J.K. Rowling has been reported to the police by India Willoughby over accusations the author allegedly “misgendered” the broadcaster. The Mail has the story.
Willoughby, 58, a trans woman, claimed the Harry Potter writer called [him] a “man” in a series of posts on social media.
On Sunday, Rowling posted a criticism of trans women being allowed into women’s changing rooms on X/Twitter and in the thread she spoke about Willoughby and said: “India didn’t become a woman. India is cosplaying a misogynistic male fantasy of what a woman is.”
Willoughby, who is Britain’s first trans newsreader, claimed the best-selling author had “definitely committed a crime” under the 2010 Equality Act.
However, Rowling, also 58, said there was no law which compelled her to refer to Willoughby as female.
Speaking to Byline TV, Willoughby said: “J.K. Rowling has definitely committed a crime.
“I’m legally a woman. She knows I’m a woman and she calls me a man. It’s a protected characteristic.
“And that is a breach of both the Equality Act and the Gender Recognition Act. She’s tweeted that out to 14 million followers.” …
Rowling also claimed she was advised previously that she had a legal case against Willoughby for defamation. …
Rowling went on to say that Willoughby appeared to have forgotten the Forstater ruling, which “established that gender critical views can be protected in law”. …
A Northumbria Police spokesperson said: “On Monday, March 4th, we received a complaint about a post on social media. We are currently awaiting [sic] to speak to the complainant further.”
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It looks like Willoughby is going bald. Possibly late pattern male baldness. Might need a syrup soon.
Methinks there’s a lot more straw ready to grow out of this head.
The Willoughby gene carries baldness on the male and alas the female line.
Go on JK! If the police push on this then take this idiot to court.
The equality act does not apply to gender identity. It is not a protected characteristic.
He is cosplaying as a girl.
He is not a woman.
Assuming ‘India Willouhby’ burgled your house and noticed that you were shouting “Hold that ugly guy!” while it was making its escape, it wouldn’t be prosecuted for burglary but you’d probably be prosecuted for misgendering.
Current UK policing in a nutshell.
Are there any burglary convictions?
Ladies, please stop branding everything that you don’t like as ‘misogyny’. It’s not winning you any male friends… other than the ones you don’t want – Guardian readers. Pointing at brainwashed men who are mentally ill and need psychiatric help, and shouting MISOGYNY!!! at the top of your voice isn’t helping you. Maybe, just maybe, consider that hurling abuse at men for decades has led to the very thing you are now so appalled by – men that have come to believe they are better off as women. Just a thought.
(Un-)sorry, but this is a misogynistic fantasy, if there ever was one, as it implies that women don’t even exist.
I applaud the astounding heights of illogical female victimhood in your post. Truly impressive. Honestly. Well done.
Look, when the majority of women happily support (actively or inactively) the decades-long removal of masculinity by branding us all ‘toxic’ and joining an incredibly harmful campaign that literally says men should be more like women, who do you think has been busier trying to erase the other from existence?
I don’t know a single woman in my life who thinks that men are toxic or that we should be more like women.
I’m sure they exist, but I can’t imagine it’s anything close to a majority. You could argue they should have spoken up more but you could make that argument about a lot of issues that everyone should have spoken up more about.
I am not sure what “misogynistic” means to anyone any more. I am inclined to put it in the dustbin along with “racist”, “antisemitic”, “Islamophobic” as words that are unhelpful. I can’t quite get my head around the idea of a bloke claiming to be a woman and what that means about how they feel towards women. If I were a woman I would not be impressed but beyond that the whole thing is so beyond me I would not venture an opinion.
It means hostile to woman because they’re woman and there’s no better way to describe Willoughby’s actions than just that: Rowling is a woman. And that’s the one fact which terminally dislodges his entire fantasist’s universe.
It might mean that to you and some others and it might be the dictionary definition but I don’t think it’s always meant like that. I expect some of these people are indeed hostile in that way but I don’t know enough about them to be sure if it always follows and I’m not sure I want to find out.
It is a good point RW. Thanks for pointing it out.
Its like Peter Pan – keep that happy thought and you can fly.
“She” is misogynistic.
[Albeit that phrase seems internally contradictory.]
