The tale of JK Rowling, finally revealed as a modern-day witch guilty of wickedness over sex and gender, is one of those stories that captures just about everything bad about this issue and about public conversation conducted via, and shaped by, social media. Rowling’s crime was to tweet that biological sex is real and should not be subordinated to the subjective concept of gender.
‘My life has been shaped by being female. I do not believe it’s hateful to say so,’ she wrote. ‘If sex isn’t real, there’s no same-sex attraction. ‘If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased.’
Cue firestorm.
If you haven’t seen this discussed on Twitter or another platform, just google her and pick from one of a few dozen news items published about the author and her views by media outlets around the world. This illustrates the first flaw of a Twitterised public culture.
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