Author J.K. Rowling has fallen silent on her usually busy X (formerly Twitter) feed, after Olympic gold medalist boxer Imane Khelif filed a legal complaint in France for alleged cyber harassment over statements regarding her gender.
On August 9, lawyers for Khelif filed a lawsuit with a special unit of the public prosecutor’s office in Paris, stemming from false statements that spread online about her gender after the Algerian boxer defeated Italy’s Angela Carini in her first fight of the 2024 Olympic Games. Carini pulled out 46 seconds into the bout and told reporters afterwards that she had “never felt a punch like this.”
I hope she pays dearly for her racism and bigotry.
Racism?
all of this started when the (Russian controlled) IBA suddenly disqualified Khelif (who had been boxing for many years without issue) after beating a Russian. Since then IOC banned the IBA due to ties with organized crime, fixing fights, and financial instability, so now IBA has no influence on olympic boxing whatsoever.
fast forward a couple years to the bigger stage of the olympics, twitter warriors pick up on the story again based on nothing more than “looks like a man” which happens disproportionately more to women of color. So yes, this kind of thing often does have racial undertones.
Yes, she is Algerian (North African) and that was a major reason if not the reason why she was targeted.
She was targeted because it was spread falsely she had XY chromosomes and had high testosterone, not that she was North African. Rowling has had plenty of hate for white trans people.
If she was a standard blonde white woman , it wouldn’t have gotten as far as it did to begin with.
There is a long, LONG, history of masculinizing women of colour, yes, it’s absolutely rooted in racism as well as transphobia.
And JK Rowling specifically is a racist.
I also mentioned bigotry. I am aware she is a TERF.
Attempting to insinuate racism diminishes the other truthful charges.
I mean, her books are full of racist tropes, like obvious ones. Ones she still defends to this day.
Yes. And those tropes are saying racism is bad. Pure blood/mugblood, enslaved elves etc. All bad in the potter universe.
However, Rowling deserves some blame for allowing the goblins to become Jewish caricatures.
No it wasn’t
Oh no, consequences.
Only because she attacked a cis woman. No consequences from the years doing everything in her power to targetedly harass individual trans peolle, the community as a whole or publishing books about trans serial killers.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to see her go quite, I hope she stays that way. But I’m bitter it wasn’t a realization that her crusade was mysgonstic hatred, only that she was a zealot who accidently friendly fired.
This isn’t friendly fire. TERFism is inherently white supremacist and Khelif was targeted for her race.
“Could any picture sum up our new men’s rights movement better?” the writer asked. “The smirk of a male who’s knows he’s protected by a misogynist sporting establishment enjoying the distress of a woman he’s just punched in the head, and whose life’s ambition he’s just shattered.”
This fucking smug cunt.
Some people need a punch to the head to stop being so smug
throw Rowling into the ring
Its always X (formerly twitter) and i bet elon hates that.
when a man breaks a record he is a super human, when a woman breaks a record she is a man.
Did she break any record? Also AFAIK the same didn’t happen to previous medalists or generally the strongest female boxers. It also didn’t happen with other monsters who broke tons of records (e.g. Katie Ledecky) just during this Olympics.
This makes me think that it’s not what you are saying but there are probably other reasons in play. Probably the IBA and the media making a case after the first boxer withdrew are responsible.
The IBA is notoriously corrupt and in the pockets of Russia. The whole stuff against Khelif was likely made up, because she did not adhere to planned match fixing by the IBA.
Add to that the fact that she is from an African Muslim country and on top of that the country that kicked the French colonisers out. She was made the perfect targeted for all levels of racism and white supremacism, from the very blatant, to the more or less concealed “Liberals”.
To be honest I don’t consider something being Russian as automatically 100% false. This case from the IBA seems likely made up, or at least it is until they provide further proof, which they didn’t so far.
That said, this is irrelevant in this particular conversation. Real or not, that precedent is in my opinion partly responsible for why people decided to attack this particular athletes. I agree with you on the next country also playing a role.
