I am not going to post the Twitter/X thread that JK Rowling posted on April 1st (2024) due to the amount of space it takes up. You are free to go and have a gander yourself.
Now, as I have said in the past, I put myself in the third gender category when I was a child. I had what we used to call Gender Identity Disorder, now known as gender dysphoria, from the age of 9-34. How did I lose my “trans identity”? I prayed, I never went to a doctor, I got therapy and I took myself out of the toxic environment I had been in. An abusive family, a country with wacky and backwards ideas about women and women who were backwards with wacky ideas about how to behave towards other women.
I went to another country and surrounded myself with nice people. Thank God for Belgium.
I say “trans identity” as a joke. It was never an identity for me, I never called myself trans. We never used words like that back then. Trans is a new term. I used third gender and Gender Identity Disorder to describe the problems I was having.
So many “gender critical” folk have praised JK Rowling for her X thread on April Fool’s Day, for saying that the rapists she has named in her thread are men – note: under UK law, only a man can rape and can only rape with a penis. So many people were calling JK a hero or heroine. I disagree.
- In her thread, JK jokes about genuine rapes, including that of a 10 year old and a sex offender who exposed himself to two eleven year old girls. JK then says, “Yay!” She details the sex offender’s offences, including watching footage of babies being raped and wrote, “Be that as it may, Sam’s still a lady to me.” And it goes on like that. Making jokes about genuine rapes and being light hearted about genuine rapes is not a win. I would hate to be all of those survivors right now. The most famous woman in the world is laughing about what was done to them. The most famous woman in the world has got hundreds of thousands of people to laugh at what was done to the survivors and her jokes are now plastered all over the news. Imagine being those survivors right now.
- People are saying how brave JK is. JK herself said she was on holiday outside of the UK. So JK is being “brave” from a few hundred miles away. JK was never at any risk of being arrested. JK can remain outside of the UK and she can flee the UK any time. No bravery has been required in the tweeting of this thread.
- JK has the best legal team money can afford. JK is never going to go to prison, even if there is video evidence of her hacking a dwarf to death with the two broken pieces of the elder wand. Jail was never going to happen for JK therefore no bravery was required in the tweeting of this thread. The woman who will be jailed under this new Scottish law will be working class and she will be too mentally or physically ill to be able to defend herself in any way. She will be ruined. Her entire life will be ruined.
I also reserve the words “hero” and “heroine” for men and women who show extraordinary bravery in saving others from death or a fate worse than death such as The Angel of Mostar – look her up, Corrie Ten Boom – look her up or the real life English woman on whom I base the character Su who appears in my novels. A multi millionaire tweeting stuff is not heroic in my book.
While I have defended JK Rowling in the past for standing up for women and stating reality while being compassionate towards trans folk, I am now being more cautious. I have admired JK Rowling for remaining calm and pleasant in her public facing life while being subjected every day to threats of rape and murder.
However, now JK is turning abusive herself. Calling someone “a massive dick” on X is not great behaviour. Using a genital slur is not enlightened behaviour. I have no idea what has gone on between JK and the man she was calling names. I just know JK’s crown has now fallen.
And I have had a rethink about JK accepting rape and death threats every day. JK has been public about having lived with domestic violence. I am glad she left. However, this acceptance of daily rape and death threats is not a good example to women and girls. It teaches women and girls to accept serious threats and violence. JK should have gone to the police the very first time someone threatened her. With all the money, influence and power JK Rowling has, I do not know why she has not gone to the police.
The police do act. I know this personally. The 52 year old I mentioned in my blog post on Emotional Dependency in LGBT People continued to phone me after I had told her to stay away, and these phone calls were witnessed by other people. After the fourth time she phoned me, I phoned the police. They asked for details, I gave them. They sent officers to speak with her and told her that if she tries to contact me in any way again, it is immediate arrest.
Before Easter, I celebrated my birthday. My mother who wrecked my childhood etc who I had told to stay away from me and to not get other people to contact me on her behalf, who loves ruining my birthdays, on my birthday got a complete stranger as well as other people I knew to say “your mother loves you” and “get in touch this Mother’s Day.” That was me down the police station on Monday morning. The police took the matter seriously, as the abuse was serious, and I had a sit down with an officer who was fantastic, and he said yes, officers will visit my mother and tell her it is immediate arrest if she tries to pull anything like this again.
