I wonder what has to go through a persons head when they threaten to fight amnesty international?
I mean I don't believe AI is impartial when it comes to geopolitics and providing cover for war and invasions and conflicts, but they are still mostly on mission.
Back when she was something, Rowling's attention to human rights inspired me to do better, and even to try and start a career working with human rights NGOs.
It's insane to me how she's come right around and is now attacking what she once stood for, and using the might of her wealth to do it (something she also used to despise).
Voldemort got the giants on his side (other than Grawp) by promising them equal rights. The Ministry of Magic is very oppressive towards magical creatures, and this is intended by the author. Dumbledore points it out after he and voldemort wreck the wizard supremacist statue. So Voldemort is (dishonestly) promising equality to the giants to get them to revolt. The giants want equal rights.
So at the end of the last book, Harry kills Voldemort. And the giants lose their rebellion and go back to being excluded from society and denied the right to wands. And the final line before the epilogue is "all was well".
Rowling is savvy enough to identify problems in society, but she cannot write stories about solving problems in society, because she doesn't know how. She doesn't understand human rights. She never stood for improving rights.
She was working for Amnesty international when she came up with the book idea.
And the books are filled with examples of the need for human rights. She had clearly spent a lot of time on the topic, and cared enough to make them a core part of the books.
Sirius's lack of a trial, the forbidden curses (torture, slavery, death). Rita Skeeter and Dolores Umbridge taught me about media propaganda and the creep and pomposity of authoritarianism.
Yeah she wasn't great at follow through but in the early days, the hope was there.
Also, they're kids' books. They're supoosed to introduce concepts to the reader, not analyse or prosthetylise over them.
The Owl House is a kids show, yet Luz Noceda manages to completely reform the demon realm's education system and government. It is possible for heroes to actually improve the world they inhabit to a better standard than when they found it. Harry just didn't do that.
Never wanted to look into it, now I had to scroll her Twitter to see that response of her is genuine, now I am mentally unstable.
Disclaimer: it might be the Twitter experience all in all, I usually do not set foot in that realm.
Thanks JK Rowling.
OF COURSE all the press support she gets is from the Telegraph, aka the Daily Telegraph, paper owned by Axel Springer Konzern, which gives its best award to Peter fucking Thiel.
Around the same time, Sex Matters, one of the organisations identified in the report, announced publicly that it had challenged Amnesty’s publication and suggested that, had the report remained online, it would have brought defamation proceedings. Amnesty has not said whether its review is connected to that correspondence.
What i dont get is how can she be as rich as she is, with as much inherent admiration, adoration and respect that comes with how she got that rich, and this is how she chooses to spend life?
Fucks sake you could live in Disneyland microdosing LSD while everyone who sees you is absolutely thrilled just to be near you.
We can't know for sure, and I won't definitively say it or use male pronouns for her. But a lot of her past comments hint that she may actually be a repping trans guy. Hell, some of the broader themes of Harry Potter are trans-coded. It would explain a lot. This seems very personal to her.
And at this point, if she really is a repping trans guy, could she even come out and transition? If she did, it would be a very lonely experience. It's not like she would be welcome in the trans community. You can't do that much harm to a group, even while secretly a member of that group, and expect to be accepted by them. And she would in turn lose all her connections among the TERF crowd.
It's not the first time I've heard that idea. I recall a comment once in which it was claimed that JKR said that if she were a teenager in the present time, she would probably have transitioned. Unfortunately I could not find any source for that claim, but given just how insane she's been on the matter, I wouldn't be surprised if there was something going on there. Same for Linehan, honestly.
Personally I would forgive her, IF that turned out to be true, AND she made a public apology for everything awful she ever said, AND threw her financial weight behind actually fighting for trans rights, AND opened a school or something specifically for disadvantaged trans kids, and kept doing such things to the point that it actually made a positive impact, then I would say she had redeemed herself.
But I'm not holding my breath for even one picosecond, thinking that it would actually happen.
What I remember is an interview where she said "I should have been born a boy" or something to that extent.
It is all too easy to see how you can fall into the TERF mindset as a transmasc in denial because it probably makes about as little sense to her why anyone would want to be a woman as it makes to me why anyone would want to be a man, therefore anyone who wants to transition to a woman must have ulterior motives. But it really shouldn't be a high ask to have a modicum of empathy to realize other people just feel different lol
Okay so I've read a LOT of analysis of that line, and done a fair amount Myself. There are two camps on it: One group says Robert is a repressed trans guy. The other group says Joanne is pretending to lean trans, in order to present herself as an insider and speak from a position of both authority and sympathy, so she can lie to people better.
Amnesty international has been shit for a while, they have some Ws but they always help manufacture consent for war and then say "oopsie, didn't know it wasn't true that comically evil fabrication wasn't true"
They talk about human rights and post evidently empty shit like “We exist so that a world where everyone can live freely, fairly and with dignity is possible”, but fold like a wet napkin when Rowling threatens legal action.
Good to know that we can’t rely on AMNESTY to protect basic human rights anymore.
Fucking hell, we are absolutely fucked, aren’t we?
When Amnesty reported on Ukraine but stayed silent over what Russia was doing in the special military operation, they already lost a lot of credibility.
She's using all of that Harry Potter money to create a brave new world. She's not so different from the rest of the stinking, filthy rich. She was once poor and she should be championing the poor, not stepping on fellow humans.
Let them know (politely) how cowardly they are, why you won't support them, and why you'll tell everyone you know not to support them: https://www.amnesty.org/en/about-us/contact/
I still have some contacts in Amnesty from when I went through sone interview rounds for a position I didn't end up taking. They all seemed pretty friendly and direct, and like they'd be strongly opposed to this. Kinda tempted to mail them to see whether they have anything to say.
Huge nothing burger. Dude replied pretty quick, but it was just standard "isn't authorised to comment on the issue" stuff. Can't blame him, I guess. Entirely different department in an entirely different country.
I understand being upset with AMNESTY, but having people pull support is exactly what JK Rowling's goal is. This call to action is a house dividing against itself.
If a wall has a hole in it, you patch the hole, or build a new wall. Tearing it down before building a new wall would demonstrate a level of recklessness bordering on suicidality.
That seems very radical. Why entirely abolish an organization that generally fights for the greater good, just because it failed once or a few times? What is going to take its place?
Have I ever implied that nothing should be done?
Of course we need to fight for change.
I simply doubt that axing the entire organization is a good solution. That would be like fighting your potential ally.
We're not axing them, we don't have that power it's just rhetoric. We're pressuring them. They need to know that the general public will NOT stand for billionaire bigots sticking their ugly noses in our affairs. That's the position we're in now because THEY caved.
Most of the people who enabled the Holocaust did so by convincing themselves what they were doing was for the greater good.
The ordinary German police officers who did most of the actual grunt work of rounding people up? Those who didn't actively support it probably told themselves, "I'm just enforcing the law. I may not agree with it, but I can't judge the law. And if I don't follow orders, I'll lose my job. Then I won't be able to do any good at all in the community, including arresting actual thieves and killers."
The university professor that handed a list of Jewish students to the Gestapo? "I don't support this. I have nothing against Jewish people. But if I don't do this, I'll lose my job, and then I won't be able to help any students at all."
Sure, the worst crimes of the Holocaust were carried out by true monsters that fully supported it. But the vast majority of the actual work was carried out by people "just following orders." And I'm sure they told themselves all sorts of stories about how they were picking the least evil or destructive path.
There's a reason in On Tyranny, the first rule is Don't Comply in Advance. Authoritarians can accomplish some of their goals through direct state power, but most of their authority is just given to them by cowards not wanting a fight. Look at Trump's attempts targeting the healthcare of minors. He issued a completely illegal executive order trying to ban minors from receiving trans healthcare. He has absolutely no authority to do so. Those hospitals that have fought back have won easily in court. But a lot of hospital administrators, even those in blue states, are craven cowards. We saw a lot of hospitals in blue states complying with this illegal order rather than put up a fight.
What Amnesty should have done is use this as a fundraising opportunity. Do you have any idea what kind of funding and publicity they could have achieved if they had stood up to the witch? Sure she's a billionaire, but Amnesty is not some small operation on a ragtag budget. They have 2500 employees and a budget in the hundreds of millions. They have the money to hire lawyers. And they could easily have used the fight as a massive fundraising opportunity. The ads write themselves. "We stand for the rights of even the most vilified people!"
Instead they chose the path of cowardice. They've damned themselves.
Why support an organisation that won't support us? That's just pointless. They've made their position clear: They don't care about us enough to stand by us.
What they should have done is take up the fight and start a fundraiser if needed. Instead they decided to be useless cowards and run away.
The idea is to put pressure on them in hopes they'll do the right thing, and if not (as is most likely), then put your support towards someone who will, instead.
It's as mercenary as deciding they didn't want to spend the financial and political capital on a war against child-wizard-nazi-Karen given the way the shit winds are blowing, Randy
No, they caved to legal threats. That's an entirely different thing to agreeing with these anti-rights people. Their opinion is in the documents that got pulled but they're not strong or brave enough to stand by them.
Or they may really be reviewing them to republish when they're sure they can legally defend every statement in there.
Not having the guts to follow through when attempting to fight for a cause is not collaborating against that cause. Sheesh.
E: What you are teaching Amnesty, and anyone else watching, is that it is better not to try to fight for human rights. Because if you ever have to take a step back, you will be dragged through the mud.
Can you focus on villains and ignore institutions that aid and abet them? This is hardly Amnesty's only shameful failure in recent years.