‘She’ wants to live as a woman but ‘she’ is hostile to women who want to have the same thing, like safe spaces from men and women who want equality in the sense of an equal right to fairness – like women only sport.
It is only fair that women can enjoy sport on equal terms with men by having men excluded from participating in women’s sport.
How else can women have equality in sport?
So why should ‘She’ have any right to complain about that?
Men have excluded women from their sport for as long as records exist for the very same reason women now exclude men from their sport.
Does ‘She’ complain about men excluding women from men’s sport?
It is a matter of fairness.
It is a matter of equality.
It is a matter of diversity. Accepting women for their biological sex and allowing whenever appropriate women the freedom to live as women free from pressures the biological differences create – like not sharing toilets with men and shower facilities and changing rooms and hospital wards.
And it is a matter of inclusion – including women in sport by excluding men from women’s sport. Women only football works for the same reason men only football works.
Imagine what the world would be like if we did not segregate children’s sport by age. Imagine the parents of a six year old child of either gender complaining the child was excluded from competing in the men’s World Cup.
Why is that any less of a DEI issue than women having women only sport or toilets or changing rooms.
No one in their right mind would bring a court case on the basis excluding their six year old’s participation in the men’s World Cup is illegal.
Next you know we will see court cases about a cocker spaniel not being allowed to compete in the World Cup.
Let’s pick any number of examples and compare them to the issue of men who want to live as women – just like women do.
What people like “India” Willoughby do is make life more difficult for other men who want to live like women do by pretending that is possible in all respects.
It is not. It is not possible in all respects.
There comes a point at which someone like “India” Willoughby must accept there are limits to what is tolerable.
One of those limits is toleration of the views of others [eg. J K Rowling] just like “India” Willoughby wants toleration of ‘Her’ views.
Not that I am suggesting anyone wastes police time by reporting “India” Willoughby for hate speech.
It used to refer to people like Peter Sutcliffe; but just as the word “hate” has become completely devalued in today’s linguistic currency, so the term “misogyny” must follow in its wake. These days it’s use is practically interchangeable with “sexism”, which makes BBC journo verbiage like “sexist, misogynist and offensive” (blah blah blah) read like an idiot teenager has been let loose on a political pamphlet.
I applaud the astounding heights of illogical female victimhood in your post.
I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean. The idea that bloke trying to dress up as tart equals woman is misogynistic. That’s independent of anything else men, women or small furry creatures from Alpha-Centauri do.
Look, when the majority of women happily support (actively or inactively) the decades-long removal of masculinity by branding us all ‘toxic’ and joining an incredibly harmful campaign that literally says men should be more like women, who do you think has been busier trying to erase the other from existence?
This so-called majority of women mostly doesn’t figure in my life, I only sometimes read about them and their opinions on the internet. I consider them misguided or lunatics or misguided lunatics. OTOH, they’re just some more members of the really large group of misguided lunatics out there and they’re all usually best ignored. In any case, that’s unrelated to the issue at hand.
I agree the term is over used usually out of context, but in cases like this I think it is appropriate. Willoughby is demonstrating an avid dislike of real women because they refuse to be made to accept him as the same creature as they are, so he has resorted to bullying and attack through the Police to force Rowling to say something against her will.
I think that these very vocal trans people
are ill, but 10 years ago even nothing like this would have been allowed to get this far. For a biological female these are very worrying times.
No man can understand that from a very early age a girl has to be constantly on her guard if in contact with strange males, walking home alone in the dark
a female is wary especially in lonely streets, if we go into a train carriage where there are just males in a group, we feel fear. No man understands this because it is not their experience. hence the need to be able to have our own changing rooms. toilets etc. No Trans person can feel this because it’s not part of their make up. but by forcing themselves on us with the back up of the system is I believe hatred pure and simple
While – to a degree – I accept your claim that some women feel fear when in the presence of groups of men and I fully endorse single sex spaces for both women AND men, I disagree that men don’t understand the idea of being constantly on their guard. Talk to a few young chaps and see how they feel: many are terrified of striking up conversations with women in pubs or clubs these days for fear of being accused of verbal assault or worse. I know men of all ages who consciously avoid ever being alone with women other than those they know and trust – colleagues, friend’s partners, even family members – to avoid being exposed to even the potential of being accused of something. If that’s not being on guard, I don’t know what is. Society has taken some very dark turns recently, don’t let’s make it worse.
