Stumbled onto J. K. Rowling’s cancellation

This is less of a fun post, but more about pop culture. Soon I will be back to my normal rhythm of large posts on why the Emmys should have nominated Good Omens in more categories. In fact, a love letter to David Tennant and Michael Sheen is on its way. However, this has been a particular time, featuring a pandemic and a worldwide unrest about racial injustice and police brutality. I couldn’t exactly post my Ramy season 2 review. However, Harry Potter and, frankly, everything this woman has written has been incredibly formative for me. If it weren’t for her books, I would probably be illiterate. Well, not illiterate but certainly less appreciative of literacy. It has therefore been a turbulent time lately; how do you deal with your favourite author’s transphobic comments?

The situation is as follows. Rowling had liked a tweet from a transphobic user, Maya Forstater, whose contract wasn’t renewed or ‘was fired’ because of her transphobic tweets. Rowling later followed another user that strongly believes in the importance of biological sex. This was all topped by her own tweet this month, mocking the use of ‘people who menstruate’ instead of the word ‘women’ on an article on menstruation. This caused her collaborators to come out against her and all round twitter attack on her profile, for excluding trans men with her sarcastic tweet. She then posted a long reply on her blog, explaining her position on gender, sex, feminism and ‘cancel culture’. This post can be found here and is worth the read.

I will get a few things out of the way, just so people can quit reading this post accordingly. First and foremost, J. K. Rowling has indeed expressed transphobic views. There is little difference between opposing entrance to trans women in female bathrooms on the basis of rapists taking advantage of the situation and Trump saying ‘Build the wall’. It is simply less familiar. Secondly, denying someone their notion of self in the name of free speech is deplorable. Rowling has indicated such support for Forstater, who went to court defending her case by saying that her so-called philosophical view that gender is biological should be respected. Free speech is a right and privilege and if someone wishes to exercise theirs in a painful manner, then they knowingly agree to the respective consequences. Thirdly, as someone who engages with academic research in their everyday life, there is nothing more annoying than using the word ‘research’, without applying it. What I mean to say is, it feels like Rowling’s ‘citations’ of academic research seem biased. It is good to back your opinion with research, but lest we forget that there is a study claiming that the measles vaccine causes autism, with a minuscule sample size and a number of misconducts, versus a whole array of studies finding no relationship; you could use either and say that you are basing your opinion on research. I am not saying Rowling has done this intentionally, but implicit bias is a real problem. She also failed to provide sources, which I still do not understand; especially since her whole argument is that she is well informed on the subject.

This is where I stand. And now the rest of this post will make a case for not cancelling Rowling, not so quickly anyway. I will acknowledge that I am not personally affected by her comments in the sense that I am lucky enough to identify with my sex assigned at birth. Therefore, my whole argument for retaining Rowling in our Twitter feed and her books on our bookcase is likely obsolete. I have spent hours debating this with friends, without sitting down and making sure my train of thought is carefully organised and await similar replies. I have made a fool of myself, simply because instead of opening said article on menstruation, I assumed the article was about the gender gap and equal pay. I should also acknowledge a bias myself, having discussed Rowling’s bias; I do love her work tremendously. But this post is more of an expressed worry regarding the cancel culture that has gained ground during quarantine.

My first objection in this cancellation regards the Daniel Radcliffes who jumped to the opportunity to write off Rowling publicly, making sure to stay at the right side of hashtag history, without taking the time to refine their statements according to the topic at hand. Rowling’s comment regarded the inclusion of trans men in the ‘people who menstruate’ category. Radcliffe didn’t bother with such details and wrote a short, generic, clean statement on how trans women are women. He is not wrong. I don’t think he is sincere either. Everyone from the Potterverse with a Twitter account followed, again with little more than a hashtag. I cannot condemn using Twitter, with its character limit, as a platform because I would then have to condemn almost everyone I admire. It is a sign of the times. But boarding the ‘cancel’ train, without practically adding to an important conversation, is taking advantage of a situation and it is a tad more unfortunate because they are taking advantage of the demise of a woman who gave such an important piece of literature the world and their careers. Like it or not, Harry Potter is a milestone in modern literature. I need to carefully point out that I in no way suggest that Rowling is beyond reach because of her contribution; there were wonderful, on-point, informative twitter replies that put her right in her place. I just felt that some people just saw an opportunity to toot their own horn.