Would the better option not be to pressure them into removing the current leadership and culture that is causing them to betray their purpose? To let them know this is unacceptable instead if endorsing it as you suggest?
Yes you can. Especially since they're not aiding and abetting, just bending to them, probably temporarily.
Sometimes you have to be strategic and compromise, no matter how much it sucks. We know Amnesty generally does good, so it's unlikely that they're doing this latest thing just for shits and giggles.
No. Simply no. You don't get to compromise on human rights. People in privilege don't get to tell people who are being oppressed that they just have to compromise on existing. That's ridiculous. They're absolutely aiding and abetting. Rowling and her fascist bigot friends wanted to report pulled and they pulled it. They did everything the enemy wanted.
As for what I know, I know that the Amnesty of today is not the same as the Amnesty of 20 years ago. Maybe you need to learn that too because I don't have as much faith in them as you have. This is not a one-off this is another black mark in a disturbing trend. I do not trust them at all.
That's a nice high horse you've got there. It sounds like you've never had to make a hard choice in your life, where there are only bad options to choose from. I don't know if that's the case, but you make it sound like it. What were the options available to Amnesty? Do you think they pulled the report just to be nice to the anti-trans people? Retreating and regrouping isn't always a bad strategy.
Does it suck that the report was pulled? Yes. Do I like that Amnesty was censored? Hell no.
I'm guessing that the report will be released again, in some time, when their legal team has had a look at it and made sure it's legally safe to release. In the mean time, do spread the word, not that Amnesty is bad, but that Rowling and the anti-trans people are censoring an organisation that's been a force for good for the last 65+ years.
If that's how you feel, let them know that in the first paragraph, and in the second explain why they should have stood up to her and her anti-trans-rights tyranny. Don't let them throw trans people under her bus and think people won't care. Let them know how disappointed you are that such a great organization, which produced such a truthful call to justice, would fold rather than defend its truth in court just because the hate has deep pockets. Remind them that there's plenty of evidence showing the list is correct and if they counter-sue they could reach into those deep pockets and win enough to fund years more of their good work in the world.
Jk Rowling's? The UK government that places the burden of proof in libel cases on the defendent to prove that their statement is true in a court of law, while the plaintiff just has to show their reputation was damaged?
I'm not at all a fan of them removing the report, but it's not exactly a mystery who else you could blame for the situation.
If only Amnesty were a massive organization with a budget in the hundreds of millions, and an opportunity to use this fight as a massive PR coup and fundraising opportunity.
No. I place the blame on Amnesty. They're just doing the Nazi "I'm just following orders" line.
Retracting a report that they didn't think they could legally defend in court is a long way from justifying comparisons to Nazis.
Personally I would have rathered that they removed the report and released the information from the perspective of the US chapter with mildly revamped wording, but I get the course of action.
I'm not convinced it would be a pr coup or net financial win for them to publicly be unable to prove that "gender critical" organizations are defacto anti-rights in general, or that Rowling's sexual violence charity that was mentioned in specific was.
When the argument is that they over generalized and named organizations as guilty by association without justification, they wouldn't be arguing trans rights or equality but specific public policy stances.
Appearing to argue that a rape support center is in violation of human rights by catering to cis women isn't going to be the pr coup.
It doesn't matter that they're clearly anti trans and founded because the alternative didn't exclude trans women and had a trans director: amnesty would need to show they were an an anti rights organization.
I'm not saying that I like that they took down the report or apologized. Nor am I saying that any of the groups are accepting or good.
I'm just saying that Rowling and the stupid uk libel laws are better targets for ire.
No, the comparison to Nazis is perfectly appropriate. If you don't want to be compared to Nazis, don't pick up where they left off. If you do the work of the Nazis, you are a Nazi.
You ever seen this photo before? It's often included with little context in school history books. It was one of the first major Nazi book burnings.
What history books often leave out is that this book burning was the torching of the archives of the Berlin Institute for Sexual Science. This was an early queer and transgender support and research center. They provided some of the first trans hormone and surgical treatments. The institute's founder, Magnus Hirschfeld was an early pioneer of trans studies and even coined the term "transsexual."
In 1933 the Nazis raided the institute and burned its archives. Magnus had to flee for his life to France. Many of those involved in the institute fled the country as well. And countless trans people in Germany ended up rounded up and dying in Nazi concentration camps.
This purge actually predicated much of the advancements in trans healthcare in the US. Just like how many German physicists fled to the US, many of the early pioneers in trans science ended up in the US and helped start programs here.
This has actually been adjudicated in court:
In 2022, the Regional Court of Cologne ruled that denying that transgender people were victims of the Nazis qualifies as "a denial of Nazi crimes".[127][128] The ruling was an outcome of the civil libel suit of German biologist Marie-Luise Vollbrecht, who alleged libel against the German Society for Trans Identity and Intersexuality over their response to comments she made calling transgender people not "true victims" of Nazi crimes.[129][130][131] The court ultimately ruled that she had to accept the response made to her comments labelling her as a denialist.
If you don't want to be compared to the Nazis, don't do Nazi shit.
And yes, the comparison with Amnesty is perfectly valid. Amnesty aren't themselves involved in the persecution of trans people, but they're looking the other way, just as countless regular Germans did.
The disagreement about a comparison to Nazis isn't about what the Nazis did, or that doing what they did would justify comparison, it's that I fundamentally disagree that taking down an allegedly libelous document is the same as mass murder.
I'm familiar with the horrors of the Nazis, you don't need to rehash.
I'm not sure how a German court case about denying Nazi crimes has bearing on a theoretical UK court case about if an organization has a specific policy position.
You earlier mentioned that the case could be a PR and fundraising opportunity.
Have you considered if you would want them to fight it if they thought it would do the opposite? What if they just spent a bunch of money giving the assholes a platform to spew hate?
I'm painfully aware of them, constantly used to justify US foreign policy, they have always sucked ass, this is not surprising at all for anyone who has been paying attention
shes essentially like a right wing christian group/think tank providing legal expertise for free for anyone wanting to challenge pro-lgbtq+, or anything evangelicals dont like legislation in the states. SEE KIM DAVIS, shes being bankrolled by so many groups.
I had no idea this had happened. And reading about it now I'm mostly just feeling disgust and disappointment.
Rowling herself has always disgusted me since showing her true colours. Fuck, I actually bought her books, back in the days when the Harry potter series was still unfinished. I feel strangely ashamed of spending that money, even though we didn't then know the nastiness she was hiding. Feels kinda like I gave cash to a homeless person who used it to buy a knife that stabbed someone. My money supported her hate, it's an ugly feeling.
Disappointment with amnesty. Why couldn't they stand firm? She's a fuckin bigot and should absolutely be called out for it. In fact, she's not just a casual bigot, like one of those people you work with who sometimes comes out with an uncomfortable comment, but when you challenge them they're maybe kind of willing to say they don't really mean it, whatever. Rowling is a committed, evangelical bigot. She has a platform and a shit load of money and she uses it to spread hate.
If humanity manages to become properly civilised one day, her name will be remembered as one of the people who held us back.
She's exactly the type of person Amnesty should stand firm against. And instead they bend over. Probably on the advice of their lawyers, whatever, it's not good enough. If they ended up in court over this, how many of us would have donated towards their legal costs? Me, for one, and hopefully a whole lot of us.
I'm not gay, I'm not trans, so I've never had to deal with that discrimination, the aggression, the angry incomprehension. Never had to feel alone and hated by the world. Fuck sake, these people have enough shit to deal with already - to want to add to that, to encourage the mob to do the same, that's a special level of nasty. I don't want to use the word lightly, but I think it's not unusual to say evil.
And Amnesty, who should be standing firm for people who need someone to lean on, they buckle. They back away and they fuckin apologise.
Don't spare the UK legal system its share of blame.
Amnesty International UK has to play by the same rules as UK trans advocates on Twitter or simple reporters, who were rather notoriously compelled to apologies for accurate describing Rowling as a "TERF" even though that term is already biased in her favor.
she came out anti-trans around the same time musk did. hers was more surprising since she writes HP books, you generally dont think someone is that bat shit crazy, supporting feminist/women rights was positive.
even most of her characthers alluding to her bigotry. cho chang, basically calling a ching chong to a chinese person, goblin=stereotypical jewish person.
People understand what a jihad is, but most also understand that the average muslim is more likey to die at the hands of a jihadist than a jew, christian, buddhist or hindu is.. but Israel is being run by a man with a world of legal peril over his head amd as long as he’s got an active war and the support of the white nationalists in his own country, he can stay in power. Sound familiar? Peas in a pod and all that.
It's not their fault. The laws of the UK literally let a billionaire bully anyone who says anything mean about them, no matter how honest or true, into issuing an apology.
Amnesty International UK did the same thing that (a theoretical) Amnesty International Iran or Amnesty International North Korea would have done, which is give an empty apology when threatened with facing government retaliation.
Nah, she's doing worse. But I don't want to say exactly what consequences trans kids in the UK have suffered because of her, so I went with a milder example.
Hatsune Miku is a racist, misogynistic, antisemitic, fatphobic, anti-intellectual chud. Her Harry Potter books defend slavery, belittle women and reading, and have no political or cultural competency or creativity. Hatsune Miku is a deeply problematic and harmful writer.
I especially hated the scene Hatsune Miku wrote, in which it's Christmas at Grimmauld Place, so Harry and the gang dress up the severed slave heads in little Santa hats and beards.