There are good coppers out there. Don’t let the bad ones put you off.
The problem with a lot of women reporting someone is the women often retract their complaint. A woman who has called 999 in fear of her life will go back to this man within hours of the police arresting him for domestic violence. I have found that two weeks is usually the time when the woman goes back. If you are going to report somebody, do not recant or go back and live with that person. It makes a mockery out of what you have been through and it is soul destroying to the police and any other services who want to help you.
This is now where I apologise to anyone I have hurt in the past.
I have, on Facebook, been skeptical of some women’s claims about themselves and experiences. I have been skeptical because my sister lied about being raped and my best friend lied about being raped. I worked with several hundred rape survivors over 20 years. When I see behaviour online that is radically different to the behaviour of survivors I worked with for long periods of time, working with some for a period of two years, and the behaviour of people online who say they are survivors of rape is inline with the behaviour of my sister or my ex best friend, then I do call into question what women say about themselves.
The behaviour I’ve come across online is that of aggression. None of my clients were ever aggressive. The people online are demanding and want everyone to give them sympathy. None of my clients were ever public about what had been done to them and none wanted sympathy. What has happened to them was a private matter they were dealing with and were moving forward with. The radical difference in behaviour between the hundreds of people I have worked with and the behaviour of those online are what kicked my skepticism into play.
I did try different approaches. I tried being sympathetic. The women were abusive. I tried comedy. The women were abusive. Every single approach I took had the exact same result. This also added to my skepticism.
When women online claim to have PTSD and then go into detail as to why they have PTSD, I know they do not have PTSD. One of the key diagnosing symptoms of PTSD is the person cannot talk about what happened. The person will do anything to avoid talking about it, and if they do talk about it to a therapist, they become physically as well as mentally ill. Straight away. The physical and mental illness manifest within seconds of the person trying to talk about the trauma. Screeching at strangers on the internet is not PTSD.
And so this makes me highly skeptical of strangers on the internet who become highly abusive as soon as I speak from my background as a support worker for people with complex mental health conditions.
I also noticed in these threads, there’s never any men. Unless a man comes in to show his support, and he also gets screeched at and told to F off. There’s never any men survivors in these threads or pages. And that makes me highly skeptical, too.
I do not believe for a second that any of the people who I upset – who were very aggressive and abusive to me – had PTSD. I do, however, believe there are personality disorders in play, namely Cluster B, which includes disorders such as borderline personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder. These conditions are characterised by attention seeking behaviour. These conditions can be caused by abuse, but they can also be caused by being brought up in the theatre where all eyes are on you, or they can be exacerbated or some even claim caused by growing up living on the internet and wanting the validation of strangers.
Whatever it is that causes women to go on the internet instead of turning to family and friends, wanting sympathy from strangers for a condition they clearly do not have, or sympathy from strangers for something that is deeply personal, it makes me extremely skeptical.
I am sorry if I have hurt anyone who has been genuine.
As I have said before, I screw up. I am not perfect by any stretch of the imagination.
If anything has happened to you, anything, we all go through stuff in this life, talk to trusted family or friends. Strangers on the internet cannot help you. You need trusted, good people who are going to stick by you and be there for you whenever you need support or need someone to cheer you up. If you need therapy, go to an official organisation, such as here in the UK, the BACP, and they will give you a list of qualified professionals in your area. Go to your family doctor. They will connect you with psychiatry and perhaps a counsellor.
Do not rely on strangers on the internet to help you. We screw up.
However, Jesus is perfect. One of the names given to Jesus is “Wonderful Counsellor”. Jesus has been through everything a person can ever go through. He knows what it is to go through things, and He knows how it feels. Instead of going to the internet and wanting people like me who screw up to give you attention, sympathy, a listening ear, a sounding board, compassion, whatever it is, people screw up. Only One Person can be counted on, and that is Jesus.
catherinehume 