n’P (poncing and posing) with his R’n’R. Of the other big punk bands, The Damned were about as political as The Munch Bunch, The Stranglers had a soft spot for the crazed Japanese militarist Yukio Mishima and The Jam were young patriots who pined for ‘the great empire’ and spat loathing at avuncular James Callaghan (‘The truth is you’ve lost, Uncle Jimmy!’). Unlike the cosy 1960s scene, they barely spoke to each other; that was the whole point of punk, to be different. But the rewriting of punk history by anxious middle-class lefties happened almost from the start; by the 1980s, punk was being recalled as a reaction against Thatcher’s Britain, despite it all kicking off three years before she became prime minister. Indeed, with her desire to destroy anything which seemed weak and outdated, there’s a case for saying that Mrs T was the most punk politician thus far. This was echoed in Sex Pistol Steve Jones’s autobiography Lonely Boy – surprisingly good – in which he understandably writes that he went into showbiz to make money as much as music, and that when he finally scraped enough royalties together to buy himself a second-hand car, Vivienne Westwood accused him of ‘selling out’. This would be the Vivienne Westwood who took an honour from the monarchy and was a shameless tax avoider. Hypocrite, heal thyself.

Punk was, as Westwood and McLaren so flagrantly demonstrated, always marbled with corruption, as indeed is every place where art meets showbiz; it gives it its piquancy. But punk is like a religion to some pathetic purists now. There was a long-running argument on a social media forum a few weeks ago about whether Anarchy In The UK was a call to real anarchic communal living. (No, that would be for the filthy hippies.) Others said (correctly) that it was simply a call to smash the status quo – and the status quo is now woke.

Punk can be traced back to historical anti-establishment art from the political cartoons of the 18th century, through Beyond The Fringe to Monty Python, all mocking the monarchy, judges, police and politicians. It couldn’t have started anywhere but England; someone said that Brexit was an amalgamation of South Downs Tories and snarling inner-city punks. It was only natural that the great charismatic loner contrarians of 20th century pop, Lydon and Morrissey, were in favour; If you’re independent and rebellious, you certainly weren’t going to be a remainer.

Predictably, the vast majority of those who identify as punks these days come across as extremely wet blankets who get their knickers in a twist over weird things; think of the hissy-fit Rage Against the Machine had over people who wouldn’t wear masks at their gigs and the American ‘punks’ who beat up ‘fascists’ who aren’t fascists in the least unless one uses the word in the manner of Rik in The Young Ones. Then we have the weirdest cause of all, trans. whereby privileged white men can whack on some rouge and call themselves women – the war for the soul of punk is being fought on this front, too.

(…)

When I started out as a musician, I thought that punks were anti-establishment; then when my first album was released, I passed through the scene and realised it’s full of Stasi boneheads who love the boot when they’re the ones wearing it. Punks pretend to be rebellious musicians but act more like bureaucrats and propagandists who contribute nothing to music except a pathological hatred of women and the highest form of wokery I’ve ever personally encountered. Speaking your mind publicly is what making music is all about; freedom of speech and our hard-won rights as women – especially in male dominated music industry – is something that should be protected at all costs no matter what -ism we’re living under. But when the establishment and corporations support you, you are the establishment. So, for me being a Terf is about as punk as it gets.

I was there; I may not have liked the music much, but I lived the ribald and riotous experience that was punk – and I know a short-haired hippie when I see one. As I wrote in Welcome To The Woke Trials: ‘Woke is the revenge of the dullard on the wit, the curtain-twitcher on the headline-maker, the wallflower on the whirling dancer’ – add to that ‘the establishment stooge who believes himself righteous on the outlaw’. So, punk’s not dead – this time, she’s a Terf.”