No man can understand that from a very early age a girl has to be constantly on her guard if in contact with strange males, walking home alone in the dark
a female is wary especially in lonely streets, if we go into a train carriage where there are just males in a group, we feel fear. No man understands this because it is not their experience. hence the need to be able to have our own changing rooms. toilets etc
Men suffer from paranoia as well. I’ve met women walking alone in the dark at all times in the night between about midnight and 3am and the outcome was usually mutual of being happy about not being the only person ‘out on the streets’ at that time. The last guy from a group of unpleasant people who tried to attack/ intimidate me in the street sat in a wheelchair which made this a rather comical performance but his many predecessors have – at times – been quite violent. I’ve been beaten unconcsious by blokes who were much taller than me a couple of times and had numerous less serious violent altercations with them over the course of the years. And that’s just the usual street robbery (attempts) and male-on-male violence which always passes under the radar provided the victim is just another man.
Things become more unpleasant once we start to take gay men into account who usually act as if they had an unlimited license to grope and they’re usually correct in this regard as it’s always just for [their] fun. Striking examples would be the guy I met in a public toilet close to Mainz train station who insisted that I must be his blowjob date to the point that he followed me into the street and we had a shouting match there which drew the attention of other people, the guy who drew himself up on a toilet separation wall in order to gawp at my penis and when the result was not to his liking (he got a mild punch – I still regret that, I should have tried to hurt him seriously – on the eye) attacked me from front and behind together with his gay buddy (I got out with a pair of broken glasses and some minor injuries by sensible behaviour) and – that’s the absolutely best one – the guy who had been molesting me on numerous other occasions and insisted on fondling my forehead one some evening in The Purple Turtle (dive bar/ night club in Gun Street in Reading). I kept pushing his fingers away until he grew tired with this lack of appreciations for his attempts to force-flirt with me and punched me on the chin instead (I had my eyes closed at that time). Before I had completely recovered my senses (I got a minor concussion from that), he also engineered me being forcibly removed from the place based on the false claim that I had just punched him in the face. And that’s by no means an exhaustive list.
I reported this to the police but mainly for sport. They let the matter slip for months and until they finally called the manager of the place a couple of times and forced him to tell some lies about no CCTV recordings of the event being available despite it had happened directly in front of camera.
As people are bound to misinterpret “sensible behaviour”, the actual events were: While I was still in the cubicle with the door locked, the two guys outside of it made all kinds of wild threats what they’d do with me once I had come out of it. After some consideration, I decided that the best course of action was to do just that and chance it. The guy in front of me threw a large, yellow “Caution! Wet Floor” plastic cone into my face from about a distance of a foot. This knocked the glasses off my face (I don’t exactly see much without them) and resulted in minor bruises. I don’t know what the guy behind me was doing except that I heard him. The sensible bit was that I decided against diving for my glasses which were somewhere on the floor but pulled the outer door open instead. The guy in front of me tried to close it again to stop me from leaving but I forced it open against his efforts and left.
That was a bit of a paper tiger attack (German idiom for something that seems fearful but actually isn’t) but that wasn’t clear from the onset and both of these guys were taller and heavier than me.
No matter what one may think about the Russia /Ukraine “war” Putin absolutely will have nothing to do with this idiocy.
And Russia believes in the family – and Christian values (Contrary to what I was taught at school – Russian soldiers with snow on their boots about to invade us – Lol.).
Clown World at its finest.
What the F*** has happened to this country?
“Cosplaying” – I have not read any of her books but seems like she has a way with words.
That’s a proper or at least common American verb and refers to the act of dressing up and acting like one’s favourite actor, music star or film character etc. Could also be called larping (live-action role-playing).
