The Chingchok Hunter

I wrote a new piece about women’s rights and whether or not I want trans people dead. (Spoiler: I don’t)👇 jkrowling.com/opinions/an-up…

But it couldn’t be social contagion, folks. It’s just that young people, especially autistic, gay and mentally ill ones, are finally free to be their authentic selves. The sudden explosion of young women who want to cut off their healthy breasts and take testosterone? Well, it’s absolutely not the newest form of self-harm, to which troubled adolescent girls are provably prone, ok? It’s not a consequence of the commonplace fear of becoming an adult woman, with all that that entails. No, there’s nothing to worry about there. The possibility of regret? Naturally, we don’t let minors get tattoos or own guns or vote, because that would be ridiculous, but if they want irreversible surgeries and drug treatments, they must be given them, and everyone around them must immediately agree they are now the opposite sex. That’s called being kind. And the mounting numbers of detransitioners? They were never trans, obviously, and should be mercilessly attacked, especially if they now say they were vulnerable and in a friendship group, online or off, dominated by trans identities, where transitioning was presented as a way to resolve all their social and emotional difficulties. (I have the emails). No, there’s nothing whatsoever to see here. Keep justifying it, keep cheering it on, keep insisting that the doctors and drug companies making serious money out of it all are acting with the purest of motives. Answer every reasonable question with an accusation of hatred and bigotry. Dispel every qualm of conscience with an activist-approved talking point. Reassure yourself that everyone on your dinner party circuit agrees with you. And when, in years to come, we’re all looking back on graphs like this, be proud that you did your bit to monster whistleblowers, parrot unevidenced claims and create the climate of fear that allowed the worst medical scandal in a century to take place.

My position is that gender dysphoria is a real, painful condition and that for some adults, the only way they may feel able to resolve that inner conflict is transition. If that’s the road they choose I wish them long life and happiness and I would vigorously oppose any discrimination against them when it comes to employment, housing or voting rights. I do not believe children have the capacity to consent to treatments that may leave them infertile and, in some cases, anorgasmic. Multiple studies have shown that gender dysphoria in childhood and adolescence is not uncommon, for gay kids particularly, but it also occurs in, for example, straight girls who hate the idea of becoming women and sometimes, tragically, in children who’ve been abused. The available evidence shows that in the majority of cases, gender dysphoria resolves after the person has gone through adolescence. I am strongly opposed to the experimental treatment of blocking puberty in dysphoric children. I believe trans activists have behaved hugely unethically and irresponsibly in pretending that there is good evidence that these treatments are beneficial (there isn’t), that puberty blockers are completely reversible (there is a mounting body of evidence to suggest they aren’t) or that children are likely to kill themselves if denied blockers (there is no evidence to support this and suicide prevention charities warn against making such statements, due to the very real danger of suicide contagion.) Of course, not all trans-identified people are dysphoric. Erotic transvestism, also known as autogynephilia, (getting a sexual thrill out of dressing as/pretending to be a woman) has been around for a very long time. I believe lesbians are entitled to exclude straight, cross-dressing men from their dating pools without being accused of bigotry and worse (same goes for gay men with trans-identified women). It’s profoundly homophobic to attack gay people for being same-sex attracted. I don’t believe anyone, adult or child, is ‘born in the wrong body.’ That is an unfalsifiable, quasi-religious belief. A person may *feel* as if they’re in the wrong body, but humans cannot literally change sex. However they identify, men don’t belong in the single-sex spaces for which women fought so hard.

I’ve just seen a post from yet another man who thinks my position has shifted since I wrote my 2020 essay about gender identity ideology and the consequent clash of rights jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-r… For the avoidance of doubt, I stand by every word I wrote then. For instance: ‘woman isn’t a costume.’ If it surprises you that I say men don’t become women by wearing make up and dresses, you didn’t understand the essay. I’ve been crystal clear all along that I believe people are free to live and present themselves as the opposite sex if that’s what feels comfortable and authentic TO THEM. This appears to have been interpreted (most often, tellingly, by men) as ‘and it naturally follows that I, as a woman, will validate a man’s belief that he is now, to all intents and purposes, the same sex as me, and I will use only the speech he deems appropriate and will be very careful to protect his sensitive ego, no matter the cost to myself in pretending to believe a falsehood, or the loss of my own rights due to this pretence.’ Dress as you like within normal bounds of situational decency, wear lipstick, sequins and a beard if you want, call yourself whatever you like, have sex with any consenting adult you please: I wish you health, happiness and safety. What you don’t get is the power to compel my speech and belief. When I call a man a man, I am speaking verifiable truth. It is essential to be able to accurately name sex when discussing fair sport, facilities and services for women and girls and the right of gay people not to be demonised for their same-sex attraction. In years to come, a lot of useful idiots are going to awake to the fact that they’ve been complicit in enormous harm done to women, girls, gay people who stood against the insanity, and some extremely vulnerable young people. I don’t doubt we’ll hear a lot of, ‘I thought I was just being kind.’ Such individuals, especially those in positions of power, should be asked why they never had anything to say about the loud, public, widespread unkindness directed against those who refused to adopt their fashionable, elitist beliefs, eg, the detransitioners being bullied and vilified by former ‘allies’, the whistleblowers who tried to stop an unregulated experiment on troubled children, the women who lost their careers and livelihoods by standing up for all women’s rights. Some people appear to believe it a worse crime for a woman to call a man a man than for trans activists to call loudly and publicly for the assault and assassination of all women who refuse to bend the knee. I have never wished violence or any other kind of harm on a trans-identified person, but, like many other people who’ve defended women’s and girls’ rights over the past few years, I have received thousands of threats of death, rape and torture. The wilful blindness of those who bleat ‘both sides’ will rightly be judged harshly in times to come. TL;DR Trans women aren’t women, and if that hurts your feelings, be grateful you live in a society where you are just as free to espouse gender ideology as I am to speak the truth. As Orwell said: ‘Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.’

Caution didn't win women the vote, or equal pay, or fair sport, or the right to single-sex spaces. Sophie Cunningham is standing up for women and girls everywhere and it's glorious. Fuck caution.