No decent person in their right mind wants to undermine women's liberation. I don't for one moment question or doubt the need for it. The debasing and dehumanising treatment of women throughout human history is one of the primary reasons the human race probably deserves an asteroid. The universe only hasn't done it because it's trying to be nice to women. Because frankly: on the whole men haven't been. A lot. (Sure: there are plenty of bad women because women are human, but that's beside the point.)
Yet, I don't believe JK, who:
1. Is either fibbing, or confused, or both.
2. Seems to have inverted the power dynamics and group persecution dynamics.
3. Clearly isn't being appropriately and safely sensitive to the degree to which her qualified and softened statements are enormously amplified in their negative repercussions by her fame and audience, and by the reader-response processing of many of the latter.
Psychological textual/linguistic analysis of the concepts in JK's statements is a clue for approaching the explanation laterally.
Although the 'right things' about existence and violation of others' rights/peace are being said: these two concepts should not be connected in utterances in this context even with qualification.
Men, women, and transpeople are human, and all human groups have bad eggs and problem narratives. However, as soon as one group's very existence is flagged as an issue in any sense the true problem is denoted.
It's the most dangerous kind of existential threat for a people group, because deleting an entire people group is nearly impossible, which just leaves perpetual cycles of hate-crime violence.
Science has made new solutions available to young people who want more control over their bodies and gender. They're historically relatively new. Conservative minds don't cope well with newness and uncertainty, and they particularly don't like having their value-based demands refused or ignored even though those demands are frequently ridiculous and abusive, and grounded in delusions about imaginary magical male-gendered overlords in the sky.
In any case: I don't believe TERFs. There are too many other things going on: early maladaptive schemas expressed as jealousy (sad, and basic, but a huge factor); cultural umbrage from groups with agendas; sexual power politics from groups with ulterior motives and agendas.
Here's an example of just one thing connected with the latter:
I just don't like bullying, and my bullying radar lights up like a Christmas tree at a disco when TERFs pile on to young transwomen.
When young transwomen call themselves 100% biologically female (IFF that's what they're doing at the time, since sometimes apparently they don't mean 100% whereas other times they're 19 years old and just haven't done enough formal training in critical thinking yet) they're not attacking women. To assert that they are is not only ludicrous, but dangerous and ill-motivated.
It's always a red flag when the uniform of youth is not factored into a social evaluative equation by those who should know better.
A 17 year old transwoman has plenty to worry about--in addition to being a teenager--without trying to calculate a cunning scheme for bringing down woman kind, and she's trying to be a woman in the first place. Attacking her on an alleged feminist basis has to be--I suggest--about something else entirely.
Here's another way of approaching the problem: Women are vulnerable. Especially liberal, smart, freethinking women who want to be free to thrive. That's bad for all women, and that's exactly why conservative, patriarchalist, religionist sociopaths attack them.
Just look at Afghanistan and Iran. Those situations demonstrate that evolution has in a very real sense made many men into monsters. So long as such outcomes persist on Earth, JK has every right to be concerned about slippery slopes. In this context: the slopes are real and a horrifying, terrifying nightmare.
(In connexion with such realities: I maintain and re-iterate my selective anti-natalist, utilitarian conviction that parenting licenses based upon IQ should be implemented to prevent so many suffering male goobermenschen being spawned.)
However, I strongly suggest that at this point in history, young transpeople are even more at risk.
It's not a competition. The point is that the higher the risk of harm, the greater the amplificatory effect of bad press, ulterior-motivated and motive-overloaded narratives, and pile-ons.
I have met strong, powerful, brilliant lesbian and bisexual women who put my intellect and reasoning to shame, and they have no problem with people like those shown below, and moreover understand that such people are far safer in a female bathroom than in a male one (and we're talking about safe from Tate-inspired physical brutality) and that they're no more risky than the average woman. I am going to defer to the wisdom of those brilliant gay women rather than the confused ulterior social engineering of JK. I reserve the right to change my mind, but don't see a reason to do so.
