Trigger warning: Transphobia
In the early days of June 2020, Joanne Rowling, one of the world’s bestselling author, tweeted her opinion on twitter regarding a news article which talked about making the situation for people who menstruate manageable especially during COVID-19. She used misspelled versions of the word ‘woman’ to mock the text.
The transgender community is a part of the LGBTQ+ community. It comprises of people that do not identify with the same sex they were born with. Transgender women are women and transgender men are men. There is no saying otherwise. So how is this related to Joanne’s tweet?
Well, Joanne hinted from her cryptic tweet that it is only the cisgender women who menstruate whereas if you consider the transgender community, you see that transgender men menstruate too. The news article wrote that so that they made sure they included everyone who menstruates i.e., transgender men and non-binary people along with cisgender women.
Several twitter accounts replied to Joanne's tweet saying otherwise. Memes and jokes were circulated around the platforms such as the disbelieving of the fact that Joanne wrote the Harry Potter series and that it was written by Harry himself. Her latest book, ‘Troubled blood’, is the fifth book in the Strike series which is about a cold case from 1974. In the thriller novel, the antagonist is a transvestite serial killer, or in other words, ‘a cis man in a dress who commits crimes. The moral of the book is said to be ‘never trust a man in a dress’ which makes the situation even worse.
Joanne Rowling is rather a TERF, which stands for ‘Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist’, than a transphobe. TERFs are feminists who stand up for the women but invalidate that womanhood of transwomen. Joanne’s comments on the transgender community are pulling a dangerous and hateful narrative for them.
As someone who identifies from within the LGBTQ+ community, I stand strongly with the transgender community and am greatly thankful for the freedom and basic rights they fought for us. As a generation who is willing to support and help others, we should educate ourselves more on such issues and help marginalized communities as much as possible.
-Shreya Singh
He/she
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