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JK Rowling

JK Rowling deserves a peerage

But there is much more work still to do. Gender identity ideology – the idea that we all have a gender identity that might trump biological sex – has run rampant throughout our institutions.

Kemi Badenoch has suggested that JK Rowling deserves a seat in the House of Lords. The Tory leadership contender said in an interview with Talk TV: ‘I don’t know whether she would take it but I certainly would give her a peerage’.

Rowling certainly deserves credit for her tireless stand against the transgender madness. For more than four years, she has spoken out courageously, sometimes in the face of dreadful abuse, to say things that we once all knew to be true: that being a woman is far more than an assertion of a supposedly female gender identity. The Harry Potter author has been a key voice in a debate that has moved so far from the dark days of 2017.

Back then, politics was very different. Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn might not have agreed on much, but they both appeared to be in thrall to gender identity ideology. Corbyn urged May to allow anyone to self-identify their gender; she subsequently pledged to do just that. Campaigners against such folly were on the back foot. Common sense and hard truths were harder to sell than the fantasy that we could all choose our sex. However, when Rowling spoke up in 2020 to criticise women being referred to as ‘people who menstruate’, the message got out to the wider public. More politicians saw reason, and self-ID was shelved, at least in the UK. Thank you, JKR!

In the interview, Badenoch also cited Hilary Cass, another courageous woman who has already been ennobled. ‘I managed to get Dr Hilary Cass a peerage because I knew that she was someone who would have a strong voice in parliament,’ said Badenoch. Cass led the review of gender identity services for children and young people that ultimately resulted in the closure of GIDS – the children’s clinic run by the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust. Safeguards were also subsequently put on the supply of puberty blockers to British children distressed about their sex.

Badenoch clearly believes that being so open with her views will help her defeat Robert Jenrick in the ballot of Tory party members. She is probably right. Most people must know that sex is real, and that it was a terrible idea to even consider treating teenage angst with drugs. But before Rowling spoke up, Cass did her work, and Badenoch took her position, rather few were willing to admit it. 

Badenoch is, of course, no longer in government and so the power of making decisions now lies with the party opposite. Wes Streeting, the Labour health secretary, made a good start when he upheld the ban on puberty blockers that was put in place as an emergency measure in the final days of the Conservative government.

But there is much more work still to do. Gender identity ideology – the idea that we all have a gender identity that might trump biological sex – has run rampant throughout our institutions. GIDS might have closed, but Streeting needs to keep a very close eye on what might replace it.

For now, though, one thing is clear: Badenoch is right. Rowling probably deserves a peerage. But that gong will count for little if common sense doesn’t prevail in the gender debate.

Debbie Hayton is a teacher and journalist.

Her book, Transsexual Apostate – My Journey Back to Reality is published by Forum

* This article was first published by The Spectator on 17 October 2024: JK Rowling deserves a peerage.

Debbie Hayton's avatar

By Debbie Hayton

Physics teacher and trade unionist.

13 replies on “JK Rowling deserves a peerage”

I agree. Granted, JK has the clout and worldwide stature to withstand the slings and arrows of the trans hysteria directed at her. Her publishers and movie producers wisely (‘think of the money we’d lose, chaps!’) went with the publishing version of the 5th Amendment, meaning they could argue how an author’s personal views were not theirs. Sadly, bestselling Scottish author Gillian Philip was ‘let go’ (ahem) by her publisher after putting “I stand with JK Rowling” in her Twitter handle. Alas for those woke publishers… JK’s stance, I believe, was instrumental in turning the tide back in favour of normality and the 2-gender interpretation of men and women. I write MG adventure and after some consideration, I put on Twitter that I would never put any gender ideology in my books and people were welcome to unfollow me if they wanted. Astonishingly, I got more followers and some applause. Like most people out there, I am fine with how people want to live their lives, as long as kids are untouched and women are safe in their own spaces and sports. The fact that these two sacred concepts came near to being eradicated is shocking and shameful and an indictment of governments worldwide, big companies, medical/scientific institutions, academia, social media and, even worse, mainstream media who persist in calling big beefy men with full beards she/her. Yes, make JK a peer. Without her stance so many of us would have been crushed by the howls and insults hurled by a small, vocal, vicious, malicious, and vengeful minority of men disguised as women seeking adulation and money (Dare I mention Dylan You Know Who?), validation of a fantasy, or simply the perverted desire of a predator to be the fox allowed into the hen house…

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Dylan You Know Who — puke, puke, puke, puke, puke.

I am a poet. I don’t think I’m a bad one by any means, but there are editors who don’t want to look at my work because of that (I am sometimes upfront about it). At 74, I’m not sure I’ll be able to get my work published.

