The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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As far as I have seen, the "extreme edge case[s] . . . easily handled on a case-by-case basis" are the sum total of Rowling's putative "transphobia." She explicitly believes that transsexuals/transgendered/etc. should be treated with courtesy, referred to by their preferred pronouns, included in polite society--except she strongly opposes their participation in spaces that specifically exist to protect females from males. Sex-segregated spaces like prisons or women's shelters have historically been sex-segregated for good reason--because women are characteristically vulnerable to men in certain specific ways. You can't say "that's a cherry-picked case" while also maintaining that Rowling is somehow transphobic; her opposition to the statement "trans women are women" extends only and exactly to the cases that are so obvious, your instinct is to call them "cherry-picked."
There's certainly nothing wrong with avoiding the subject, but it would be nice of your friend to notice that you avoid the subject and intuit that they should drop it.
For me, how I act depends on the subject, and on the friend, and on the occasion! Usually I just say what I believe. If they say something I disagree with, I usually say something like, "Hmm, I disagree, because..." and then I tell them why. Then I listen patiently while they destroy me with facts and logic, and either I change my mind or I don't, and we get back to doing more important things, like playing games or complimenting one another's taste in clothing. Sometimes they say things I disagree with, but it seems unimportant or like a bad time to disagree, so I might say, "I'm not so sure about that, but it's complicated, so for purposes of this discussion let's assume that's right." And sometimes I just let it pass because I've got other priorities in the conversation than making my views maximally clear. I am more willing to be blunt and offensive in my own house than in other people's houses. I am more willing to be blunt and offensive at casual occasions than at major social events (weddings, christenings, etc.). Just not making my political identity my whole identity goes a long, long way in these matters.
But admittedly I am older than the modal mottizen, and worry much less about social standing than most people do. I have definitely had people I thought were my friends cut me out of their life because I was honest about my beliefs, and willing to defend them. I am sorry about that, but I have many other friends who appreciate my candor and effort even when we disagree, and I would probably not be such good friends with them if they didn't appreciate me in this way.
Right, because trans-Twitter is extremely predictable in this regard. But doing things that you know some group will be upset about is not much of a reason to not do those things. It's important for you to consider the feelings of your friends (and for them to be considerate of yours), but you have no reason at all to worry what a stranger is going to think of you, no matter how loudly they complain about it.
FWIW, this sentence substantially increases my suspicion that you are trolling. If you're looking for ways to "destroy her with facts and logic" then you're being a pretty shitty friend. But if she is constantly making you feel uncomfortable with demands for allegiance to her pet cause, she's being a pretty shitty friend. And really--if she's a decent friend, you saying "I think you're great and I like your company, but I just disagree with you about some of these things and I'm worried that our friendship might not survive our disagreement," I would expect her to at minimum just avoid the topic with you in the future. She may even appreciate that you took the time to inform her of your feelings so she had a chance to save the friendship.
Or in the alternative she may blow up at you and/or cut you out of her life, but like--that would tell you far more about your value to them, than your decision to watch Chappelle could possibly say about their value to you.
I should have done this to begin with, but I read through some of the stuff that J.K. Rowling is being pilloried for (by some). I didn't really care all that much beforehand, just saw the memes, etc.
I read this article which summarizes her essay, includes some tweets, and includes quotes from a few of celebrities.
I read her essay from 2020
There's not that much in there that I take all that much issue with. I think fearmongering about people fraudulently changing gender to predate women isn't much of a real concern (though I can see how survivors/victims of assault, etc would feel that way). It probably happens but not often. Prisons and shelters already have systems in place already for preventing inmate-on-inmate violence/assault, and clear cases of fraud can be caught (isn't there still tons of inmate-on-inmate violence in prisons anyways? Is the sex of inmates really the issue there?). Could probably make a utilitarian argument that allowing gender change is good enough and improves lives for enough people that 1-in-a-million (this number isn't really fair, maybe it's one in 10,000 or 1 in 1000) cases of fraud are fine.
But I think what you're saying is that even if you don't believe that the trans-in-women's-spaces issue matters, that's the worst of what J.K. Rowling has said, and this can't be construed in good faith as transphobic. Is that right? I don't think transphobic is a good word to describe J.K. Rowling, but I think some of what she said can easily be construed as offensive or threatening.
The reason I say this is cherry-picked is because it's not relevant to the reality of the debate-- it's such a rare example that it's mostly useful for rabble-rousing.
This doesn't necessarily follow. Sometimes a good debate amongst friends is fun. I'll admit that in this instance I was being flippant and making a cultural reference, and that "destroying her with facts and logic" would not be a good approach. What I meant by this was "One approach I am considering is disclosing my true position to her and laying out a reasoned, rational case for why I feel that way."
This is good advice, I am thankful for your responses here. I might try something like "I support you in any of your efforts to boycott the new Harry Potter game. Someone recommended me this cool adblocker that can do keyword filtering on YouTube. [provide reference to uBlocker]. I need to confess that I am not personally offended by Harry Potter content and won't be filtering it out of my own internet experience. I understand that this might offend you, but I value our friendship and want to be honest about my personal and political views. [hopefully this leads to a good discussion about why she feels so offended by J.K. Rowling and the new Harry Potter game and I can further refine my position].
In hindsight this approach would have been preferable to avoiding the subject, if the opportunity presents itself I will give it a try and report back.
Part of the problem is that some of my trans friends have expressed that they don't feel like pushing their views on other people, they would just rather avoid the issue entirely. So I want to be careful about bringing it up to be sensitive to their expressed desires (back to that filtering out offensive shit idea).
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