Redline
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A week ago JK Rowling tweeted that that biological sex is real. She took issue with an article that referred to “people who menstruate,” instead of “women”. She pointed out: “If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased.?.?. . I do not believe it’s hateful to say so.”
The storm of abuse she has been subjected to since then shows that gender ideology is deeply anti-woman and anti-scientific. As a product of postmodernism, it rejects an objective world view. The mainstream media has also soaked up this ideology and has mostly echoed the attacks on Rowling.
Vilifying women who speak out is now extremely common.
Jill Abigail last year penned an article calling for calm reasoned discussion of gender ideology in the Green Party which she had been a member for many years. Her article was later banned and denounced by the Greens’ leadership. It showed how the Green Party will not tolerate dissent.
This week Jill wrote twice to Stuff to raise her objection to their one-sided coverage of Rowling. The letters have not been published so we are posting them here:
Letter to Stuff by Jill Abigail Thursday 11 June
For the second time in a few months I have reason to write to your paper regarding prejudice you are displaying about J K Rowling’s views on sex and gender. On two occasions you have printed criticism of J K Rowling without giving proper space to what the writer originally said. The opinion piece today (J K Rowling, it’s time to lay down the poison pen, June 11) by a Washington Post editorial writer is a lengthy diatribe against Rowling.
You could have given the same amount of space to the explanations Rowling is providing for her defence of language that expresses the reality of natal women’s lives. In a highly personal account, Rowling has revealed her earlier experience as a woman on the receiving end of male violence. She is now on the receiving end of the vile abuse that is aimed at anyone who dares challenge the new orthodoxy – unsubstantiated and non-provable – that gender is innate and biological sex is irrelevant.
As if the bias in choosing to print the opinion piece is not enough, you have chosen in the headline to reinforce the idea that Rowling has a “poison pen” when it comes to talking about transgender. This is not only unfair but completely unethical in our major news source. Shame on you.
Letter to Stuff by Jill Abigail Sunday 14 June
Last week you gave generous space to two overseas reports that vilified the writer J K Rowling.
I would like to explain to your readers just what has heaped coals of fire on her head. She says those who menstruate are women. Is that outrageous? Those who vilify Rowling are saying that because there is a tiny, tiny, proportion of the population who have female bodies but believe themselves to be men, we should not be so unkind as to use the word ‘women” in relation to menstruation because it does not “include” the transgender men who bleed. So our language needs to be changed to drop references to “women” because it’s not “inclusive”.
If your readers are struggling to follow the logic of this, no wonder. This is part of a new orthodoxy that denies the biological and social reality of being female and is working to erase women from the language. J K Rowling has gently explained what being a woman has cost her in her personal life. Your readers deserve to have heard her side of the story. Instead, you have chosen to endorse the lies that Rowling is transphobic.