Rachel Rostad wrote a great poem about the racism and misogyny embedded in Cho Chang's writing.
To JK Rowling, from Cho Chang.
When you put me in your books, millions of Asian girls across America rejoiced! Finally, a potential Halloween costume that wasn't a geisha or Mulan! What’s not to love about me? I’m everyone’s favorite character! I totally get to fight tons of Death Eaters and have a great sense of humor and am full of complex emotions!
Oh wait. That’s the version of Harry Potter where I’m not fucking worthless.
First of all, you put me in Ravenclaw. Of course the only Asian at Hogwarts would be in the nerdy house. Too bad there wasn't a house that specialized in computers and math and karate, huh?
I know, you thought you were being tolerant. Between me, Dean, and the Indian twins, Hogwarts has like... five brown people? It doesn't matter we’re all minor characters. Nah, you’re not racist! Just like how you’re not homophobic, because Dumbledore’s totally gay! Of course it’s never said in the books, but man. Hasn't society come so far? Now gays don’t just have to be closeted in real life—they can even be closeted fictionally!
Ms. Rowling. Let’s talk about my name. Cho. Chang. Cho and Chang are both last names. They are both Korean last names. I am supposed to be Chinese. Me being named “Cho Chang” is like a Frenchman being named “Garcia Sanchez.”
So thank you. Thank you for giving me no heritage. Thank you for giving me a name as generic as a ninja costume. As chopstick hair ornaments.
Ms. Rowling, I know you’re just the latest participant in a long tradition of turning Asian women into a tragic fetish. Madame Butterfly. Japanese woman falls in love with a white soldier, is abandoned, kills herself. Miss Saigon. Vietnamese woman falls in love with a white soldier, is abandoned, kills herself. Memoirs Of A Geisha. Lucy Liu in leather. Schoolgirl porn.
So let me cry over boys more than I speak. Let me fulfill your diversity quota. Just one more brown girl mourning her white hero.
No wonder Harry Potter’s got yellow fever. We giggle behind small hands and “no speak Engrish.” What else could a man see in me? What else could I be but what you made me? Subordinate. Submissive. Subplot.
Go ahead. Tell me I’m overreacting. Ignore the fact that your books have sold 400 million copies worldwide. I am plastered across movie screens, a bestselling caricature.
Last summer, I met a boy who spoke like rain against windows. He had his father’s blue eyes. He’d press his wrist against mine and say he was too pale. That my skin was so much more beautiful. To him, I was Pacific sunset, almond milk, a porcelain cup.
When he left me, I told myself I should have seen it coming. I wasn't sure I was sad but I cried anyway. Girls who look like me are supposed to cry over boys who look like him. I’d seen all the movies and read all the books. We were just following the plot.
I also wanna recommend Zero Woolfe's video "You weren't supposed to like Hermione": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycaSiLp1J_U&t=14, whose arguments I would struggle to do justice to if I tried to summarise.
Buuuut, I will add My own piece of evidence in support of Woolfe's point:
The annoying girl who likes reading is so convinced of her own self-righteousness, and so socially oblivious, she tries to become a woke activist. She creates a laughable anti-slavery organisation called SPEW, and tries to tell the slaves that she knows their needs better than them, going so far as to try and trick them into becoming free. What a stuck up bitch! This is what happens when women read too many books!
Not a slime mold though those can solve mazes and puzzles and shit. You can tell Joanne can't shit because of how much of it comes out her mouth. [see diagram below]
Just because this was put into 4 panels with some "art" does not make this a comic. I don't disagree with it, but this just seems like a political post in the funny pages.
Comics is a medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically takes the form of a sequence of panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, captions, and onomatopoeia can indicate dialogue, narration, sound effects, or other information. There is no consensus among theorists and historians on a definition of comics
Comics aren’t simply “haha funny”. They can be political, depressing, informative, and so on. A comic is simply the medium of expression.
As a detransitioned trans woman, I always love masturbating to the thought of Rowling being my long-long aunt who loves giving handjobs to her naughty nephews. That bitch is into some freaky shit in my imagination, I tell you truthfully.
There should be nuance and acceptance that in a world of over 8 billion people with tens of thousands of ethnic groups and cultures with varying histories, religions, moralities, and social norms that there will always be people/groups who consider some things others do/believe to be abhorrent and evil.
Every single human being can point to things that others in the world do that they consider to be anathema. And every single human on earth considers things normal and completely acceptable that other humans see as anathema. Many times these things are very firmly held beliefs, especially for the things we consider to be awful and wrong.
How do you feel about eating dogs, cats, horses, cows, pigs, whales, guinea pigs, blood, and insects? Arranged marriages? Marrying a first cousin? Homosexuality? Public affection including holding hands? Tipping? Polygyny? Polyandry? Pederasty (older men having mentoring/sexual relationships with adolescent boys)? Female genital mutilation? Male genital mutilation?
How about placing parents/elders in asisted living or nursing homes? Euthanasia? Physical punishment of children (spanking)? Embalming the dead? Cannibalism? Public gun ownership though it leads to huge numbers of deaths? Criminalization of speech considered blasphemous (ex. images of Allah)? Criminalization of speech considered hateful?
Everyone who bothers to read this will find many things on that list to be wrong, and at least several to be horrific and evil. There are cultures who consider every single thing I've listed to be wrong, and there are cultures that consider those very same things to be completely normal.
Comparing the legal codes of varying places is a great way to see how very geographical and culture based morality and acceptable behavior and speech truly are.
The Armenian Genocide is illegal to deny in Switzerland and France... but it's illegal to affirm it happened in Turkey. In Iran and Afghanistan it's illegal for a woman to remove a hijab/head covering... but in France and Quebec it's illegal public civil servants or students to wear one. In Thailand it's illegal to mock the king or royal family, and people have gone to prison for decades for just clicking "like" on social media posts determined to do that. In many other countries mocking leadership is both allowed and expected. What political/idological symbols are criminalized, if any, depends entirely on regional history.
In most of India slaughtering cows is evil and criminal. In Vietnam and much of China dog meat is a traditional winter staple, but in the US it's a federal crime.... weirdly enough it didn't become one until 2018. Many people in France, Italy, and Japan consider horse meat a delicacy, but slaughtering horses for human consumption is effectively illegal in the US and UK. In France it's illegal to sell a liver as "foie gras" unless the bird was force fed through a tube to enlarge it's liver, but in California and a lot of other places doing that is a felony. Yeah, torturing ducks and geese for weeks by cramming way too much food into them through tubes before killing them is a crime some places but an actual legal requirement in France.
And finally for the topic in the comic. In some places in the world validating a transgender person's identity is considered wrong enough that it's seen as an extremist crime leading to arrest or worse. In some places in the world it's expected as a basic human right and to show basic decency and if you don't you're seen as a complete sack of shit. And in some places it's the polar opposite of the first, and repeatedly refusing to acknowledge a transgender person's identity (misgendering) or spreading anti-LGBTQ messaging is a criminal act.
There is no one universal truth or morality. When someone's acts or beliefs are things you personally consider pure evil it can be a teensy bit hard to not see them as evil people. It's much harder when it's a thing you find deeply important to your self and life. It's nearly impossible when two people both believe strongly in total opposite directions about the same thing. There are people in the world who believe eating dogs is evil. There are people in the world who believe putting elders in nursing homes is evil. Much of the west considers female genital mutilation evil while routinely practicing male genital mutilation. And some people see affirming a gender change as evil, while many see not affirming it as evil.
That doesn't mean that the people who hold views and norms that do not line up with your own are evil. It's virtually certain that something you and every other person on earth considers a normal act or stance is something many other people consider unforgivably terrible. Yes, some people refuse to acknowledge transgender people's identities, and that's really shitty. It would be wonderful if everyone in the world could just be cool to everyone else in the world. But the massive amount of different people, religions, beliefs, family, cultural, and regional histories makes that extremely unrealistic.
It's always been that way, but the internet growing to connect most of humanity has pushed it into focus. Maybe over time open global communication between people will lead to everyone being accepting of everyone regardless of differences, and minimize those difference between us. But at this point in history the differences are still there, and still sharp. Suddenly we all see people in the world who are saying our actions or morals or even our very identities are awful and wrong, and they seem as horrible and crazy to us as we do to them.
If we're to get better and grow as a species we're probably going to need to stop seeing people who don't agree with us or have the same norms and beliefs as being evil monsters who need to die. There's an awful part of being human that makes us want to be part of a social group and shun the outsider. To decide that those who aren't with or like us in our beliefs and norms are evil and bad and to be hated. And even worse, when we feel socially and morally justified in hating someone it feels good to vent that anger and hate at them. When someone sees your beliefs or acts as immoral and evil it's easy to define that as them being hateful. And evil. And immoral. And because their norms and world views don't align with yours, they are evil and bad. And you both spew hate at one another, and you both feel good doing it, and your own mental and emotional health and that of the world only suffers for it.
Instead of trying to understand one another or simply accepting that with 8 billion people spread across like 15,000 cultures of course some people will find some other people's acts/beliefs to be immoral and deciding to focus on spreading love and compassion our lives and the world, we get sucked into some insane hatred cycle. We get stuck thinking people who aren't like us are evil and want us to die and wanting the same. That shit festers. It causes some bit of emotional and mental damage to everyone who encounters it in posts and hateful arguing, but it always poisons the people having those arguments most of all. When you spend your time focusing on how awful you think other people are and hating them and being angry those emotions aren't harming anyone but you. You're choosing to spend your time sitting there and poisoning yourself inside. It's an awful way to live and it does nothing at all to help make the world a better and more accepting place. The last thing the world needs is more festering hate and anger.
