J.K. Rowling’s Spiral into Madness (with ContraPoints)

From “sex is real” to Holocaust denial — if it happened to the wizard lady, it can happen to you.

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hello, hello and welcome back to A Bit

Fruity, the show where we think that you

should never live in the closet, Harry,

even if the woman who created you changes
her mind.

If you would like to support the show

or perhaps want a little bit more of the

show, we are on Patreon and by the time

this episode is up, it'll be around the

same time that I upload March's deep dive

on Patreon, which I do every month

and this month it is on the wokeness of

Sydney Sweeney, the right just figured

out who Sydney Sweeney is because

they saw her on SNL and they never watched

Euphoria and her being hot is, uh, is

causing a freakout of epic proportions.

So we're going to do a little analysis

of a woman's body, which is something

I'm fairly new to.

So, you know, wish me luck.

Today we are joined, once again, by

someone I'm honored to call a friend

of the show, Natalie Wynn, or as you may

know her online, ContraPoints is, an

ex-philosopher, she is a youtuber

but I think calling her a youtuber

is kind of diminutive to her craft.

She puts out a couple feature film length

videos a year that you've probably

watched but if you haven't, you really

should go check those out.

She talks about philosophy, sex and

gender, and capitalism, and twilight.

Natalie Wynn welcome back to A Bit Fruity.

Thank you much for having me back on.

I am excited to be here again.

I'm honored to be a friend of the show.

I'm honored to have you as a friend

of the show. So, a couple weeks ago

J.K. Rowling, she got caught up in a

little Holocaust denial.

She does Holocaust denial a little from

time to time, (laughter) yeah.

It wasn't always this way. J.K. Rowlings

wasn't always on Twitter denying

that, uh, queer people were persecuted in

the Holocaust. Until 2019, J.K. Rowlings

was a universally beloved children's

author who taught every kid that there

was magic inside of them no matter how

cast out they may feel. Today, though,

how would you characterize her position

in the culture today?

Well, her position in the culture is

kind of weirdly split, right, cause on

the one hand, there is her continuing

legacy as the author of the wizard books

and on the other hand, there's like

almost her entire public persona, that

which we mostly experience through Twitter

which is basically obsessive bigotry

towards trans people. That's become

sort of her definitive thing, right?

I think that people who don't follow this

kind of don't understand the extent of it

because, you know, I don't know, people

throw around like all kinds of accusations

on Twitter, so it's easy to think that

this is some kind of internet drama

blown out of proportion. But what you're

missing is that if you have not been

paying attention to J.K. Rowling's Twitter

for the last, at this point, we're

talking about four or five years, which

is a long time. Like, she's basically used

her platform more often than not to do

trans-bashing. There's a reason why that

this gets talked about so much because,

I mean, she's one of the most famous

authors in the world with an enormous

platform, and she's just using it

constantly to target this small and,

like, already besieged, minority of people

who are facing, like, all kinds of, like,

legislative and cultural backlash in

the U.S. and the U.K. So it's like really

devastating (chuckle) that an author

that, that's this influential is also,

like, this obsessively devoted to

persecute, you know, to contributing

to the persecution of this group of

people, who's already so harassed.

But it's also, I don't know, it's also

kind of a bizarre spectacle, like, in

it's own right it's kind of like another

reason I feel like we're drawn to this

maybe, is that it's kind of like darkly

fascinating. How does this happen?

Like, how do we go from, like, the

Gryffindor common room and, you know,

Severus Snape, to, like, these unhinged

rants about the transexuals. It's weird.

It, it is weird and I think also, I mean,

yeah, if you go to J.K. Rowling's Twitter

right now and scroll through her feed,

it is literal years of talking every

single day, almost exclusively, about

transgender people, for years.

Which I think is the type of behavior

we associate, with like boomer facebook

moms, and then I guess in a sense, she

kind of would have been that, if she

hadn't become a billionaire and one of

the most famous and beloved children's

authors of all time. But she is those

things and the idea of her behaving the

way, like, our homophobic aunt does

or whatever, but like from some castle

in the U.K., is just like a very jarring

image. (Natalie) I think that summarizes

it really well, right, like, it is, like,

your bigoted aunts deranged Facebook post

except on a platform with millions of

people as the audience. I feel like we

as a society, have, like, yet to know how

to deal with this type of thing cause

J.K. Rowling's not the only case of it.