Basically my whole argument is that there are multiple factors that made this a case. The fact that she “broke records” or “had success” is generally very low in the list, imho.
In combat sports there’s a lot of derision for women who look too strong. Instead of complementing their training regiment and dedicated they get called ugly and a man all the damn time.
On the other end usually those same trolls will call women who train and still look feminine to be gold diggers training with so many men, that’s for posting pictures of themselves training, making weight etc. And send them dm’s offering money to be choked out.
I am sure that’s the case, but I think this has not to do with “breaking records” I.e. having success in sport. It might have to do with general gender stereotypes related to body types, for example, or with other stuff.
So either way the comment I was answering to seems counterfactual and sensationalistic.
obviously stereotypes make people’s story more believable and easier to go viral and that is why people choose the stories they choose. doesn’t change the fact that there are people who would rather explain an unexpected level of success shown by a woman by saying she is probably not a woman. the story they choose is irrelevant really. They could have claimed she has cybernetic extensions in her muscles and it would be the same thing. And all you are saying is “but there are other very successful women who have not been treated that way”. Sure, did not say every single very successful woman is deterministically being treated unfairly. I am saying it is a tendency.
It has to do with the fact that testosterone is a performance enhancement drug and men are categorically stronger than females, and a man punching a female is strictly unsafe.
At the moment we don’t have any concrete data, so in case it is based on a suspicion at most.
breaking record not in the formal sense but performing exceptionally well, such as beating your opponent in 46 seconds in the last 16
I doubt that fight can be counted as “exceptionally good performance”, but anyway why the same didn’t happen for those that both performed exceptionally well and actually set records?
There are so many examples of that not happening that makes me seriously doubt it identifies the right cause(s).
What you think are the right causes are not the causes, they are the tools (stereotypical biases etc) that these people use to make their stories believable.
And counting is not the correct methodological approach to this question it is the incident rate (historically of women whose success has been deliberately downplayed because she does not fit the stereotypical women in their head vs men who suffered from the same).
Those look nothing like “tools” to me.
I will make it simpler: In this very thread a person talked about “high testosterone”. Why they didn’t say the same about the 99% of the women who won competitions? Probably because of a combination of factors:
- The masculine aspect of this particular boxer, that doesn’t fit the image that many people have of women
- The media reporting the immediately pushed to a polarization of opinions -> you had to take a side
- The previous IBA debacle that planted the seed of the doubt
To me the combination of the above is a much better explanation of the causes for which people attacked this particular boxer, and not the many other women of success, including black and including masculine (e.g., Simone Biles, or Grace Bullen).
historically of women whose success has been deliberately downplayed because she does not fit the stereotypical women in their head vs men who suffered from the same
I really don’t see how this measurement can lead to any conclusion. How can you not measure the amount of women who don’t fit the stereotypical woman aspect and yet whose success has not been downplayed due to their aspect (i.e., people called them men)?
Why they didn’t say the same about the 99% of the women who won competitions?
It makes up for a more believable story in this context (boxing which is accepted as a masculine sport) and therefore becomes a more efficient tool. It fits in more easily with people’s biases making it much easier to spread. Simon Biles is a gymnast so that does not fit into the context here. Grace Bullen does. But you can not simply say “it did not happen to other women in plausible scenerios, therefore it is not real”. It is like saying belts are useless in %90 of the cases, it is a useless statistic that does not take into account the expected effect.
I really don’t see how this measurement can lead to any conclusion.
What do you mean? Comparing the rate at which women are subject to such effects vs men is a worse statistic than saying “but many successful women are not subject to such effects”? If there is a systematic bias towards women’s success being downplayed, you cannot call this an isolated incident of stereotypical bias.
I’m a Conservative championing Genital Inspections on Children to make sure ONLY PEOPLE with Vaginas play Girl’s Sports but also THIS Women with a Vagina is ACTUALLY A MAN!
Sorry, was I wrong to be a hateful bigot and use my celebrity to spread hate?
JKR is so far off base here that even if you are a dyed-in-the-wool TERF this is basically impossible to defend.