Maybe we should all try to focus on things that make us feel good instead. Things that make us feel warm, and smiley. Making sure at the end of the day we can remember even just one small thing we did that day that made someone else smile or laugh or feel seen.
You are describing cultural relativism. Which seems great on the surface but falls flat against things like the golden rule. Which is where you eventually land in your comment.
I'm going to attempt to TLDR your post, there is nuance to be had, but only so far as that nuance doesn't justify irreversible damage or behaviors that are hateful (and damaging as a result) with no objective basis. We should all be kinder to each other.
No, it does not fall flat against the golden rule. It's upheld by the golden rule. Treat others the way you want to be treated. Since different people from different cultures with different beliefs and mindsets have different norms and see different things as being moral or immoral, the way those people would want to be treated about those things is not the same.
Pederasty didn't die with ancient Greece and other old timey cultures. There are places in the world where it's still a cultural norm. Grown men having sexual relationships with adolescent boys. Do you condone that as completely normal? Do you make sure you don't say anything that could offend those people, and do your best to uphold what they think is moral and right? Prolly not. Most of us are more likely to see them as evil and awful and protest their way of life, not support it even though it's different from what our cultures would accept. I imagine they have to see that as hating them and trying to eradicate anyone like them and the way of life they see as normal. Because we think their sexual practices are disgusting and wrong. Sound familiar?
Because of cultural differences people think it is right to shun or punish them for different things. People in each region are shunned, punished, and imprisoned for the things considered wrong to their culture. And those things can be very different or completely contradictory depending on the culture.
If you killed a female relative in what some places call an honor killing more than likely because of your own culture, upcoming, and ideology you would expect to be shunned and imprisoned for that. Because that's an awful thing. From your point of view everyone shunning and punishing you for killing a woman is justified. It's how you should be treated.
There are places in the world where people feel the complete opposite. The norms are completely different. People there might take a risk and not killing a female relative who did something that would be considered dishonorable. And when their society shuns them for that they would consider that justified and how they should be treated. Likewise if they're celebrated for committing the killing.
Putting your parents and grandparents in nursing homes is considered normal in a lot of our countries. Most of us don't see or interact with them nearly enough, and we do it because taking care of them in person in our own homes is something we consider to be too much of a burden. When you tell someone that you 'had' to put your mom in a nursing home, you likely expect them to be sympathetic. To feel that you dealt with a tough, emotional thing. You expect care and concern, and that is how you want to be treated and feel you should treat others for that act.
And a lot of cultures that's considered elder abandonment and unthinkably immoral. People from those cultures would be horrified if you told them that. They would ask why you felt you 'had' to abandon the mother that raised you in a nursing home with strangers. That's how they would feel they would deserve to be treated in the same situation, even though you with your culture upbringing likely wouldn't agree.
Our culture typically considered things like homosexuality and transgenderism to be abnormal or wrong. Western culture. The us, europe, most of us. Over time we've moved on and changed. But just because we have doesn't mean everyone has, or ever will, or has to. It sucks and seems insane and awful to us because we mostly can't understand why anyone would possibly be so concerned over what other consenting adult someone is having sex with or what they do with their own sexual organs or prefer to be referred to as.
Writing a long message that disagrees with the prevailing social expectation of comments in a post like this is something I expect to be shunned for. Certainly not how I would prefer to be treated for bothering to put thought and effort into the topic, but expected.
The problem with the golden rule is that just like there's no universal morality there is no universal way a person wants to be treated. No one wants to be supported and applauded for doing something they consider horrifyingly evil. No one wants to be hated and imprisoned for doing something they consider completely normal and right. Since the things people feel are terrible or traditional change from person to person, so does how each person would find it right to be treated if involved with those things.
When the people from cultures different from your own treat you in a way differently than you would be expected about something their culture sees differently than you do they are following the Golden rule from their point of view.
Hell, read a lot of their replies on this post. There is a whole lot of hatred in here. There are wishes in here for JK Rowling to be sexually assaulted or raped. That's not following the golden rule. That's the disgusting part of human nature where it feels good to vent hate and anger at people we feel socially justified in hating. That's definitely not just on the other side of the fence on this topic, or any topic.
I end with saying we should all try to focus on things that make us feel good and making the lives of others better, and you reply with "get fucked."
Not because I hate trans people. I don't. Not because I don't fully support them dealing with that however they're most comfortable. I do. Not because I hate or avoid anyone on the rainbow spectrum. I don't.
Just because I'm willing to accept that not everyone in the world is going to share my values and beliefs, take the time and thought to spend over an hour writing out why, and suggest that maybe trying to focus on the things that make us happy and make the lives of other people better would make the world a better place that festering in hatred of the things and people you find hateful.
Honestly? That's the sort of thing you're willing to treat other people like shit for? That's the sort of person you want to be?
Yes get fucked, you sit there and write a long winded take on why we should just accept when people hate us for existing. That is not a neutral or nice take.
And I will never bury my head in the sand and only focus on nice things when our right to live is under assault.
We can peacefully disagree on pizza toppings, not on human rights.
People disagree on human rights all the time. It's something that a civilized society solves through politics. Voting to enshrine rights as law or not. I'm sure you would agree that adult men having sexual relationships with adolescent boys would not be a fantastic thing to make a legal right. There are plenty of things that I'm sure you wouldn't support as human rights that other people would prefer were.
If I'm missing it please link me, but the people you are saying are assaulting your right to live are seemingly mainly saying people should have the right to say things that others consider hateful about themselves as free speech, and being stupid and Petty about who uses what bathroom.
You're saying you can't peacefully disagree, which directly implies that violence is necessary. People in this thread have hoped for JK Rowling to be assaulted, raped, or just die. That seems to be an extremist difference if the people you are hating so vehemently your wishing violence and death on them are just saying they should have the right to openly say that they don't support or agree with something.
I would agree that people are assholes for having those opinions, but people are allowed to have shitty opinions. People voicing those loudly are people to avoid. Not people to hope die.
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I wonder what has to go through a persons head when they threaten to fight amnesty international?
I mean I don't believe AI is impartial when it comes to geopolitics and providing cover for war and invasions and conflicts, but they are still mostly on mission.
Probably I have billions and a single minded goal to ruin the rights of trans people and make their lives miserable.
Someone needs to find a way to stand up to that woman in a meaningful way.
Also shame on amnesty for capitulation.
Back when she was something, Rowling's attention to human rights inspired me to do better, and even to try and start a career working with human rights NGOs.
It's insane to me how she's come right around and is now attacking what she once stood for, and using the might of her wealth to do it (something she also used to despise).
Voldemort got the giants on his side (other than Grawp) by promising them equal rights. The Ministry of Magic is very oppressive towards magical creatures, and this is intended by the author. Dumbledore points it out after he and voldemort wreck the wizard supremacist statue. So Voldemort is (dishonestly) promising equality to the giants to get them to revolt. The giants want equal rights.
So at the end of the last book, Harry kills Voldemort. And the giants lose their rebellion and go back to being excluded from society and denied the right to wands. And the final line before the epilogue is "all was well".
Rowling is savvy enough to identify problems in society, but she cannot write stories about solving problems in society, because she doesn't know how. She doesn't understand human rights. She never stood for improving rights.
She was working for Amnesty international when she came up with the book idea.
And the books are filled with examples of the need for human rights. She had clearly spent a lot of time on the topic, and cared enough to make them a core part of the books.
Sirius's lack of a trial, the forbidden curses (torture, slavery, death). Rita Skeeter and Dolores Umbridge taught me about media propaganda and the creep and pomposity of authoritarianism.
Yeah she wasn't great at follow through but in the early days, the hope was there.
Also, they're kids' books. They're supoosed to introduce concepts to the reader, not analyse or prosthetylise over them.
The Owl House is a kids show, yet Luz Noceda manages to completely reform the demon realm's education system and government. It is possible for heroes to actually improve the world they inhabit to a better standard than when they found it. Harry just didn't do that.
What a fucking waste.
Never wanted to look into it, now I had to scroll her Twitter to see that response of her is genuine, now I am mentally unstable.
Disclaimer: it might be the Twitter experience all in all, I usually do not set foot in that realm.
Thanks JK Rowling.
OF COURSE all the press support she gets is from the Telegraph, aka the Daily Telegraph, paper owned by Axel Springer Konzern, which gives its best award to Peter fucking Thiel.
That same week she posted an upskirt picture of a woman in retaliation for her refusing to debate
Wow, the PDF was scrubbed thoroughly from the net. archive.is doesn't have it (just a screenshot of the first page), archive.org has removed it ...
Has anyone managed to find the original PDF elsewhere?
the document was named
"Report_-_A_growing_threat__the_anti-rights_movement_in_the_UK_July_2026.pdf"
EDIT: Found a copy elsewhere. https://wingsoverscotland.com/Report_-_A_growing_threat__the_anti-rights_movement_in_the_UK_July_2026.pdf
I haven't read it yet and thus have no opinions on it. But I object to Orwellian memory-holing, so f*ck censorship.
https://jkrowlingcensoredthis.online/
More info:
On the page https://tacc.org.uk/2026/07/13/amnesty-international-uks-anti-rights-report-has-been-withdrawn-for-review-why-it-still-matters/
Thanks for the PDF, looks like it's my RPi seedbox's time to shine!