Thanks for the info
I remember going roller skating a couple of years ago and there were what seemed like oddly dressed weirdos in the middle of the rink taking pictures of each other. I just thought they were a bit nutty but my daughter explained they were re-enacting something from “Stranger Things”
Well JK is just awesome ( I was going to say she’s the dog’s bollocks but perhaps not appropriate in this context ) and I never tire of reading her succinct but sassy tweets. She really runs rings around the Transtifa mafia. But I need to share this from Spain because it seriously must be parody. It’s too ‘Babylon Bee-esque’. I think it was the statement; ”externally I’m a straight man but inside I’m a lesbian woman” that did it. Just bonkers;
”In the small, autonomous city of Ceuta alone, it has been revealed that 37 male civil servants have changed their legal gender. Of them, the vast majority are associated with the Military, National Police, Civil Guard, or Local Police, and these new “females” have curiously all chosen to retain their male names and continue their lives “as men.”
One of the men has come forward to boast of his success, stating that he changed his legal gender after the Trans Law was implemented in Spain in March of 2023.
Roberto Perdigones, a 35-year-old Army corporal, changed his legal sex to “female” after deciding he identified as an “intersex bigender” person. Perdigones explained that “externally, I am a straight man and internally a lesbian woman.”
Perdigones says he first discovered that changing his registered sex would afford him benefits after reading an update in the National Police Exam syllabus with a list of “possible” gender identities one may have. Perdigones found a gender description he felt he matched, so pursued the change.
“Before, I was screwed because I complied with the law. Now, I’m still complying with the law but, after finding my gender situation, I’ve been benefited. And if someone criticizes me, they may be committing a crime of transphobia,” he boasted.
But the benefits are not limited to aesthetic issues, with Perdigones also now qualifying for a mother’s pension as he is a “woman” with a child.
“By changing my sex, as I have been informed, my pension has gone up. Because women receive more in retirement pensions to compensate for the inequality. In addition, I get 15% more because I have a child,” he boasted.
“I even have a private room in the barracks, all to myself, with a private bathroom. Because, being a woman, I can’t be with the men, and I didn’t consider it appropriate to be with the biological women out of respect for them. I’ve had the room to myself since the sex change.”
https://reduxx.info/spain-concerns-about-trans-fraud-emerge-after-dozens-of-male-civil-servants-in-one-small-community-change-their-legal-gender-but-maintain-male-names/
Fantastic! The government in Australia has just decreed that no government contracts can be issued to companies who do not commit to gender equality targets. Hopefully companies use this technique to comply where required.
A few months ago I wrote to the Pensions Minister saying I self-identify as an 85 yr old woman (I’m a little below pension age) and they owe me 20 years backdated State Pension. It was obviously a pee-take.
I was amazed to get a letter back asking for more information, including my date of birth. I responded by told them my date of birth was irrelevant due to my self ID.
I then got a phone call and a further letter …….. absolutely astounding. But no backdated pension – natch. Self-iD by age isn’t permitted.
Probably not parody but a great piss take of the system. Good on them!
I identify as a fish but still can’t breath under water – the hospital has told me to stop trying.
If it has a penis and balls it is a man. Very few men lose their penis and balls to become a ‘woman’ which tells you everything you need to know.
They need to “keep some skin in the game” as venture capitalists are wont to day.
Gender is a social construct, biological sex is not.
As I understand it, in Hermetic philosophy sex is considered the physical manifestation of gender.
There is male (the will) and female (the creativity) and everything has both. If the male aspect is weak, the female creativity will be driven by the will of others. If the male aspect is strong, they will manifest their own creation.
Gender is a grammatical construct social scientists misappropriated.
“One [study] found that reading Harry Potter improved attitudes towards homosexuals in Italian high school students. The other linked the books with more compassion towards refugees among English university students.”
“fantasy books such as Harry Potter may be of great help to educators and parents in teaching tolerance”
That was 2014 and the Potter books have a huge audience and following. Add to that popularisation of magic and witchcraft i.e. non-traditional values.
There’s nothing wrong with tolerance but it can depend on what is being tolerated and why it is being tolerated. JK Rowling may have inadvertently contributed to what she is now apparently challenging. Solve et coagula?
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-everyone-should-read-harry-potter/
In my opinion, the scientific value of such one-off ‘social sciences’ studies claiming to assess unquantifiable anecdotical effects of something on very small groups is exactly zero. OTOH, minus the trans-stuff, Rowling is doubtlessly what American’s might call a card-carrying “lefty”. That’s pretty obvious from the books themselves.