Here is the first anti-trans poem I wrote. I hesitate to post it here because Debbie is trans, and my poems do sound somewhat contemptuous; but I feel no contempt for honest trans people like Debbie. In fact, it their ideology that fuels my contempt, something which Debbie doesn’t believe in.

====================

THE NEW AMAZONS

Some of them actually look like women,
though most of them can’t pull it off. I do
admire their courage to risk ridicule.

For the rest of us, years of laughing
at comedians in wigs, pearls and frocks
must be forgotten, for the law says
that we must take them seriously.

So many musts.

We must accept them as real for what
they think they are. We must let them tell
us who WE are, for they are experts on
everything surreal. We must speak about
them only in the words they specify.

Women must welcome them into their games,
live with them in shelters, prisons, dorms;
appreciate their naked bodies when they bathe.
Children must accept them as their guides.

This is the New Order, a world in which
every impossible thing is true. Blue is pink
and pink is blue. No one is who she seems to be.
Should you decide to disagree, take care.
The army of the monster will engage you,
slap you down, cancel, crush and shame you.
The truth is on your side, but may not save you.

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I’ve never read one of her books, but I am a huge fan of Rowling’s. She is very courageous. The ridiculous thing is that the solution to this issue is so simple and so obvious:ˑ

Let trans people live their lives, but they don’t need transgender ideology to do that. Is it really so terrible to admit that you are a “man who feels like a woman”? People will be polite and call you “she”, even if you don’t pass very well. But when you claim to be a REAL woman, and then push your way into women’s spaces, that gets people riled. What transgender people need is a dose of humility. (Not you, Debbie, of course. I’m just speaking in broad terms to the reader, whoever that is.)

I still remember when I was debating with that poetry editor (via email), a straight man who had no stake in this issue. I said to him, “A man who feels like a woman is a man who feels like a woman, and nothing more”, and the guy just went ballistic, even to the point of calling me ugly names. I convey this anecdote as a measure of how seductive transgender ideology is, although I still don’t know what makes it is so seductive — to me it sounds like magic. There is a certain kind of liberal out there who wants everyone to be accepted on their own terms. I have to assume that these are people who have NOT been accepted on their own terms in their lives, and that is why they run to the defense of every person that they perceive as scorned in some way. These same liberals, however, feel perfectly fine throwing women under the bus. Perhaps that’s because women exist in such large numbers — but even so, women are STILL victims of society. Women are raped and murdered by men at astonishing rates (not so much in England, though). They still can’t climb above the glass ceiling. They have been second-class citizens in every human society that has ever existed. But to these “woke” liberal types, a man who feels like a woman is more deserving of sympathy than any women. This is something I can’t figure out.

As for transgender ideology itself, the reason trans people came up with it was to justify their existence. Now, I don’t believe that trans people NEED to justify their existence (and/or feelings) any more than I should have to justify my homosexuality, but it seems obvious to me that that is what they are doing. After all, if feeling like a woman gives you the “gender identity” of a woman, and having the “gender identity” of a woman makes you a REAL woman, then voila!, you have given yourself the status of a human sex, right along side men and women. And it is the next part of that idea — that being a real woman gives you the right to enter into all of women’s single-sex spaces — that gives a man-cum-woman extraordinary rights. And if you use that excuse to enter into women’s sports, then you have given yourself the right to be a champion too! It is this kind of thinking that makes me feel that trans people need more humility.

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I agree. The trans agenda has opened the doors to the failed men who wish to profit by it (Dylan Mulvaney and pretend ‘beauty’ queens et al), sports cheats to numerous to mention headed by Lia/Will Thomas, and blatant rapists and abusers of women.

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I couldn’t explain why, but it especially irritates me when trans women try to be extremely glamorous, like the ones who go into modelling and such. It is as if they are trying to outdo women, to be a better woman than real women are. And yet, at the same time, they are sending the message that glamour is what women should aspire to be, though glamour is basically shallow.

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I think that it is an evolved instinct to want to appear in a way that we think is attractive to other people. Autogynephilia shifts the focus of that instict to ourselves. So we have that same urge to appear in a wa way that we find to be attractive, It can then produce one of those “short circuits” I talk about in my book.

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I can’t imagine why JK wasn’t given a peerage years ago based on her incredible boost to the film and publishing industry in this country. Far more deserving than the ghastly Mone woman with her dodgy underwear and even dodgier PPE.

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Good morning Debbie There is a story in today’s paper which you may find interesting about a detransition.  You may have already seen it. Hope you and your family are well. Kind regards Ruth x

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