EDIT: Here's the magnet link for anyone interested :3, it's not like UK lawsuits have any effect here(unless Italy has a secret treaty with the MI6 or some shit). Anyone can help me seed?
Adding now
Thanks :3
Fuck Rowling. You matter 🏳️⚧️
What i dont get is how can she be as rich as she is, with as much inherent admiration, adoration and respect that comes with how she got that rich, and this is how she chooses to spend life?
Fucks sake you could live in Disneyland microdosing LSD while everyone who sees you is absolutely thrilled just to be near you.
With such options she selected hatred.
Why bother?
I think for a lot of people once their needs are met, they're free to find out what an asshole they really can be.
People working through life often don't have time for frivolities like boosting a worldwide hate club that tries to take away human rights.
We can't know for sure, and I won't definitively say it or use male pronouns for her. But a lot of her past comments hint that she may actually be a repping trans guy. Hell, some of the broader themes of Harry Potter are trans-coded. It would explain a lot. This seems very personal to her.
And at this point, if she really is a repping trans guy, could she even come out and transition? If she did, it would be a very lonely experience. It's not like she would be welcome in the trans community. You can't do that much harm to a group, even while secretly a member of that group, and expect to be accepted by them. And she would in turn lose all her connections among the TERF crowd.
It's not the first time I've heard that idea. I recall a comment once in which it was claimed that JKR said that if she were a teenager in the present time, she would probably have transitioned. Unfortunately I could not find any source for that claim, but given just how insane she's been on the matter, I wouldn't be surprised if there was something going on there. Same for Linehan, honestly.
Personally I would forgive her, IF that turned out to be true, AND she made a public apology for everything awful she ever said, AND threw her financial weight behind actually fighting for trans rights, AND opened a school or something specifically for disadvantaged trans kids, and kept doing such things to the point that it actually made a positive impact, then I would say she had redeemed herself.
But I'm not holding my breath for even one picosecond, thinking that it would actually happen.
I don't think I can say I'd forgive her, but I'd give her a chance to do more good than harm
That's fair, I mean there's so many awful things she'd have to make up for before I even started to feel any sort of forgiveness.
What I remember is an interview where she said "I should have been born a boy" or something to that extent.
It is all too easy to see how you can fall into the TERF mindset as a transmasc in denial because it probably makes about as little sense to her why anyone would want to be a woman as it makes to me why anyone would want to be a man, therefore anyone who wants to transition to a woman must have ulterior motives. But it really shouldn't be a high ask to have a modicum of empathy to realize other people just feel different lol
Okay so I've read a LOT of analysis of that line, and done a fair amount Myself. There are two camps on it: One group says Robert is a repressed trans guy. The other group says Joanne is pretending to lean trans, in order to present herself as an insider and speak from a position of both authority and sympathy, so she can lie to people better.
Personally, I only found out about that interview during the research phase of a blog article I had already decided to write, about how Robert really hates women and views womanhood negatively, so maybe he's trans. https://medium.com/@viridiangrail/does-jk-rowling-want-to-be-a-man-568cb1aa4ca5
she likely was scorned by a trans person in her life.
Or she's deeply internalized misogyny and feels oppositional sexism is an internally safer outlet for it.
Amnesty international has been shit for a while, they have some Ws but they always help manufacture consent for war and then say "oopsie, didn't know it wasn't true that comically evil fabrication wasn't true"
Also, NATO.
A tangible example of where the money people spend on harry potter goes.
people are still defending her, because they cant let go off the HP franchise.
Its why I am absoutely disgusted by anyone who spends money on it.
What a bunch of cowards.
They talk about human rights and post evidently empty shit like “We exist so that a world where everyone can live freely, fairly and with dignity is possible”, but fold like a wet napkin when Rowling threatens legal action.
Good to know that we can’t rely on AMNESTY to protect basic human rights anymore.
Fucking hell, we are absolutely fucked, aren’t we?
When Amnesty reported on Ukraine but stayed silent over what Russia was doing in the special military operation, they already lost a lot of credibility.
Holy shit. That’s dark.
She's using all of that Harry Potter money to create a brave new world. She's not so different from the rest of the stinking, filthy rich. She was once poor and she should be championing the poor, not stepping on fellow humans.
@Quokka Holy fuck I hadn't heard this.
I can't believe Amnesty folded. A new stage of the apocalypse unlocked.
once they retracted it legitimizes her claims, and sets up precedence for future, when they go on the offense again.
Let them know (politely) how cowardly they are, why you won't support them, and why you'll tell everyone you know not to support them: https://www.amnesty.org/en/about-us/contact/
I still have some contacts in Amnesty from when I went through sone interview rounds for a position I didn't end up taking. They all seemed pretty friendly and direct, and like they'd be strongly opposed to this. Kinda tempted to mail them to see whether they have anything to say.
Do it!
Huge nothing burger. Dude replied pretty quick, but it was just standard "isn't authorised to comment on the issue" stuff. Can't blame him, I guess. Entirely different department in an entirely different country.
I understand being upset with AMNESTY, but having people pull support is exactly what JK Rowling's goal is. This call to action is a house dividing against itself.
No JKs goal was to get Amnesty to pull support for trans people, which she succeeded at.
Now it’s our turn to use our voices and throw our weight at Amnesty to do the right thing.
If Amnesty is incapable or unwilling to care, it must fall.
If a wall has a hole in it, you patch the hole, or build a new wall. Tearing it down before building a new wall would demonstrate a level of recklessness bordering on suicidality.
Sorry this made me laugh in Ukrainian
How do you spell lol in Ukrainian?
Лол
Did you just call human rights a pet cause?
I sure am glad that my rights to exist are only a pet cause and not something important! I'm so lucky that a cis person was here to tell me that!
Just say you don't care about everyone equally and own your shittyness you fucking shitmuncher
That seems very radical. Why entirely abolish an organization that generally fights for the greater good, just because it failed once or a few times? What is going to take its place?
Because next time it will be gay people.
Next time it will be Muslims.
Next time it will be Black People.
Next time it will be Women.
Because Fascism does not stop and must not be tolorated.
Ok cool. We'll do something while you do nothing. 🤝
You could also say that Amnesty is doing something, and if you tear it down, then nothing will be done.
Tearing down amnesty international is not doing something lol
I've already answered this criticism. You're too late.
You don't have the ability to build anything that does anything nearly as useful as amnesty international does for humanity.
Have I ever implied that nothing should be done? Of course we need to fight for change. I simply doubt that axing the entire organization is a good solution. That would be like fighting your potential ally.
We're not axing them, we don't have that power it's just rhetoric. We're pressuring them. They need to know that the general public will NOT stand for billionaire bigots sticking their ugly noses in our affairs. That's the position we're in now because THEY caved.
Agreed.
You're punching the wrong people. Way to "do something", jfc.
No we're not. Eat shit.
Who did the nazis target first?
Most of the people who enabled the Holocaust did so by convincing themselves what they were doing was for the greater good.
The ordinary German police officers who did most of the actual grunt work of rounding people up? Those who didn't actively support it probably told themselves, "I'm just enforcing the law. I may not agree with it, but I can't judge the law. And if I don't follow orders, I'll lose my job. Then I won't be able to do any good at all in the community, including arresting actual thieves and killers."
The university professor that handed a list of Jewish students to the Gestapo? "I don't support this. I have nothing against Jewish people. But if I don't do this, I'll lose my job, and then I won't be able to help any students at all."
Sure, the worst crimes of the Holocaust were carried out by true monsters that fully supported it. But the vast majority of the actual work was carried out by people "just following orders." And I'm sure they told themselves all sorts of stories about how they were picking the least evil or destructive path.
There's a reason in On Tyranny, the first rule is Don't Comply in Advance. Authoritarians can accomplish some of their goals through direct state power, but most of their authority is just given to them by cowards not wanting a fight. Look at Trump's attempts targeting the healthcare of minors. He issued a completely illegal executive order trying to ban minors from receiving trans healthcare. He has absolutely no authority to do so. Those hospitals that have fought back have won easily in court. But a lot of hospital administrators, even those in blue states, are craven cowards. We saw a lot of hospitals in blue states complying with this illegal order rather than put up a fight.
What Amnesty should have done is use this as a fundraising opportunity. Do you have any idea what kind of funding and publicity they could have achieved if they had stood up to the witch? Sure she's a billionaire, but Amnesty is not some small operation on a ragtag budget. They have 2500 employees and a budget in the hundreds of millions. They have the money to hire lawyers. And they could easily have used the fight as a massive fundraising opportunity. The ads write themselves. "We stand for the rights of even the most vilified people!"
Instead they chose the path of cowardice. They've damned themselves.
Thank you for putting it in perspective like this. I agree, this should have been an opportunity. My take was not well considered, my apologies.
Why support an organisation that won't support us? That's just pointless. They've made their position clear: They don't care about us enough to stand by us.
What they should have done is take up the fight and start a fundraiser if needed. Instead they decided to be useless cowards and run away.
The idea is to put pressure on them in hopes they'll do the right thing, and if not (as is most likely), then put your support towards someone who will, instead.
It's as mercenary as deciding they didn't want to spend the financial and political capital on a war against child-wizard-nazi-Karen given the way the shit winds are blowing, Randy
Buddy they agreed with her that we're not people. They're not in the house anymore.
No, they caved to legal threats. That's an entirely different thing to agreeing with these anti-rights people. Their opinion is in the documents that got pulled but they're not strong or brave enough to stand by them.
