Dear Cisters fan mail (YAY!!) from JK Rowling fans (uh-oh…)
JK Rowling fans sent me a few letters (and they all missed the point)
Welcome to Dear Cisters, the column that’s more like Dear Abby than the Savage Lovecast. I’m your host Stephenie Magister, transgender writer/nerd/editor for award-winning and best-selling books.
Are you ready for some fan mail??? These letters were written primarily in response to Why People Are Losing Their Minds About JK Rowling AGAIN
LETTER #1
Dear Stephenie,
You wrote:
“Transgender experiences should not disqualify a woman from deserving safety, security, and equality. Please stop using them as a justification to deprive us of those things.”
Neither should not being trans. I’ve never read or seen Rowling attack or abuse anyone. I see people write that they wish she was dead and they want to rape her everyday though, and they have the audacity to claim the moral high ground.
ANSWER Please do not come to a space where a woman (me) tells you she is experiencing a harmful and abusive impact from JK Rowling’s actions and then tell her/me that just because you’ve never personally witnessed or experienced what you consider to be abuse, what I and countless other women have experienced as abuse didn’t happen.
Honestly, how dare you?
The world is not an extension of you. I am my own person with my own thoughts and feelings. Do not tell me that my experience of abuse is not real just because you have no empathy for it.
Please do not tell any other woman that their experience of harm didn’t happen just because you didn’t see it or experience it yourself.
If you have come here merely to contribute to the experience of me and any other woman who has had what might be considered transgender experiences, I need for you to leave this conversation.
None of us deserve to be harmed and abused in the name of whatever you’re trying to achieve by doing so.
Sincerely, Stephenie
LETTER #2
Dear Stephenie,
What JK Rowling said…
“If sex isn’t real, there’s no same-sex attraction. If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isn’t hate to speak the truth,”
“The idea that women like me, who’ve been empathetic to trans people for decades, feeling kinship because they’re vulnerable in the same way as women — i.e., to male violence — ‘hate’ trans people because they think sex is real and has lived consequences — is a nonsense.”
“I respect every trans person’s right to live any way that feels authentic and comfortable to them. I’d march with you if you were discriminated against on the basis of being trans. At the same time, my life has been shaped by being female. I do not believe it’s hateful to say so.”
ANSWER
I’m sorry to hear you feel that way, but you’re entitled to your own way of seeing things. I accept your faulty perception of me and people like me. I have no right or desire to try to change how you see things. I will just accept that’s how you feel about it. We are not responsible for your anger.
Sincerely, Stephenie
RESPONSE
Hi Stephenie,
I don’t think I would’ve read your article if I wasn’t trying to learn something new.
You’re asking the world to treat you fairly, I think you’re entitled to that. The flipside of the coin, is that JKR is also entitled to be treated fairly.
I posted what J. K. Rowling actually said because I felt that lumping her together with actual transphobes was a little much.
There are sound and valid arguments for granting transgender women many of the same legal protections and privileges as women. I’d be interested to read what you think these are and how it should look when it’s done.
ANSWER
I’m sorry to hear you feel that way, but you’re entitled to your own way of seeing things.
In my view, there is no such thing as a Woman vs Trans Woman. At least not outside of the limitations of language and labels that require dialogue for clarification.
There are Women who have had transgender experiences. And there are women who have not had transgender experiences. They are all women. Having transgender experiences or not doesn’t stop one woman from being any less of a woman than one who doesn’t.
But JK Rowling uses whether she can identify transgender experiences in a woman as a justification to literally legislate harm toward those women.
There are not Women vs Trans Women. And MOST WOMEN have had transgender experiences. That’s true regardless of whether a woman has enough transgender experiences to also claim the label of BEING trans.
You’ve almost certainly had transgender experiences too! But it’s up to you whether you describe them as such, or if they were significant enough that you would now describe your identity as transgender.
It is harmful and abusive to discuss EVEN AS A THOUGHT EXERCISE whether it is fair to dispense different rights, privileges, and freedoms to women merely because they’ve had what they, you, or JK Rowling identify as transgender experiences.
It is harmful and abusive to point to the harmful and abusive impact your actions have toward women and then ask instead to discuss fairness toward the people abusing women with transgender experiences.
If you are here merely to insist that the impact of how you treat women with trans experiences doesn’t have the abusive impact that we are telling you it has, then I need for you to leave this conversation.
I ask you instead simply to acknowledge the harmful and abusive impact of your and JK Rowling’s position on women with transgender experiences. Trans women are women.
Confronting your own bigoted positions and the bigoted impact of those positions is HARD, as evidenced by your hesitance to even acknowledge the harmful impact of your comments.
I wish you the best of luck confronting these things. It’s a vital step in whether we live in denial of our bigotry (and thus perpetuate it indefinitely) OR wake up each day and acknowledge yeah…there’s some stuff we all need to look at in ourselves.
Every person’s actions have an impact far beyond our current awareness and intentions. Will you please set aside the deflections and comparisons and instead use this space to increase your awareness of the harmful and abusive impact of your actions toward women?
Some of the things you say/do/believe contain aspects of bigotry. This is one of those opportunities for you to reflect, acknowledge your bigotry, and choose to be better.
Please do not return to this space if you are going to merely repeat the same bigoted positions you have expressed in your prior comments.
Thank you and good luck.
Sincerely, Stephenie
LETTER #3
Dear Stephenie,
Creating monsters is one of JK Rowling’s skills and she did so with aplomb, earning herself a fortune while getting millions of children to read.
Trying to cast JK Rowlng as a transphobic monster is enough hyperbole to delegitimize an admittedly noble cause, a cause you wish to serve, n’est-ce pas?
It’s counterintutitive. It’s Orwellian. And it’s specious enough to be labelled Quixotic.
You write incredibly well. Ergo, you can do much much better.
ANSWER
I accept your faulty reading of what I said. I have no right or desire to try to change how you see things.
Your faulty reading and reaction to your faulty reading is not my responsibility.
RESPONSE
Stephenie:
Thank you for pointing out my faulty reaction and not blocking me.
That’s called integrity and standing by your writing. You know, being courageous.
I’m just trying to say that you’re obviously a very bright person, brighter and stronger than your reaction to JK Rowlings.
How about using your considerable skills to tackle Mega Church multi-millionaire Joel Osteen or Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who recently signed his ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill, or some members of the Canadian Conservative Party?
That’s where the real monsters lurk…out there in the open.
ANSWER
Yikes. You sound real angry -REDACTED-!
Given your history of violence toward women, I am in fact going to block you for my safety.
If you attempt to violate that boundary as well, I will seek appropriate legal action.
Sincerely, Stephenie
THE END (DAMN GIRL, THAT’S DARK)
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