At the moment, JK Rowling is feeling very hard done by due to the backlash against her transphobia. Those who support her, and support a transphobic agenda, are particularly butthurt that they are being called bigots. Tough. That is exactly what they are.
The very definition of a bigot is: a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices, especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (such as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance.
JK Rowling says that trans women are not ‘real’ women, and that she doesn’t want them to be able to use the women’s restroom. Can’t see the intolerance of that? Well, then imagine that she said she didn’t want black people to be able to use the same bathroom as she does. See how disgusting and bigoted that is?
The thing is that no one ever wants to see themselves as the bad guy. That’s why you get racism without racists. People have learned racists are bad. They don’t want to be called racists, because that would make them bad people. They aren’t bad people, so QED they cannot be racists … or bigots. And as long as they aren’t actively killing a black person or actively beating a gay kid to death, they assure themselves they aren’t racist or bigots regardless of how much prejudice against the ‘other’ remains in their soul.
The art of self-justification leads to sentences like, “I’m not racist, but I don’t believe in mixed marriages” and “I’m not against transgender people, but they shouldn’t be allowed in bathrooms with normal people.” If you point out that those statements contain racism and bigotry, and thus the person saying it is a racist or bigot, brace yourself for caterwauling. They will INSIST that they aren’t bigots. They will INSIST you are the one who is really the bigot because you are ‘oppressing’ them when they are just stating their opinion. WAAAAA!
First, an opinion is whether or not you like tea with sugar, not whether or not someone should enjoy human rights. Secondly, when your ‘opinions’ contain transphobic or racist ideologies, that makes you a bigot. Someone calling you on it, is not bigotry. Someone calling you out for your bigotry is it standing up to a bigot. It is the same way someone standing up to a bully is not the one being a bully.
I am pedantic enough, as someone with autism, to be driven extra crazy by people refusing to acknowledge their bigotry makes them bigots. They want to employ the bigotry, but deny the title because they know it’s ‘bad’. They are like people screaming they’re vegetarian through a mouthful of bacon. Dude, you cannot eat bacon and still call yourself a vegetarian. It doesn’t work like that. And you cannot espouse bigotry without being a bigot, either.
I am likewise driven insane by people who erroneously claim they are being bullied for their ‘opinions’ whenever someone stands up to them and calls out their hate speech. There are consequence for what you say and do. If your ‘opinion’ denies that another group of people should enjoy the same rights you have, then that is bigotry and the result is you will be called a bigot.
As for Rowling, I’m sure she’ll be fine. She’ll enjoy her millions and climb into a echo chamber of her fellow TERFs and be soothed. Maybe she can take comfort in knowing that such luminaries as Donald Trump, Mike Pence, and Nigel Farage all agree with her take on the sanctity of cis women only in women’s toilets.
Or maybe not. In her essay she singles out Trump for his rhetoric against cis women. Clearly, she can see that discrimination against cis women is bad. Apparently only good discrimination is discrimination against trans women.
I wonder how she’ll respond when one of MAGA crowd calls her a bigot for her position on Trump? Will she finally see the difference between being erroneously called a bigot for standing up to hate speech and being called a bigot for expressing bigotry? Somehow, I doubt it.