Or they may really be reviewing them to republish when they're sure they can legally defend every statement in there.
Abandoning trans rights should be a financial threat to any organisation. Don't donate to collaborators!
Not having the guts to follow through when attempting to fight for a cause is not collaborating against that cause. Sheesh.
E: What you are teaching Amnesty, and anyone else watching, is that it is better not to try to fight for human rights. Because if you ever have to take a step back, you will be dragged through the mud.
They already divided the house by betraying the people they are supposed to speak for in an effort to appease bigots.
Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Amnesty still has my support. Focus on the real villains instead.
Can you focus on villains and ignore institutions that aid and abet them? This is hardly Amnesty's only shameful failure in recent years.
Would the better option not be to pressure them into removing the current leadership and culture that is causing them to betray their purpose? To let them know this is unacceptable instead if endorsing it as you suggest?
Yes you can. Especially since they're not aiding and abetting, just bending to them, probably temporarily.
Sometimes you have to be strategic and compromise, no matter how much it sucks. We know Amnesty generally does good, so it's unlikely that they're doing this latest thing just for shits and giggles.
No. Simply no. You don't get to compromise on human rights. People in privilege don't get to tell people who are being oppressed that they just have to compromise on existing. That's ridiculous. They're absolutely aiding and abetting. Rowling and her fascist bigot friends wanted to report pulled and they pulled it. They did everything the enemy wanted.
As for what I know, I know that the Amnesty of today is not the same as the Amnesty of 20 years ago. Maybe you need to learn that too because I don't have as much faith in them as you have. This is not a one-off this is another black mark in a disturbing trend. I do not trust them at all.
That's a nice high horse you've got there. It sounds like you've never had to make a hard choice in your life, where there are only bad options to choose from. I don't know if that's the case, but you make it sound like it. What were the options available to Amnesty? Do you think they pulled the report just to be nice to the anti-trans people? Retreating and regrouping isn't always a bad strategy.
Does it suck that the report was pulled? Yes. Do I like that Amnesty was censored? Hell no.
I'm guessing that the report will be released again, in some time, when their legal team has had a look at it and made sure it's legally safe to release. In the mean time, do spread the word, not that Amnesty is bad, but that Rowling and the anti-trans people are censoring an organisation that's been a force for good for the last 65+ years.
Sorry, I’m not in the business of forgiveness.
Dude. They are a great organization. This isn't their fault. Don't be a fuck.
They were great. This is their fault. Refusing to stand up to bigots is tacit approval of their disgusting behavior
And yet they bent the knee to fascist groups
If that's how you feel, let them know that in the first paragraph, and in the second explain why they should have stood up to her and her anti-trans-rights tyranny. Don't let them throw trans people under her bus and think people won't care. Let them know how disappointed you are that such a great organization, which produced such a truthful call to justice, would fold rather than defend its truth in court just because the hate has deep pockets. Remind them that there's plenty of evidence showing the list is correct and if they counter-sue they could reach into those deep pockets and win enough to fund years more of their good work in the world.
It's worse than before now, because they apologised to a genocidal bigot. The BBC is reporting the TERF side of the story with no opposition.
Who else's fault would it be?
Jk Rowling's? The UK government that places the burden of proof in libel cases on the defendent to prove that their statement is true in a court of law, while the plaintiff just has to show their reputation was damaged?
I'm not at all a fan of them removing the report, but it's not exactly a mystery who else you could blame for the situation.
If only Amnesty were a massive organization with a budget in the hundreds of millions, and an opportunity to use this fight as a massive PR coup and fundraising opportunity.
No. I place the blame on Amnesty. They're just doing the Nazi "I'm just following orders" line.
Retracting a report that they didn't think they could legally defend in court is a long way from justifying comparisons to Nazis.
Personally I would have rathered that they removed the report and released the information from the perspective of the US chapter with mildly revamped wording, but I get the course of action.
I'm not convinced it would be a pr coup or net financial win for them to publicly be unable to prove that "gender critical" organizations are defacto anti-rights in general, or that Rowling's sexual violence charity that was mentioned in specific was.
When the argument is that they over generalized and named organizations as guilty by association without justification, they wouldn't be arguing trans rights or equality but specific public policy stances.
Appearing to argue that a rape support center is in violation of human rights by catering to cis women isn't going to be the pr coup.
It doesn't matter that they're clearly anti trans and founded because the alternative didn't exclude trans women and had a trans director: amnesty would need to show they were an an anti rights organization.
I'm not saying that I like that they took down the report or apologized. Nor am I saying that any of the groups are accepting or good.
I'm just saying that Rowling and the stupid uk libel laws are better targets for ire.
No, the comparison to Nazis is perfectly appropriate. If you don't want to be compared to Nazis, don't pick up where they left off. If you do the work of the Nazis, you are a Nazi.
You ever seen this photo before? It's often included with little context in school history books. It was one of the first major Nazi book burnings.
What history books often leave out is that this book burning was the torching of the archives of the Berlin Institute for Sexual Science. This was an early queer and transgender support and research center. They provided some of the first trans hormone and surgical treatments. The institute's founder, Magnus Hirschfeld was an early pioneer of trans studies and even coined the term "transsexual."
In 1933 the Nazis raided the institute and burned its archives. Magnus had to flee for his life to France. Many of those involved in the institute fled the country as well. And countless trans people in Germany ended up rounded up and dying in Nazi concentration camps.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_transgender_people_in_Nazi_Germany
This purge actually predicated much of the advancements in trans healthcare in the US. Just like how many German physicists fled to the US, many of the early pioneers in trans science ended up in the US and helped start programs here.
This has actually been adjudicated in court:
If you don't want to be compared to the Nazis, don't do Nazi shit.
And yes, the comparison with Amnesty is perfectly valid. Amnesty aren't themselves involved in the persecution of trans people, but they're looking the other way, just as countless regular Germans did.
The disagreement about a comparison to Nazis isn't about what the Nazis did, or that doing what they did would justify comparison, it's that I fundamentally disagree that taking down an allegedly libelous document is the same as mass murder.
I'm familiar with the horrors of the Nazis, you don't need to rehash.
I'm not sure how a German court case about denying Nazi crimes has bearing on a theoretical UK court case about if an organization has a specific policy position.
You earlier mentioned that the case could be a PR and fundraising opportunity.
Have you considered if you would want them to fight it if they thought it would do the opposite? What if they just spent a bunch of money giving the assholes a platform to spew hate?
So Amnesty's reputation was damaged by rowling's forcing the retraction, does that work for a revenge libel case?
I think they'd need to argue she said something about them, not just an action or statement.
Be funny for someone to sue over defamation for being accused of defamation though.
No they aren't, yes it is, cry about it
I doubt you even know who they are or what they have done.
I'm painfully aware of them, constantly used to justify US foreign policy, they have always sucked ass, this is not surprising at all for anyone who has been paying attention
Shitmuncher
😥
shes essentially like a right wing christian group/think tank providing legal expertise for free for anyone wanting to challenge pro-lgbtq+, or anything evangelicals dont like legislation in the states. SEE KIM DAVIS, shes being bankrolled by so many groups.
I had no idea this had happened. And reading about it now I'm mostly just feeling disgust and disappointment.
Rowling herself has always disgusted me since showing her true colours. Fuck, I actually bought her books, back in the days when the Harry potter series was still unfinished. I feel strangely ashamed of spending that money, even though we didn't then know the nastiness she was hiding. Feels kinda like I gave cash to a homeless person who used it to buy a knife that stabbed someone. My money supported her hate, it's an ugly feeling.
Disappointment with amnesty. Why couldn't they stand firm? She's a fuckin bigot and should absolutely be called out for it. In fact, she's not just a casual bigot, like one of those people you work with who sometimes comes out with an uncomfortable comment, but when you challenge them they're maybe kind of willing to say they don't really mean it, whatever. Rowling is a committed, evangelical bigot. She has a platform and a shit load of money and she uses it to spread hate.
If humanity manages to become properly civilised one day, her name will be remembered as one of the people who held us back.
She's exactly the type of person Amnesty should stand firm against. And instead they bend over. Probably on the advice of their lawyers, whatever, it's not good enough. If they ended up in court over this, how many of us would have donated towards their legal costs? Me, for one, and hopefully a whole lot of us.
I'm not gay, I'm not trans, so I've never had to deal with that discrimination, the aggression, the angry incomprehension. Never had to feel alone and hated by the world. Fuck sake, these people have enough shit to deal with already - to want to add to that, to encourage the mob to do the same, that's a special level of nasty. I don't want to use the word lightly, but I think it's not unusual to say evil.
And Amnesty, who should be standing firm for people who need someone to lean on, they buckle. They back away and they fuckin apologise.
So yeah, disgust and disappointment.
Sorry, that turned into a rant.
TL;DR : disgust and disappointment!
Don't spare the UK legal system its share of blame.
Amnesty International UK has to play by the same rules as UK trans advocates on Twitter or simple reporters, who were rather notoriously compelled to apologies for accurate describing Rowling as a "TERF" even though that term is already biased in her favor.
she came out anti-trans around the same time musk did. hers was more surprising since she writes HP books, you generally dont think someone is that bat shit crazy, supporting feminist/women rights was positive.
Don't be hard on yourself for buying the books a long time ago. Not only was her public persona very different, but you were also much younger
Harry Potter isn’t good enough to continue supporting this person
Even if it was the best series ever written I still wouldn't support She Who Must Not Be Paid.
even most of her characthers alluding to her bigotry. cho chang, basically calling a ching chong to a chinese person, goblin=stereotypical jewish person.
