I found myself asking myself a rather odd question, "Why is it that the big story is of J.K. Rowling being cancelled yet again and not about what she actually said?"
Well, for me personally, there are two reasons why it took me so long to see what she said to create the latest onslaught:
- is that I've honestly never been a huge fan of her writing;
- is that it doesn't matter what she said for me to know that the people who are doxing her and threatening her are the bad guys in this story.
As for the activists who are trying to erase her (while still embracing what she created), I can come up with a few reasons.
The most obvious is that a lot, if not most of the people who are trying to cancel her have no fucking idea what she said. Most of the Quidditch players have probably not followed her on Twitter in more than a year and they just listened to what the trans activists were saying about her.
As for the people who started this new meme that Rowling is "...being a TERF again." I think that there's two options that are both evil.
Again, this isn't spillover from her previous statements from over a year ago. This is a new statement that created a new onslaught. Rowling's allegedly "transphobic" statements were critical of a new law in Scotland that would allow biological men with no diagnoses of gender dysphoria and no intention of recieving hormones or especially not surgery to simply be identified by the state, including the legal system, as a woman by simply making the declaration.
Of course most of the trans activists have been conveniently ignoring that Washington state by already has similar policies and it's already sent convinced male rapists to female prisons. Now, they're attacking Rowling for raising concerns about the same policy being adopted in her home country.
So, for the cancel crowd that does know what Rowling's recent gripe was about, we're left with three options for explaining their silence.
One is that they didn't realize what the fuss was about before they hopped on the bandwagon and it's easier to lie than admit that you got something wrong. Perhaps some of them are smart enough to realize that sending convicted rapists to female prisons is the logical conclusion to a legal embracing of their rhetoric on the issue. When you've been calling people horrible names for even suggeting that we shouldn't be giving drugs to children who think they might be trans and that maybe we shouldn't make transitioning so easy as checking a box, it's hard to admit that there might be horrifying consequences to your activism or to dial back you language. It's a clear chink in your armor to passionately insist that if a man says that he's a woman he should be met with no scrutiny just to slide in qualifiers.
Still, there were some people who knew what Rowling really said and still decided to tell the original lies that started the new onslaught.
One possible reason is that the radical activists are so delusional, monosyllabic word vomit is entirely true and that there isn't a reason outside of transphobia to worry about a penis-owning convicted rapist having such a low bar for entry into a woman's prison. But, I don't think those people would be keeping their mouth shut.
No, I think a lot of people have just decided that a few women, especially incarcerated women being raped is a defensible price to pay to further the activism. It wouldn't surprise me for a moment if the people who were digging through Rowling's Twitter feed to create this manufactured outrage simply figured that this was a way to attack their enemy and the only people who are going to pay any real price for the lie are other people. It wouldn't surprise me while it does disgust me.
Finally, the kinds of people who spark these cancel mobs are the kinds of people who will say that other people are "literally Hitler." You know, yeah, Hitler was one of history's most disgusting people; but, he actually dared to say his disgusting ideas out loud.