I mean, like, Elon Musk has dabbled

a little bit in some similar forms of

bigotry with a (inaudible) or even

larger platform. But I feel like what's

unique about J.K. Rowling is that

she's, like, single mindedly focused on

trans people as this one issue.

(Matt) So she wasn't always this way,

though and what we're gonna do today

is use J.K. Rowling as what I think is

a valuable case study in the worm hole

that transphobia is. The way that it

can serve as it has for J.K. Rowling

and so many millions of other people

as a portal into the broader world

of right-wing ideology that gets pretty

scary pretty quickly. We're gonna

try to understand why transphobia, and

I think especially when it's cloaked,

no pun intended, as a progressive feminist

cause and especially effective

gateway into the alt right. One day

you're reminding people that you

just like to be preferred to as a woman

and that you are a woman and then,

you know, the next day you are

participating in Holocaust denial. It can

happen to you. (Natalie) Many such cases.

(Matt) Many such cases. And so, to begin

this story I wanna go back to 2019

to the first tweet that I remember

seeing of J.K. Rowling's, her foray into

the anti-trans movement, which at the

beginning was very tepid. I am going to

send you the tweet. (Natalie) "Dress

however you please. Call yourself

whatever you like. Sleep with any

consenting adult who'll have you.

Live your best life in peace and security.

But force women out of their jobs for

stating that sex is real? Hashtag I

stand with Maya. Hashtag this is not

a drill." (Matt) So what was the

context of this one?

(Natalie) So, the context is that there

was a English consultant named

Maya Forstater who, I guess she wasn't

fired but her contract was not

renewed because she had, like, refused

to use the correct pronouns for a trans

coworker or something along those lines.

And a lot of so called "gender-critical",

that is "transphobic", people in the U.K.

decided to turn this into a celebrated

cause, they, you know, rallied behind

this hashtag "I stand with maya".

The idea being, like, "oh, we shouldn't

have to submit to gender ideology by,

you know, using the correct pronouns

for trans people in the work place or

whatever. This is where J.K. Rowling

decided to join this discourse

officially. She decided to jump in on

the side of people who think that it's

terribly oppressive to have to use

the correct pronouns for a trans person.

And I guess at first, you know, there was

some ambiguity because you could be

like, "Well she's not transphobic. Maybe

she just believes in free speech, and she

thinks that, you know, that people

shouldn't be fired for having different

opinions." (inaudible) okay, like, at

first you could sort of plausibly think

that maybe, given the benefit of the

doubt, that's why she was getting

involved in this. But, like, to people who

kind of know the pattern that

transphobia takes place, we all pretty

much knew that, "Oh, okay she really

is transphobic behind the scenes".

Like, there is no way that you would

-go decide to die on this hill unless
- Matt: Hmm.

you already were. At least that's what I

think now. I mean, I think J.K. Rowling

was at her most dangerous in 2019 and

in 2020 because of the stuff she was

saying seems kind of plausible and

reasonable to the average person, you

know. And so, there's this kind of like

clever selection of which topics to

get behind, right, instead of just,

I don't know, calling trans women "men"

in dresses, or whatever, it's like she's

defending the "right" of people to not

use the correct pronouns if they don't

agree, right?. (inaudible) this people

kind of hedge in this way, like, when

they have a kind of like bigoted opinion

instead of just stating it out, right.

They sort of defend their right to have

-that opinion.
- Matt: Mhmm.

So, that was very much with this thing

with Maya Forstater is, right. It's like

she's not saying something sort of

directly transphobic, but she is kind of

indirectly getting there by being like,

"I am going to publicly champion Maya's

right to be transphobic. "

(Matt) I feel like in the early days

she did so much of this plausible,

deniability stuff where it's like, you

know, "I'm just saying sex is real".

Right? And the average person who

isn't, like, a terminally online queer

is going to be like, "Yeah, sex is real,

whatever, like, who cares."

You know? It's like not a big deal.

