I think what the person on Twitter wrote is in response to Rowling going off on a rant about cisgender female boxer, Imane Khelif (from Algeria), in the Olympics, and insisting that she’s a man. Rowling’s tweet here. There’s an article here that outlines the response from the Olympics, and the other female boxer, Italian boxer Angela Carini, who lost to Imane Khelif.
Carini, however, said to reporters after the match: “I wish her to carry on until the end and that she can be happy … I am not here to judge or pass judgment. If an athlete is this way, and in that sense it’s not right or it is right, it’s not up to me to decide.”
And as that article also notes:
It’s also worth noting that it is illegal to be transgender in Algeria – so to peddle the information that the country would send a trans athlete to compete in the Olympics would frankly be laughable if it wasn’t so maddening.
And yet, at no point did she say or even infer “only white people can be women” nor bring race into the issue. The OP disagreeing with Rowling on transgender issues is absolutely fine, but to smear her by innuendo to associate her with also being racist is going too far.
It is also an example of the straw-man nonsense deployed by right wing extremists all the time; it’s disturbing to see the same tactics being deployed by the left or centre on twitter and then more disturbing to see it being upvoted and even justified here.
Seeing someone deny the womanhood of two women who aren’t white and calling that racist only seems like a smear if you aren’t familiar with the long history of associating femininity with whiteness, and more specifically associating black women with masculinity. Black girls and women are consistently viewed as more masculine and less innocent than white girls and women.
Waiting for JKR to say “I’m doing a racism” before calling things she’s said racist essentially means never calling her racist.
I think what the person on Twitter wrote is in response to Rowling going off on a rant about cisgender female boxer, Imane Khelif (from Algeria), in the Olympics, and insisting that she’s a man. Rowling’s tweet here. There’s an article here that outlines the response from the Olympics, and the other female boxer, Italian boxer Angela Carini, who lost to Imane Khelif.
And as that article also notes:
Edit: Forgot to link to the article.
And yet, at no point did she say or even infer “only white people can be women” nor bring race into the issue. The OP disagreeing with Rowling on transgender issues is absolutely fine, but to smear her by innuendo to associate her with also being racist is going too far.
It is also an example of the straw-man nonsense deployed by right wing extremists all the time; it’s disturbing to see the same tactics being deployed by the left or centre on twitter and then more disturbing to see it being upvoted and even justified here.
Seeing someone deny the womanhood of two women who aren’t white and calling that racist only seems like a smear if you aren’t familiar with the long history of associating femininity with whiteness, and more specifically associating black women with masculinity. Black girls and women are consistently viewed as more masculine and less innocent than white girls and women.
Waiting for JKR to say “I’m doing a racism” before calling things she’s said racist essentially means never calling her racist.
There is a history of racists denying non-white women their womanhood. See Michelle Obama.