JK Rowling is right: a trans woman is not a woman, and it’s not wrong to say so
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
I t is absolutely extraordinary that transgender activist India Willoughby reported J K Rowling to the police for a hate crime. The Harry Potter author this week referred to the newsreader and Loose Women host as a man in an argument on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Willoughby, who was born male and underwent gender reassignment surgery in 2015, made a complaint to police over Rowling’s posts, declaring that she had “definitely committed a crime”. Saying that she was “legally a woman” because she holds a gender recognition certificate, Willoughby revealed that she had “contacted Northumbria Constabulary”, adding: “I don’t know if it’s going to be treated as a hate crime, malicious communications, but it’s a cut-and-dry offence as far as I’m concerned.”
Northumbria Police has now confirmed that it is dropping the investigation. Why did it take so long? It should never have been given the time of day.
Quick law refresher: “misgendering” is not a crime.
The researcher Maya Forstater successfully brought a case to the employment appeal tribunal in 2021 to establish that gender-critical views are a protected philosophical belief under the Equality Act 2010.
So while hostility to someone based on gender identity can be an aggravating factor if a separate crime is committed, misgendering is not in itself an offence. Moreover, Rowling and those who agree with her are completely within their rights to refuse to believe the fiction that you can change biological sex.
As Rowling herself put it: “No law compels anyone to pretend to believe that India is a woman.” Quite.
Now, I’ve got no objection to using people’s preferred pronouns so I’m happy to refer to Willoughby as “she”. But “a woman”? No. It is a simple fact that she is biologically male, regardless of any gender reassignment surgery. She’s a trans woman but she’s not a woman and never will be.
Trans activists have tried their hardest to turn a feeling into fact when they insist: “A trans woman is a woman.” But the truth of the matter is that a trans woman is a man who identifies as a woman.
Willoughby and her supporters might dislike her being described as a man. They might find it at best impolite and at worst deeply offensive. But it is not “hateful” to believe that men are men and women are women. You cannot change biological sex and under the Forstater ruling, it isn’t “illegal” to say so.
It’s ludicrous that I am having to defend these scientifically proven, chromosomally-evidenced truths in a national newspaper but, unfortunately, we live in an era when Willoughby reasonably expected the police to stop investigating offences which really are “hateful” and “malicious” in order to probe the extent to which she feels put out by a woman who disagrees with her.
This is what happens when a vocal minority creates such an environment of fear that the police think they can’t immediately call out an attention-seeking time-waster when they see one.
J K Rowling is not a “transphobe” , either – as inconvenient as that might be to those seeking to label any woman who thinks biological sex is immutable as a “trans-exclusionary radical feminist” (Terf).
It’s far from “radical” to believe in just the two sexes. Nor is it “exclusionary”, since Rowling has never denied the existence of trans people nor their rightful place in society – alongside men and women.
She’s simply a gender-critical feminist, who is justifiably concerned for the corresponding rights of women, which she believes are being eroded. I and many other women (and men … and even some trans people) agree with her.
This is what the gender fanatics continually refuse to acknowledge: that there are competing rights here. It’s not all about them, whatever the likes of Willoughby seem to think.
Rowling has been a heroine in all this, because she’s not only refused to be cancelled, but has emboldened many others who feel the same way as her to bravely speak out.
But let’s look at what is really “hateful” about this debate. There is no doubt that Rowling and others like her continue to be the victims of terrible misogyny. Just look at the appalling comments made about her on social media by people who purport to be defined by kindness and progressive values.
Indeed, it is really quite striking that, on International Women’s Day yesterday, when we should have been celebrating female advancement, there was little public celebration of gender-critical feminists like Rowling. The Left hypocritically talks up the importance of “diversity” and “inclusion” while at the same time actively seeking to shame those who have an opposing point of view.
The definition of bigotry is being “obstinately or unreasonably attached to a belief, opinion, or faction, in particular prejudiced against or antagonistic towards a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular group”. So radical trans activists are guilty of exactly what they accuse gender-critical feminists of. Yet still they arrogantly assume they can occupy the moral high ground, while carrying out these modern-day witch trials.
If stories of gender-critical women being hounded out of their jobs, their universities, and in the recent case of Newcastle United fan Linzi Smith, their football club, aren’t already disturbing enough, we now hear word of a Canadian proposal to impose house arrest on someone who is believed likely to commit a hate crime in the future – even if they have not done so already.
The proposed clause in the country’s new Online Safety Bill would see suspected “hate criminals” forced to wear an electronic tag and banned from going outside. In Willoughby’s world, that would include anyone who thinks she’s a bloke.
But this former Big Brother contestant has got her own form when it comes to sharp remarks on social media.
I had to block her myself when she responded to one of my posts highlighting a pretty innocuous story I’d written about Prince Harry with the words: “Garbage. Harry has your metaphorical number – while the grubby British Media had his ACTUAL number, and hacked it.”
Referencing my role as royal editor of an ITV daytime show, she added: “Someone else you keep platforming @ThisMorning. Have a clear out.” Nice.
If this is supposed to be what the “sisterhood” is supposed to look like in Willoughby’s eyes, then I’d genuinely rather be a “Terf”.
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A true heroine.
She can't be silenced, nor can the truth.
But some loons out there will certainly try.
She is absolutely right. I will entertain the trans thing to a point, mainly when it is someone I have to interact with semi-regularly because I just don’t have the time for that stupid fight.
That being said, a trans man is not actually a man. How worried are they about testicular cancer? Are they getting ready to schedule a prostate exam? No? Oh yeah, that’s because they are biologically women.
How many trans women are buying plan B? How many are buying pads or tampons? Oh, none? Yeah, because they aren’t actually women. The trans thing is getting absolutely absurd.
Call yourself whatever you want but don’t expect everyone to go along with it and stay the hell out of a changing/locker room unless you are of that same biological sex.
I think the key there is, to a point.
It's been shown that a large majority of young people who think they have gender dysphoria outgrow that phase of their life. Yet the Dems still support gender affirming care (hormones, puberty blockers, irreversible surgery) instead of counseling.
Always something with you all. Maybe 'Americans' need permission to exist from some conservatives!
No one is stopping you from existing, nor is permission necessary.