(Natalie) Yeah, she was very effective

early on at kind of like deciding what

it was that she thought people

were mad about, right? And so she

framed the conversation, "Oh here's why

I'm getting backlashed. I'm getting

backlash because I said quote on quote

'sex is real'. And so, it kind of seems

like if you believe her account of what

people are mad about, then it sounds like

everyone whose mad is unreasonable

because they are mad at her for taking

this kind of - taking what? An abstract,

philosophical position about the

metaphysics of biological sex? Like,

is that what people are mad about?

No, right? It's of course not that

because she is intervening in this

social and political debate, right,

on the side that wants trans people

functionally not to exist in public

life, or not to be acknowledged in

public life. So, that is what people

are mad about, right? But early on,

I think she was able to kind of

frame her position as being this

like, I don't know, almost philosophical

position about the reality of sex or

something, you know? That is what she

wanted to make it sound like instead of

a political position about the place of

transgender people in society.

When you first saw that tweet were, like,

alarm bells ringing?

Oh, absolutely. I mean, at that point

I was like, yeah I basically internally

thought there was like a nine

hundred and ninety-nine out of

one thousand percent chance that

-it's, as people say, over, right?
-Matt: (laughter) Right

It's so over, right? Like I already

basically already kind of knew that.

But I also kind of knew that, like,

well, most people aren't gonna notice

that it's over until she says something

more explicit.

Until she's doing Holocaust denial.

Until she's doing Holocaust denial,

exactly. But, of course, I've seen

enough people who kind of start this way

with this flirtation with bigotry where

stage one is usually like, "Well I

support the right for people to be bigots"

Like, I don't like that there's this,

like, cancel culture, whatever politically

correct - you can't say anything anymore.

Like, that's usually the prelude to a

bunch of bigoted stuff. It's kind of

like a softer way of getting a foot

in the door. Like, you're not necessarily

committing yourself to saying anything

bigoted. But you'll stand up for the right

of people to say that and you don't

like how, you know, how vicious people

are being towards people who are getting

criticized for saying more bigoted things.

In retrospect, it's clear that she's

preparing the way to be the one saying

those bigoted things herself.

For a while longer, well into 2020,

she, like, continues this road of

like, "sex is real". And so I'm going to

send you another thread.

It's funny how I know all of these

-like, by heart practically
-Matt: Oh (laughter)

-It's like song lyrics (laughter)
-Natalie: Right? I'm a scholar

-of the things she has said about
-Matt: (laughing)

trans people, right? Like, "Ah yes,

-tweet seven, verse three".
-Matt: (wheezes)

I know, cause, like, we've read these

-f***ing tweets so many times
-Natalie: I know,

the last four years has been

dominated by having to read these

terrible opinions again and again.

This is, honestly, no one should be

allowed to get this famous. It's too

dangerous.

(laughter)

Okay, but for the normal people listening

who aren't so online, do you want to read

what she tweeted on June 6, I believe,

2020?

(Natalie) Dear normal people, this is me

reading from the book of Rowling,

chapter six (laughter).

Quote, "If sex isn't real, there's no

same-sex attraction. If sex isn't real,

the lived reality of women globally

is erased. I know and love trans people,

but erasing the concept of sex removes

the ability of many to meaningfully

discuss their lives. It isn't hate to

speak the truth."

Tweet two, "The idea that women like me,

who've been empathetic to trans people

for decades, feeling kinship because

they're vulnerable in the same way

as women - ie. to male violence - 'hate'

trans people because they think sex is

real and has lived consequences -

(English): it is a nonsense."

-Natalie: Sorry, (inaudible) I feel I
-Matt: (laughter)

cannot say, "is a nonsense" without doing

-it in an English accent.
-Matt: (laughing)

(Natalie) I'm gonna switch to

doing an English accent for the last

one because I feel like, I just feel like

(English) "I respect every trans person's

right to live any way that feels

authentic and comfortable to them.

I'd march with you if you were

discriminated against on the basis

of being trans. At the same time, my

life has been shaped by being female.

I do not believe it's hateful to say so."

(Matt) "I'd march with you if you were

being discriminated against."

(Natalie) Yeah, that's a big, big red

flag, right? And this was, like, the

same month that the U.S., like, Donald

Trump had, like, announced, like, an

intention to, like, ban trans healthcare.