The most important reason I suggest not cancelling Rowling is that I feel hers is an ill-informed, yet well intended letter. She should be corrected, she should be called out, but not cancelled. There are people with misunderstandings; society has only recently been more open to this subject. They are a big part of the population and there is tons of grey area. For example, I know that the scientific community is also cautious of exempting biological sex. This is because in a lot of statistical analyses, sex is frequently a significant factor. It is not a matter of making our lives more difficult, it is a matter of losing important information regarding how different drugs or different interventions work. This was a point Rowling made in her reply as well; that certain diseases are more prominent on one sex over the other. The same way blood type is important in a medical setting, it might be still premature to dissolve the notion of biological sex for medical purposes. If research shows that it indeed an insignificant contributor, then science will adjust. I believe in the adaptation of science as much as that. This belief in scientific adaptation is my main cause of disbelief in Rowling’s statements. I doubt that decisions on appropriate ages for transition and other such criteria are not founded on scientific research. It would be too much of a risk for any government and for the whole of the scientific community to move forward without backup from research.

Lastly, I think it somewhat hypocritical for people to go after Rowling for using Twitter or being ‘sarcastic’ because no one bats an eye when Gervais or Tiegen does so. It just so happens that we are in agreement. Tiegen, anyway; Gervais does get a bit of shit after a Golden Globes performance. It is not all black and white; her comments were transphobic, but her intention was not to cause pain with her sarcasm. Or it might be, but then so might Colbert’s comment on Trump looking like a squashed orange. I may have added the word ‘squashed’ there. Here I am, assuming we all have similar stances on human rights and politics and at the same time asking people not to make assumptions about intent. My main argument is that it is all just a bit simplified, a bit partisan. This is a general problem with the US, the pinnacle of mainstream culture, and I feel it is spreading to the rest of the Western world.

Looking into this, I stumbled onto a high number of celebrities that got ‘cancelled’ during this pandemic. Cancelled because of a tweet, a comment, a joke in poor taste. Ellen DeGeneres, Jimmy Fallon and others. Ellen was told off for comparing being locked up in her mansion to being in prison. Having rich people living comfortably complaining can be annoying; maybe she should have thought twice about the comment. But she is a comedian. Their whole career is based on turning the spotlight on little things we all have in common and point out the hilarity or absurdness. But then, they become rich and successful and there is a whole new balance to achieve. This was no more than a poor attempt to relate to her crowd, but certainly not reason to have her cancelled. I am not a big fan of Jimmy Fallon, but I do not understand how he was almost cancelled for imitating Chris Rock, granted in blackface, as part of an SNL sketch 20 years ago. But then, what about SNL? What about NBC? What about the audience that were laughing? What about Chris Rock? Considering there is video of him encouraging white male comedians using the N-word, is it possible he is approving of this sketch? Cancelling Jimmy Fallon is such an oversimplification, such an avoidance of the underlining issue. What, Fallon was cancelled and years of insensitive comedy have been dealt with? The culture is not changed and people pick up on this oversimplification and get defensive. Cancellation sort of implies there is no room for change; you either got it right or you never will. They should cancel Jimmy Fallon, yes, but only because he is mind-numbingly unfunny.

I think ‘cancel culture’ makes us feel important, we sort of get the power to change the status quo. But instead of changing societal structures, we resort to making sure we are following the right people, until they no longer are, that is. There is an escalation of course, from DeGeneres’ joke, to Fallon’s sketch, to Rowling’s comments and the response varies accordingly. I am aware of the irony. I am asking the world to not cancel my favourite author, when I cannot begin to imagine what it might feel like to have someone else’s favourite author dismiss them as a man or a woman respectively. But it is the case that she holds these beliefs based on singular research, if any, and a fear stemming from personal experience with violence and lack of exposure. I applaud those that wrote elaborate responses and open letters explaining to Rowling, but also those that want to understand more about this reality that others are experiencing. I might be in denial, thinking Rowling is capable of change, well intended and opening up a conversation. But I am. And I think it is a more fruitful approach to alienation. Suggesting people who are fighting for their rights and identities to spend time to explain things to a middle-aged millionaire instead of expressing their well-deserved rage, is possibly proof that I have a limited understanding of this situation. I am just taking her at her word when she says she would fight alongside trans people for their rights, even if she does not, as of now, understand them very well.