It used to be illegal to do that sort of thing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champerty_and_maintenance
You mean Robert Galbraith, the holocaust denier?
People understand what a jihad is, but most also understand that the average muslim is more likey to die at the hands of a jihadist than a jew, christian, buddhist or hindu is.. but Israel is being run by a man with a world of legal peril over his head amd as long as he’s got an active war and the support of the white nationalists in his own country, he can stay in power. Sound familiar? Peas in a pod and all that.
Yup. Jihadists killing everybody.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
She's such a disgusting hateful excuse for a human being. The world would be better off for us all if she dropped dead tomorrow
I think an appropriate epithet for her is simply, "The Witch."
Praying St Luigi.
Fuck amnesty international
It's not their fault. The laws of the UK literally let a billionaire bully anyone who says anything mean about them, no matter how honest or true, into issuing an apology.
Amnesty International UK did the same thing that (a theoretical) Amnesty International Iran or Amnesty International North Korea would have done, which is give an empty apology when threatened with facing government retaliation.
The UK is not a country with free speech.
Is there some reason you've misspelled it, which I'm missing ?
No i just stupid lol (tbf tho i did comment at like 4am)
But mostly fuck JR Rowling, the anti-rights crusader.
AmNAZI International
I rarely wish bad things happening to people, but JK Rowling became one of them.
I hope one of the bigots she has empowered mistakes her for a trans woman and follows her into a restroom.
Are you actually commenting that you hope for another person to be assaulted or raped? And people are applauding it? o_O
I hope she gets treated exactly the same way she treats others.
She's posting online saying that she hopes people get followed into the restroom, with the clear intention that something bad happens after that?
Nah, she's doing worse. But I don't want to say exactly what consequences trans kids in the UK have suffered because of her, so I went with a milder example.
That's not what They said. They just implied that They want her to be on the receiving end of the harassment and hatred and bigotry that she empowers
crazy how hatsune miku wrote the entirety of the harry potter series, such an icon.
also, fuck Rowling. May she lose all relevance sooner rather than later.
she finally had to courage to come out anti-trans when she reached a billion, and at the same time musk went anti-trans.
Hatsune Miku is a racist, misogynistic, antisemitic, fatphobic, anti-intellectual chud. Her Harry Potter books defend slavery, belittle women and reading, and have no political or cultural competency or creativity. Hatsune Miku is a deeply problematic and harmful writer.
I especially hated the scene Hatsune Miku wrote, in which it's Christmas at Grimmauld Place, so Harry and the gang dress up the severed slave heads in little Santa hats and beards.
When do the books belittle women and reading?
Rachel Rostad wrote a great poem about the racism and misogyny embedded in Cho Chang's writing.
To JK Rowling, from Cho Chang.
When you put me in your books, millions of Asian girls across America rejoiced! Finally, a potential Halloween costume that wasn't a geisha or Mulan! What’s not to love about me? I’m everyone’s favorite character! I totally get to fight tons of Death Eaters and have a great sense of humor and am full of complex emotions!
Oh wait. That’s the version of Harry Potter where I’m not fucking worthless.
First of all, you put me in Ravenclaw. Of course the only Asian at Hogwarts would be in the nerdy house. Too bad there wasn't a house that specialized in computers and math and karate, huh?
I know, you thought you were being tolerant. Between me, Dean, and the Indian twins, Hogwarts has like... five brown people? It doesn't matter we’re all minor characters. Nah, you’re not racist! Just like how you’re not homophobic, because Dumbledore’s totally gay! Of course it’s never said in the books, but man. Hasn't society come so far? Now gays don’t just have to be closeted in real life—they can even be closeted fictionally!
Ms. Rowling. Let’s talk about my name. Cho. Chang. Cho and Chang are both last names. They are both Korean last names. I am supposed to be Chinese. Me being named “Cho Chang” is like a Frenchman being named “Garcia Sanchez.”
So thank you. Thank you for giving me no heritage. Thank you for giving me a name as generic as a ninja costume. As chopstick hair ornaments.
Ms. Rowling, I know you’re just the latest participant in a long tradition of turning Asian women into a tragic fetish. Madame Butterfly. Japanese woman falls in love with a white soldier, is abandoned, kills herself. Miss Saigon. Vietnamese woman falls in love with a white soldier, is abandoned, kills herself. Memoirs Of A Geisha. Lucy Liu in leather. Schoolgirl porn.
So let me cry over boys more than I speak. Let me fulfill your diversity quota. Just one more brown girl mourning her white hero.
No wonder Harry Potter’s got yellow fever. We giggle behind small hands and “no speak Engrish.” What else could a man see in me? What else could I be but what you made me? Subordinate. Submissive. Subplot.
Go ahead. Tell me I’m overreacting. Ignore the fact that your books have sold 400 million copies worldwide. I am plastered across movie screens, a bestselling caricature.
Last summer, I met a boy who spoke like rain against windows. He had his father’s blue eyes. He’d press his wrist against mine and say he was too pale. That my skin was so much more beautiful. To him, I was Pacific sunset, almond milk, a porcelain cup.
When he left me, I told myself I should have seen it coming. I wasn't sure I was sad but I cried anyway. Girls who look like me are supposed to cry over boys who look like him. I’d seen all the movies and read all the books. We were just following the plot.
I also wanna recommend Zero Woolfe's video "You weren't supposed to like Hermione": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycaSiLp1J_U&t=14, whose arguments I would struggle to do justice to if I tried to summarise.
Buuuut, I will add My own piece of evidence in support of Woolfe's point:
The annoying girl who likes reading is so convinced of her own self-righteousness, and so socially oblivious, she tries to become a woke activist. She creates a laughable anti-slavery organisation called SPEW, and tries to tell the slaves that she knows their needs better than them, going so far as to try and trick them into becoming free. What a stuck up bitch! This is what happens when women read too many books!
That drawing of Rowling is not nearly hideous enough if the aim is to portrait her character
Fuck
Why can't people just let other people be who they want to be?
Debate ideas! Attack stupid ideas! Respect the person!
I don't respect JK Rowling as a person. She's toxic mold growing in the walls of society.
I called a person toxic mold because I think she did a bad thing. And so did you. You're just like Me.
Not a slime mold though those can solve mazes and puzzles and shit. You can tell Joanne can't shit because of how much of it comes out her mouth. [see diagram below]
We are all humans, yet we still fail to understand one another.
That requires patience and i think we're losing it
Afraid evil is just stronger. This is where things will go globally.
I'm just doing palliative care for myself.
Just because this was put into 4 panels with some "art" does not make this a comic. I don't disagree with it, but this just seems like a political post in the funny pages.
Comics aren’t simply “haha funny”. They can be political, depressing, informative, and so on. A comic is simply the medium of expression.
It's a shitpost comic, but still technically a comic, as it "expresses" through a drawing.
As a detransitioned trans woman, I always love masturbating to the thought of Rowling being my long-long aunt who loves giving handjobs to her naughty nephews. That bitch is into some freaky shit in my imagination, I tell you truthfully.
There should be nuance and acceptance that in a world of over 8 billion people with tens of thousands of ethnic groups and cultures with varying histories, religions, moralities, and social norms that there will always be people/groups who consider some things others do/believe to be abhorrent and evil.
Every single human being can point to things that others in the world do that they consider to be anathema. And every single human on earth considers things normal and completely acceptable that other humans see as anathema. Many times these things are very firmly held beliefs, especially for the things we consider to be awful and wrong.
How do you feel about eating dogs, cats, horses, cows, pigs, whales, guinea pigs, blood, and insects? Arranged marriages? Marrying a first cousin? Homosexuality? Public affection including holding hands? Tipping? Polygyny? Polyandry? Pederasty (older men having mentoring/sexual relationships with adolescent boys)? Female genital mutilation? Male genital mutilation?
How about placing parents/elders in asisted living or nursing homes? Euthanasia? Physical punishment of children (spanking)? Embalming the dead? Cannibalism? Public gun ownership though it leads to huge numbers of deaths? Criminalization of speech considered blasphemous (ex. images of Allah)? Criminalization of speech considered hateful?
Everyone who bothers to read this will find many things on that list to be wrong, and at least several to be horrific and evil. There are cultures who consider every single thing I've listed to be wrong, and there are cultures that consider those very same things to be completely normal.
Comparing the legal codes of varying places is a great way to see how very geographical and culture based morality and acceptable behavior and speech truly are.
The Armenian Genocide is illegal to deny in Switzerland and France... but it's illegal to affirm it happened in Turkey. In Iran and Afghanistan it's illegal for a woman to remove a hijab/head covering... but in France and Quebec it's illegal public civil servants or students to wear one. In Thailand it's illegal to mock the king or royal family, and people have gone to prison for decades for just clicking "like" on social media posts determined to do that. In many other countries mocking leadership is both allowed and expected. What political/idological symbols are criminalized, if any, depends entirely on regional history.
In most of India slaughtering cows is evil and criminal. In Vietnam and much of China dog meat is a traditional winter staple, but in the US it's a federal crime.... weirdly enough it didn't become one until 2018. Many people in France, Italy, and Japan consider horse meat a delicacy, but slaughtering horses for human consumption is effectively illegal in the US and UK. In France it's illegal to sell a liver as "foie gras" unless the bird was force fed through a tube to enlarge it's liver, but in California and a lot of other places doing that is a felony. Yeah, torturing ducks and geese for weeks by cramming way too much food into them through tubes before killing them is a crime some places but an actual legal requirement in France.