Gate-keeping feminity by excluding women born with a vagina who are too butch by your opinion to be considered “women” is going too far… even if you are otherwise onboard with gate-keeping “womanhood” from trans women.
It’s just proof that the F in TERF is a lie. Rowling is in no way a feminist, even if you define feminism as only promoting the rights of cis women.
Rowling is not a feminist, she’s a bigot who thinks that cis women who don’t pass her requirements for femininity and whiteness count as women.
I don’t get it. They took a test that revealed they have XY chromosomes in 2023.
Someone finally got Rowling to shut up! Imane Khelif is my hero!
Getting JK Rowling to shut up is arguably a more impressive accomplishment than winning Olympic gold
Re: Your username. Do you sneakily swipe bread sticks, or use them as weapons? Also, how do you feel about garlic bread?
No need for lawsuits. Put her in the ring. Let her defend her convictions with her face and fists.
Anyone with basic critical thinking skills would have known this whole scandal was bullshit in the first place. Did it not occur to any of these TERFs and transphobes that Algeria (a Muslim nation known for persecuting the LGBTQ community as a whole) is one of the least-likely nations to field a trans candidate?
Yes, it did not occur to them. They simply don’t care. Facts and reason can’t matter to the misogynistic anti-trans crowd. Their whole approach is built on hate and bullshit, and they know it.
They are just so desperate for an Olympic level “gotcha” in their cultural crusade that they just singled out a woman boxer for being “too butch” and just ran with their assumptions.
Then every try-hard wannabe right wing influencer type just gloms onto it hoping to be chosen by the algorithm for ten hot seconds of vainglorious right wing attention/validation.
On the other hand, Algeria is a country unlikely to formally recognize an intersex person.
Are they more likely to be intersex than just doping with testosterone?
Doping with testosterone would certainly have been tested for (amongst other PEDs).
Does it come up different in the body than just normal testosterone?
Sorry, not a doping expert. Reports of cheating seem to focus on quantity of testosterone, not quality.
But in this case the discussion is moot. Imane Khelif didn’t have abnormal levels of testosterone.
The Wall Street Journal still has an article online that says:
The Algerian boxer is biologically male but allowed to compete in the female category
Fuck Jeff BezosEDIT: Oh dang this isn’t WaPo. Fuck him anyway though.
WSJ is a Murdoch propaganda outlet
The author, colin wright, touts himself as a fellow for SEGM “The Society For Evidence-Based Gender Medicine;” which is a non-profit organization that is known for its opposition to gender-affirming care for transgender youth and for engaging in political lobbying.
He’s a POS who gets paid to write smear pieces endangering the lives of trans people, by people with even worse ideals than his own.
Bezos has nothing to do with the Wall Street Journal
my bad
Upvote because you recognized you were incorrect & you weren’t a rowling about it!
☺️
It’s not like I have to take back the “Fuck Jeff Bezos” part. Just not specifically about this.
Never, ever take back a “fuck Bezos” 💪👍🙏
Wait how is this blatant lie allowed to remain published online? I thought the WSJ had at least some credibility?
how is this blatant lie allowed to remain published online?
A lot of people still think there’s consequence or rules or regulations on what publications can say or do. We abolished those laws a long time ago.
Sue’em, hard.
No modern US media has any credibility anymore. They are owned by a handful of wealthy people who don’t give a shit about truth or journalistic integrity.
she’s in stage 2 of fucking around lmaoo
Heaven forbid she lose money. Literally the only thing that could make her
stopbriefly pause harassing people on the internet.She has billions. No matter how much she loses she’ll still be obscenely rich.
Maybe they can sue for billions. Gawker got sued out of existence, I hope she gets some good US attorneys and files in a jurisdiction that has unlimited damages. Maybe we can all use the new “K” platform after she owns “X”.
she thought she was Hermione. turns out she was just Malfoy.
I’m honestly confused how she could write a story where Harry Potter triumphs over he who must not be named, when he who must not be named was her hero.
It must have been really tough for her.
Rowling should be in jail for hate crimes. That person need rehabilitation before we can let her back into society.