Yes.

The notion that, like, discrimination

against trans people is this, like,

hypothetical thing that might occur in

the future, right?

If ever there was a trans person who

faced bigotry on the basis of their

identity, I would stand up for them. But

that hasn't happened yet. So, I'm just

-not, I'm not standing up
-(Natalie) Yeah, right.

No one's ever been discriminated against

for being trans. But, like, if it does

happen, I'll march with you.

But, okay, first of all, by the way, these

tweets got hundreds of thousands of likes

- and people were like,
- Natalie: Yes.

"Yes! You're a warrior!" But it's like

again, a normal person who isn't super

online, and, I mean, you know, from

the queer and pro-trans end, but also

from, like, the super anti-trans end.

Like if you aren't a part of either of

those groups, you're reading this

and are like, "What the f*** is she

talking about? Like what is this 'sex

is real' thing?" Like, what is she

talking about?

It's a weird argument, right? Because

it seems on the surface like it's a

linguistic point that she's trying to

make, right? There's this idea, like she

says, quote, "If we get rid of the

concept of sex that removes the

ability of many to discuss their lives."

Okay, this is what I think the assumption

is: it's, like, if we acknowledge that

trans people are who they say they

are, then that means that none of

the rest of us can talk about how gender

has impacted our lives, right? In other

words, think of a trans, is a woman, then

I guess, you know, "I, J.K,. Rowling, can

never talk about the way that I have

been discriminated against for being

a woman." I mean, it's a little bit of an

oppression olympics almost kind of

- argument, where it's like
- Matt: Mmm

there can only be one oppressed group,

right? And if we talk about how, you

know, there's no way to include trans

people as a valid concept without sort of

somehow, like, deleting or erasing the

entire concept of women. Which, I mean,

it doesn't make any sense, right?

In fact, J.K. Rowling will later use as

an example. Okay what does it mean to

"erase women"? I mean, well, okay, so

she'll use the example of, like, okay,

some hospital somewhere, on a piece of

paperwork says, uses the term "pregnant

person" instead of "pregnant woman".

Why? Because there is transgender men who

can and have gotten pregnant. And so,

saying "pregnant people" is a more, like,

even if you find that to be an awkward

phrase, like, it's still a more inclusive

phrase that is going to help trans men

who need reproductive healthcare

that, you know, conventionally would be

"women's health", right? I just don't

understand why making it inclusive to

transgender men somehow, like, deletes

the concept of women from existence.

Like, (stammers) it just doesn't make

any sense to me. I feel like it's, like,

a weird pretext for being prejudicial.

-It's just such a lie. I mean, you see
-Natalie: Yeah.

this a lot with Turph's trans

exclusionary radical feminists. It's like

the arm of quote on quote, "feminism"

that is basically just defined by

transphobia. Especially towards trans

women.

Yeah, I don't even know if I would say

that it's especially towards trans women.

I would say that there is especially

vitriolic towards trans women

- and they kind of vilify.
- Matt: Mmm

Trans women are sort of cast as, like,

dangerous predators. But trans men, I

feel like, the way that a lot of, like,

including J.K. Rowling, like, talk about

trans men as a quite reprehensible I

- think, too. Like, usually the idea
- Matt: Mmm

is, like, trans men are like confused

girls who've been tricked by, like, the

medical establishment, like, the evil

cabal of endocrinologist who have, like,

somehow, like, hoodwinked vulnerable girls

into thinking that they're men. Which, of

course, is not how the healthcare system

works at all. Like, you really have to

scream and cry to get hormones. Like, no

one is persuading you to do this. In

fact, quite the opposite. Everyone is

telling you not to. So, the idea that

trans men or that any kind of assigned

female at birth trans person is this sort

of confused, vulnerable baby child. Like,

it's not vilification to the extent that

they've vilified trans women as dangerous

predators, but it's in tantalizing in a

way that I think can be just as harmful

in its consequences, right? When someone

says, "Oh, you can't make decisions about

your own body because you're too confused

and childish." Like, you know, that has

devastating consequences which we see.

