Dr Gilbert Caluya, Lecturer in Gender and Sexuality Studies
On 10 June 2020, J.K. Rowling, the famous author of the Harry Potter fantasy series, published an opinion piece on her website explaining her reasons for “speaking out on sex and gender issues”. The opinion piece followed a series of tweets in which Rowling seemed to deny the existence of transmen who menstruate and, when criticised, accused trans activists of attempting to erase the concept of sex. In her opinion piece J.K. Rowling defended her belief in “biological sex”, “biological woman” and those “born women” against trans activists who she perceives as wanting to deny the existence of sex and “erode the legal definition of sex”. In doing so, she portrays herself as the victim of a “climate of fear” caused by “accusations and threats from trans activists” and cancel culture.
On the other side, trans people have faced a climate of fear and violence over the last decade in the US with a Republican push to ban trans people from using public toilets aligned with their gender and in the UK where there have been significant fights around changes to legal recognition of gender. In both cases, trans people have been portrayed as physical threats to the safety of women and children, which has stoked a media panic across political divides. This has the potential to exacerbate existing violence against trans people. This has led celebrity Harry Potter actors, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Bonnie Wright, and Eddie Redmayne, to distance themselves from J.K. Rowling by reaffirming their support for the trans community and recognising that transwomen are women.
This heated and sometimes vitriolic public debate surrounding J.K. Rowling reveals how deeply ideas about sex and gender not only rule our personal identities, and our relationships, but the very structures that govern our lives.
This heated and sometimes vitriolic public debate surrounding J.K. Rowling reveals how deeply ideas about sex and gender not only rule our personal identities, and our relationships, but the very structures that govern our lives. Often it is in the moment of a perceived transgression when society’s investments in particular ideas suddenly become clear.
This debate demonstrates the persistence and relative stability of conceptions of sex as biological, fixed and binary. In simpler terms, they assume that people are born either male or female and that’s the end of the story. To push against this idea threatens to unravel not only the current socio-economic order based on this distinction between men and women, but also political movements of empowerment, such as radical feminism, that were built on reaffirming and empowering women. Since this version of feminism is based on the foundational and unbridgeable difference between men and women, the existence of transwomen and transmen are perceived as threats to the core assumption, which in turn is seen to undermine their political project.
This is why it is so heated! For those on the outside, who may not have much vested interest in this debate, it can seem like a weirdly fixated spat. But the truly sad thing is that two oppressed minorities, who have every right to seek equality, equity and empowerment, nevertheless feel that their respective liberation is in direct conflict.
Many of these debates become flashpoints for a whole series of different political agendas that quickly dilute the initial participants. Media, under pressure to create clickbait content, often repackage these legitimate concerns into pre-made outrage bombs for the perpetual revival of ‘political correctness’ and ‘free speech’ debates. Or worse, journalists and editors purposefully select scandalous and sensationalist quotes to generate outrage for a re-heated culture wars. In the messiness of online debate, these are then picked up by a whole series of groups who have no real interest or expertise in the subject matter weighing in with their opinion.
But complex debates sometimes require more than what the character limits of Twitter allow. Sometimes taking a question seriously means devoting significant time and space to it. Time to reflect and space to work out new ways of thinking that might help us move beyond this crossroads.
But complex debates sometimes require more than what the character limits of Twitter allow. Sometimes taking a question seriously means devoting significant time and space to it. Time to reflect and space to work out new ways of thinking that might help us move beyond this crossroads.
Perhaps it would be good to take a step back and consider what kinds of listening practices we need to cultivate to be able to hear and acknowledge legitimate grievances over this divide? And once we’ve acknowledged these legitimate causes for concern, to enquire what kind of deliberative processes can we foster to begin inclusive conversations for a reparative politics? Are 500-word op-ed pieces really the best forum to deal with the complexity of these issues? Are media interviews helping or harming the situation? From where would we have a better vantage point, a more inclusive starting point, to begin asking what concepts we need and what concepts act as obstacles for finding resolutions to these knotty problems?
Gender and sexuality studies at Deakin provides precisely the kind of space and time for us to delve into these issues and to move beyond the hateful tactics of online debate.
Gender and Sexuality Studies at Deakin provides precisely the kind of space and time for us to delve into these issues and to move beyond the hateful tactics of online debate. We tackle sensitive and knotty real-world problems and develop empathetic modes of listening to try to resolve issues of inequality, justice and empowerment. If you want to find out more visit the Deakin website gender and sexuality studies major page.
Dr Gilbert Caluya is a Lecturer in Gender and Sexuality Studies at Deakin University.
For more information about studying Gender and Sexuality Studies as a major visit www.deakin.edu.au/gss and the Gender and Sexuality Studies blog.