And finally for the topic in the comic. In some places in the world validating a transgender person's identity is considered wrong enough that it's seen as an extremist crime leading to arrest or worse. In some places in the world it's expected as a basic human right and to show basic decency and if you don't you're seen as a complete sack of shit. And in some places it's the polar opposite of the first, and repeatedly refusing to acknowledge a transgender person's identity (misgendering) or spreading anti-LGBTQ messaging is a criminal act.
There is no one universal truth or morality. When someone's acts or beliefs are things you personally consider pure evil it can be a teensy bit hard to not see them as evil people. It's much harder when it's a thing you find deeply important to your self and life. It's nearly impossible when two people both believe strongly in total opposite directions about the same thing. There are people in the world who believe eating dogs is evil. There are people in the world who believe putting elders in nursing homes is evil. Much of the west considers female genital mutilation evil while routinely practicing male genital mutilation. And some people see affirming a gender change as evil, while many see not affirming it as evil.
That doesn't mean that the people who hold views and norms that do not line up with your own are evil. It's virtually certain that something you and every other person on earth considers a normal act or stance is something many other people consider unforgivably terrible. Yes, some people refuse to acknowledge transgender people's identities, and that's really shitty. It would be wonderful if everyone in the world could just be cool to everyone else in the world. But the massive amount of different people, religions, beliefs, family, cultural, and regional histories makes that extremely unrealistic.
It's always been that way, but the internet growing to connect most of humanity has pushed it into focus. Maybe over time open global communication between people will lead to everyone being accepting of everyone regardless of differences, and minimize those difference between us. But at this point in history the differences are still there, and still sharp. Suddenly we all see people in the world who are saying our actions or morals or even our very identities are awful and wrong, and they seem as horrible and crazy to us as we do to them.
If we're to get better and grow as a species we're probably going to need to stop seeing people who don't agree with us or have the same norms and beliefs as being evil monsters who need to die. There's an awful part of being human that makes us want to be part of a social group and shun the outsider. To decide that those who aren't with or like us in our beliefs and norms are evil and bad and to be hated. And even worse, when we feel socially and morally justified in hating someone it feels good to vent that anger and hate at them. When someone sees your beliefs or acts as immoral and evil it's easy to define that as them being hateful. And evil. And immoral. And because their norms and world views don't align with yours, they are evil and bad. And you both spew hate at one another, and you both feel good doing it, and your own mental and emotional health and that of the world only suffers for it.
Instead of trying to understand one another or simply accepting that with 8 billion people spread across like 15,000 cultures of course some people will find some other people's acts/beliefs to be immoral and deciding to focus on spreading love and compassion our lives and the world, we get sucked into some insane hatred cycle. We get stuck thinking people who aren't like us are evil and want us to die and wanting the same. That shit festers. It causes some bit of emotional and mental damage to everyone who encounters it in posts and hateful arguing, but it always poisons the people having those arguments most of all. When you spend your time focusing on how awful you think other people are and hating them and being angry those emotions aren't harming anyone but you. You're choosing to spend your time sitting there and poisoning yourself inside. It's an awful way to live and it does nothing at all to help make the world a better and more accepting place. The last thing the world needs is more festering hate and anger.
Maybe we should all try to focus on things that make us feel good instead. Things that make us feel warm, and smiley. Making sure at the end of the day we can remember even just one small thing we did that day that made someone else smile or laugh or feel seen.
You are describing cultural relativism. Which seems great on the surface but falls flat against things like the golden rule. Which is where you eventually land in your comment.
I'm going to attempt to TLDR your post, there is nuance to be had, but only so far as that nuance doesn't justify irreversible damage or behaviors that are hateful (and damaging as a result) with no objective basis. We should all be kinder to each other.
Cultural Relativism
I think a lot of people arrive at cultural relativism, and I hope they grow past it. Or they never make it there which is probably worse.
No, it does not fall flat against the golden rule. It's upheld by the golden rule. Treat others the way you want to be treated. Since different people from different cultures with different beliefs and mindsets have different norms and see different things as being moral or immoral, the way those people would want to be treated about those things is not the same.
Pederasty didn't die with ancient Greece and other old timey cultures. There are places in the world where it's still a cultural norm. Grown men having sexual relationships with adolescent boys. Do you condone that as completely normal? Do you make sure you don't say anything that could offend those people, and do your best to uphold what they think is moral and right? Prolly not. Most of us are more likely to see them as evil and awful and protest their way of life, not support it even though it's different from what our cultures would accept. I imagine they have to see that as hating them and trying to eradicate anyone like them and the way of life they see as normal. Because we think their sexual practices are disgusting and wrong. Sound familiar?
Because of cultural differences people think it is right to shun or punish them for different things. People in each region are shunned, punished, and imprisoned for the things considered wrong to their culture. And those things can be very different or completely contradictory depending on the culture.
If you killed a female relative in what some places call an honor killing more than likely because of your own culture, upcoming, and ideology you would expect to be shunned and imprisoned for that. Because that's an awful thing. From your point of view everyone shunning and punishing you for killing a woman is justified. It's how you should be treated.
There are places in the world where people feel the complete opposite. The norms are completely different. People there might take a risk and not killing a female relative who did something that would be considered dishonorable. And when their society shuns them for that they would consider that justified and how they should be treated. Likewise if they're celebrated for committing the killing.
Putting your parents and grandparents in nursing homes is considered normal in a lot of our countries. Most of us don't see or interact with them nearly enough, and we do it because taking care of them in person in our own homes is something we consider to be too much of a burden. When you tell someone that you 'had' to put your mom in a nursing home, you likely expect them to be sympathetic. To feel that you dealt with a tough, emotional thing. You expect care and concern, and that is how you want to be treated and feel you should treat others for that act.
And a lot of cultures that's considered elder abandonment and unthinkably immoral. People from those cultures would be horrified if you told them that. They would ask why you felt you 'had' to abandon the mother that raised you in a nursing home with strangers. That's how they would feel they would deserve to be treated in the same situation, even though you with your culture upbringing likely wouldn't agree.
Our culture typically considered things like homosexuality and transgenderism to be abnormal or wrong. Western culture. The us, europe, most of us. Over time we've moved on and changed. But just because we have doesn't mean everyone has, or ever will, or has to. It sucks and seems insane and awful to us because we mostly can't understand why anyone would possibly be so concerned over what other consenting adult someone is having sex with or what they do with their own sexual organs or prefer to be referred to as.
Writing a long message that disagrees with the prevailing social expectation of comments in a post like this is something I expect to be shunned for. Certainly not how I would prefer to be treated for bothering to put thought and effort into the topic, but expected.
The problem with the golden rule is that just like there's no universal morality there is no universal way a person wants to be treated. No one wants to be supported and applauded for doing something they consider horrifyingly evil. No one wants to be hated and imprisoned for doing something they consider completely normal and right. Since the things people feel are terrible or traditional change from person to person, so does how each person would find it right to be treated if involved with those things.
When the people from cultures different from your own treat you in a way differently than you would be expected about something their culture sees differently than you do they are following the Golden rule from their point of view.
Hell, read a lot of their replies on this post. There is a whole lot of hatred in here. There are wishes in here for JK Rowling to be sexually assaulted or raped. That's not following the golden rule. That's the disgusting part of human nature where it feels good to vent hate and anger at people we feel socially justified in hating. That's definitely not just on the other side of the fence on this topic, or any topic.
Oh get fucked. She is actively using her money to harm people.
“Oh maybe we should just accept that Hitler doesn’t like trans people. Everyone has their differences”
I end with saying we should all try to focus on things that make us feel good and making the lives of others better, and you reply with "get fucked."
Not because I hate trans people. I don't. Not because I don't fully support them dealing with that however they're most comfortable. I do. Not because I hate or avoid anyone on the rainbow spectrum. I don't.
Just because I'm willing to accept that not everyone in the world is going to share my values and beliefs, take the time and thought to spend over an hour writing out why, and suggest that maybe trying to focus on the things that make us happy and make the lives of other people better would make the world a better place that festering in hatred of the things and people you find hateful.
Honestly? That's the sort of thing you're willing to treat other people like shit for? That's the sort of person you want to be?
Yes get fucked, you sit there and write a long winded take on why we should just accept when people hate us for existing. That is not a neutral or nice take.
And I will never bury my head in the sand and only focus on nice things when our right to live is under assault.
We can peacefully disagree on pizza toppings, not on human rights.
People disagree on human rights all the time. It's something that a civilized society solves through politics. Voting to enshrine rights as law or not. I'm sure you would agree that adult men having sexual relationships with adolescent boys would not be a fantastic thing to make a legal right. There are plenty of things that I'm sure you wouldn't support as human rights that other people would prefer were.
If I'm missing it please link me, but the people you are saying are assaulting your right to live are seemingly mainly saying people should have the right to say things that others consider hateful about themselves as free speech, and being stupid and Petty about who uses what bathroom.
You're saying you can't peacefully disagree, which directly implies that violence is necessary. People in this thread have hoped for JK Rowling to be assaulted, raped, or just die. That seems to be an extremist difference if the people you are hating so vehemently your wishing violence and death on them are just saying they should have the right to openly say that they don't support or agree with something.
I would agree that people are assholes for having those opinions, but people are allowed to have shitty opinions. People voicing those loudly are people to avoid. Not people to hope die.
Well, Luigi did make me smile..