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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 17, 2023

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But nobody's going to seriously argue that it's okay to shoot J. K. Rowling dead.

By "nobody", you mean "nobody here, out loud", right? Because I'm pretty sure I can find a whole lot of people in the general trans orbit who will in fact argue that it's okay to shoot J.K. Rowling dead. Certainly there were people making that argument for the Tennessee shooter regarding random Christian adults and kids, possibly including the shooter herself.

Certainly there were people making that argument for the Tennessee shooter regarding random Christian adults and kids

Were there? The closest is that one tweet from the "Trans Resistance Network" (the "network" being a Twitter account and a Wordpress website) that said that the shooting is a tragedy but it's also a tragedy that trans people are mistreated. It did not say that the shooting was justified.

There were definately additional twitter randos opining that the Christians had it coming and that Hale was a freedom fighter. I'm not claiming that they represent anyone other than themselves, but they do exist. I think there would be more people willing to make the argument for Rowling, since in her case no violence has actually happened, so the edginess draws less social oprobrium.