Yes it’s social science which is closely associated with behavioural science which has been seen to be a very effective discipline in recent years.
As for “lefty”: that is why I said “apparently challenging”.
I find myself utterly sick to death of trans/gender nonsense. So far as I can tell, the idea of ‘gender’ made sense when all we knew were ‘men’ and ‘women’. Anything else IS just made up b0110cks.
This is reality;
If you were born with a penis and testicles – XY chromosomes – (or would have been but for genetic anomaly), you are and always will be a man, no matter how you surgically alter yourself.
If you were born with a uterus XX chromosomes – (or would have been but for genetic anomaly), you are and always will be a woman, no matter how you surgically alter yourself.
You wouldn’t think in an advanced society that this would need saying.
This is a “woman” so settled in “her” femininity that she has to challenge a real woman about her gender.
Could try harder springs to mind.
If ‘she’ is so settled in her sexuality presumably ‘she’ won’t mind a bit of snippy snippy assuming ‘she’ has not already done so.
What I don’t get with all the trans nonsense, is that if I dared to put on some blackface or these days even wear some “ethnic” garb, I’d be accused of cultural appropriation.
But a man can put on a dress, slap on some lippy and claim to have magically become a woman and we’re all supposed to just go along with it.
Why isn’t it branded sex (or if you must gender) appropriation? Because that’s what it is.
It is impossible to change your sex. No-one born male will ever become a woman.
A boot in the nether regions is a good test of someones gender.
Look at me look at me. I am so special and important the fact I claim that Woman is a protected characteristic, when the claimant is frankly blatantly stamping all over it, is nothing short of misogyny.
Dear God, what have we come to when a biological male who puts on a woman suit, can expect the Police to turn away from genuine crimes to protect the imagination.
I am so sick of this hatred of women by a few men who believe we have become too uppity and need to be returned to being the chattels of men.
If I put on a suit, cut my hair and pack a sock down my pants, it does not make me a man. I do not have the millenia of genetics in my system, I do not have the lived experience from boyhood to Manhood, I fo not have the physicality,
I will never produce a child.
This needs to stop.By all means wear a dress, behave as you imagine a female does, but just as the Lion cannot become a Lioness the biologies cannot be changed, and to go after a biological woman because she will not pretend demonstrates the total misunderstanding of the species that you claim you are.
That’s an important point: Nobody wants or should have the right to stop these peope from behaving in whichever weird ways suit them in public. But they’re not entitled to force others to partake in their cosplaying exercises unless these others voluntarily do so.
This boils down to —–Does legally a woman trump biologically a woman or vice versa? ————But just because you choose to “identify” as something does it really mean we all must “identify” you as that? If so then when a silly teenage girl decides they are now a hedgehog then are we going to be breaking the law to call them a girl?
Legally a woman is a farce created by a state which has thoroughly exceeded the boundaries of its power of legislation. It’s akin to parliament passing a law that night is now legally day and vice-versa and threaten to fine or otherwise punish everyone who dares to claim that it’s dark when the sun doesn’t shine. Natural laws and phenomina are not in the domain of what a state can legitimately legislate on. Actions to the contrary are just exercises of might makes right and the people who propose them are proper totalitarians. They’re convinced that there’s no aspect of our lives which is off limits to their hijacked power of coercion, just aspects of our lives they didn’t bother to legislate on so far because no novel virus compelled them to do.
I suspect they will soon legislate how our toe nails must be clipped and provide us with a little wheelie bin for the clippings. ——-But hey let’s not give them any ideas.
“Willoughby, 58, a trans woman”
Allow me – “Willoughby, 58, an autogynephile and female impersonator”
Why not just say a “trans person”? By saying “trans woman” you pander to them.
It is odd that the tiny number of gender dysmorphic who have undergone surgery and hormone treatment want to be classed the same as the majority of transvestites who dress as the opposite sex but do not wish to alter their bodies.
Does anyone know what the burglary clear up rate is for Northumberland Police? I’m guessing low to nothing – too much like hard work.
“legally a woman” ?? Why then are more and more sports banning trans from competing against women? ——–“Trans woman” and woman are clearly two different things.