Do you think it would be "illiberal" to hound someone for believing that white people are inherently superior to black people?
To keep things in context, JK Rowling has stated that she believes that biologically male people are inherently a danger to biologically female people.
This is fundamentally the paradox of tolerance: is it intolerant to be hostile to intolerant beliefs?
JK Rowling's essay explaining her stances on trans people:
> ... I spent much of Saturday in a very dark place inside my head, as memories of a serious sexual assault I suffered in my twenties recurred on a loop. That assault happened at a time and in a space where I was vulnerable, and a man capitalised on an opportunity. I couldn’t shut out those memories and I was finding it hard to contain my anger and disappointment about the way I believe my government is playing fast and loose with womens and girls’ safety.
> When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman – and, as I’ve said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones – then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside.
I never said if I agree or disagree with her, but seeing her experience with assault in the past. Can you see why she might feel like that?
I sympathise with her and the groups she referred to as well. We all are a product of our experiences and hardships, at the end of the day that shapes our opinions.
We can disagree with her but do we really need to resort to these methods.
I understand why she has these sorts of terrible beliefs, but I still think she deserves criticism for having them. Did you know that some anti-black racists also justify their beliefs based on their personal experiences? One person's individual experience is not an excuse for having terrible beliefs.
It all comes back to the fundamental question: is it ethical to criticize racists/sexists/homophobes/etc? You seem to be proposing that it's unethical to criticize such people?
A bigot can point to one experience with a minority and blame the entire demographic, but a minority can't say one white person said a slur to them therefore all white people are racist pigs without backlash. There's an XKCD comic about this and girls in math.
I feel JK Rowling was echoing a common sentiment in many women: “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.” - Margaret Atwood
Also, she's lying about "throwing open the doors". That was never the intention of proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act. We've had years of hateful campaigning, with the most prominent support coming from JKR but also from the right wing UK press, spreading misinformation.
> The Equality Act allows service providers to offer separate or differing services to men and women, or services to one sex only. For example, a domestic violence refuge may offer its services only to women. The Act also allows service providers to exclude a person with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment from a single-sex or separate-sex service, provided that doing so is a proportionate means of meeting a legitimate aim –in other words, where the service provider can demonstrate that there is a very strong reason for doing so. This can only be decided on a case-by-case basis, considering the needs of both the individual trans person and other service users.
> When launching the consultation, the Government said that it did not intend to amend the Equality Act. The consultation document stated that service providers would still be able to exclude trans people from single-or separate-sex services in certain circumstances, and that this could also apply to someone who had changed their legal gender and was in possession of a GRC. The Government’s view at the outset of the consultation, therefore,was that the operation of the single-sex exception would not be affected by changes to the GRA
To keep things in context, JK Rowling has stated that she believes that biologically male people are inherently a danger to biologically female people.
This is fundamentally the paradox of tolerance: is it intolerant to be hostile to intolerant beliefs?
JK Rowling's essay explaining her stances on trans people:
> ... I spent much of Saturday in a very dark place inside my head, as memories of a serious sexual assault I suffered in my twenties recurred on a loop. That assault happened at a time and in a space where I was vulnerable, and a man capitalised on an opportunity. I couldn’t shut out those memories and I was finding it hard to contain my anger and disappointment about the way I believe my government is playing fast and loose with womens and girls’ safety.
> When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman – and, as I’ve said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones – then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside.
https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-...