Any feminist should be aware of how this

works cause this is what they say about

abortion; it's what they about

contraception; it's what they say about

women's health in general. "Shut up,

little girl," right, "You can't make

decisions about your body. We'll do it

for you." It's exactly the same thing J.K.

Rowling is essentially saying to trans

men.

(inaudible) especially towards trans men

do this like, "We're loosing our lesbians.

They're all becoming trans men thing."

Which that as a refrain, I just don't

understand at all because, like,

statistically when you look at, like,

the number of gen Z people who are

coming out as queer, under every single

one of the letters, it's higher in all

of them.
-(Natalie) Right.

Like there are more out lesbians today

than there have ever been.

(stammers) Yes, there's never been more

-lesbians, like, yeah
- Matt: (laughs) And to be clear

I love that (laughs)

Yeah it's good, it's good actually, yeah.

No, I mean, I feel like it comes from,

it's like a very, like, selfish, like,

childish perspective. It's almost like,

"No don't transition, you're so sexy aha,"

- you know? Like, I feel like, thats kind
- Matt: Yeah (laughs)

of, like, (stammers) and some gay women

do say this about trans men. Like,

"No, all the butch women are

transitioning, like, I wanted to f***

them before, no!" And it's like, okay,

well, too bad, like (scoffs) other people

don't have to live their lives in

accordance with what you find sexually

attractive. Like, again, as a woman

(stammers) you should know this, right?

- you should know that what you're
- Matt: Yeah

doing, what you're speaking about someone

as if your sexual attraction to them

entitles you to their living a certain

way. You should know why that's bad and

why that feels violating and why that robs

someone of autonomy, right?

And with Turphs and this whole thing of,

like, "they're erasing the linguistic

concept of a woman." It's like (sighs)

- what world do you have to live in
- (Natalie) Yeah.

for that to feel like the truth? And

look, I'm not a woman. And so, sometimes

with these conversations I'm very careful

about, like, even J.K. Rowling, a woman

who I disagree with entirely on so many

of these issues, it's like, I don't wanna

police her understanding of her own trauma

- as it pretends to being a woman.
- (Natalie) Yeah.

However, I still, like, we all live in

the same society, and it's like, I'm

just very hard pressed to think that the

word "woman" is going anywhere.

(Natalie scoffs)

It's like, I don't think that, because on

some, like, in some medical papers that

are being published, that they're using

the terms "people who get pregnant,"

"people who get periods," I don't think

that means that, like, they're gonna start

calling you in casual conversation

"a person who menstruates."

No. And no one talks like that way.

I've never heard of a trans person

casually refer to cis woman as

"people who menstruate." Because the

entire point of that term is that it

doesn't just refer to cis women.

There are people who have a sort of

visceral reaction to it, which I

guess I can kind of understand. Like,

I think if you were to make, like, an

intelligible, like, understandable

argument out of what J.K. Rowling seems

to be saying in these tweets, I mean I

think you could put it like this,

"For most women, the way that they are

oppressed in society is in fact

intertwined with biology," right? With

women's reproductive role, as most women

are capable of getting pregnant. And

that becomes a area where women's lives

are policed, right? It's interesting how

J.K. Rowling never talks about this,

- right? Not a word, not a word
- Matt: Mhmm

about Roe v Wade being overturned

in the United States. For most women,

biology and misogyny, they certainly are

- intertwined. And there's a case to be
- Matt: Yeah.

made that anyone who's assigned

female at birth does sort of belong

to a oppressed class by virtue of

their reproductive capability. Especially,

like, you know, the sensitivity around,

like, you know, "same people who

menstruate" or "people who give birth."

I feel like if you hear those phrases in

isolation, they kind of, like, can be

abrasive sounding because there's,

like, a lot of shame and stigma, there

have for thousands of years around

menstruation and, you know, women

often are kind of reduced by patriarchy

to, like, birthing people in a sense,

right? So, I feel like that there's, like,

some grain of something I can sympathize

with her in terms of having a visceral,

negative reaction to these phrases.

But I feel like anyone who takes a second

to cool down, understand the context

of the phrase, will see that's clearly

not the intention. They know that it's

going to have an emotional effect for a

- lot of women to see those phrases.
- Matt: Mhmm

And so, they kind of decontextualize it

and blast it onto Twitter