JK Rowling: The Arts Are Giving in to the ‘Gender Taliban’
JK Rowling has accused the liberal arts of “the most craven, bootlicking capitulation to the gender Taliban”. The Telegraph has more.
The Harry Potter author said she was considering setting up an annual award for bodies who have kowtowed to the trans lobby in a tongue-in-cheek post on X.
She said that the Polari Prize was a “strong contender for 2025” after bosses “paused” it following a backlash from trans supporters.
However, Ms Rowling said that the Edinburgh Fringe and the National Library of Scotland (NLS) were also in running after both were embroiled in free speech rows last week over gender.
Ms Rowling wrote on X: “Thinking of setting up an annual prize to celebrate the most craven, bootlicking capitulation to the Gender Taliban by a supposedly liberal organisation.
“@PolariPrize a strong contender for 2025, but @edfringe and the National Library running them close. Nominations still open.”
The Polari Prize, an annual literary award promoting LGBTQ+ writing , provoked fury from trans supporters when it included a novel by John Boyne on its longlist.
More than 800 writers signed a letter calling for the novel, Earth, to be dropped from consideration, while several authors in content for the Polari pulled out in protest at Boyne’s inclusion.
While Mr Boyne hit back at “bullying” and refused to back down, organisers said on Monday that this year’s award will be “paused”, in an apparent capitulation to the growing pressure.
Ms Rowling wrote on X: “This makes me both sad and angry. An incredibly talented writer and a thoroughly decent human being (the two are by no means synonymous, as we know) traduced by tinpot tyrants without an ounce of his talent or integrity.”
Mr Boyne, the author of The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas, is an outspoken critic of gender ideology and wrote an article defending Ms Rowling’s trans issues and women’s rights.
The gay author offered his support to Ms Rowling, who has been outspoken with her views about the tension between trans rights and the protection of women’s spaces.
Another free speech row erupted last week after an appearance at the Fringe by Kate Forbes, Scotland’s Deputy First Minister and a devout Christian.
Summerhall Arts, the venue that hosted the event, issued an apology to other performers and said the booking was an “oversight”.
The venue it would be reviewing its policies to ensure the “safety and wellbeing” of performers after it was reported that some were “terrified” the 5ft 2in politician was in the building.
Ms Forbes, who has expressed opposition to gay marriage and children being born out of wedlock, said that attempts to “cancel” people because of their beliefs “undermines democracy”.
The same day it emerged that the NLS had removed a gender-critical book from an exhibition after staff complained.
The library removed The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht, a collection of essays by feminists including Ms Rowling about their fight against Nicola Sturgeon’s gender self-ID laws.
The book was selected to be included in a major exhibition celebrating the library’s centenary.
Amina Shah, Scotland’s national librarian and the NLS chief executive, decided to remove the book from the exhibition after coming under pressure from the library’s LGBT+ staff network, who called it “hate speech”. However, the book was still available to read in the library.
Worth reading in full.
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Scotland’s National Librarian and the Chief Executive of the National Library of Scotland was born in PAKISTAN. Her Muslim father was Umeed Ali Shah.
Apparently an actual Indigenous Scot could not be found to take charge of Scotland’s National Library.
Pakistan, Pakistan, Pakistan— Why do people from a hostile alien culture and country keep turning up in all the top posts in Britain?
Let’s ask Indigenous Scots Patriot Leo Kearse:
Why are there so many Pakistanis in Britain? And how Labour’s Mirpur Airport plan will bring in more
Isn’t it strange that after centuries of fighting against the pesky English next door, the Scots are being taken over by a hostile alien country 4000 miles away, without a shot being fired?
How did that happen?
Seemed like lots of them in Glasgow anyway, when I went recently. Was not expecting that. Saw almost none in Inverness though.
The plus side of them going only to cities is the ability to fence them in or build a wall around them to stop them polluting the rest of the country.
Same with the Republic of Ireland
Thank heavens for JK Rowling.
The weakness of ‘the arts’ is that it has got too used to sucking up to ‘the state’, corporates and captured institutions searching for work/funding/grants. No one is going to tell the King he is naked if he’s going to boot them out or worse. This is partly how come JK Rowling is able to take a stand, she is beholden only to the truth she sees. The crazy part is most artists get sweet f.a. from ‘the state’ but they live in hope and they see their icons rolling in the mud and think it cool to do so themselves somehow. Real artists should be bucking all this and following their vision of truth; if they did we would be getting some great art too (just not from the captured mainstream media houses though, no, no, not at all).
Great comment. It is indeed lame, pathetic and pitiful; ”At this stage, EVERYONE expects the Tranish Inquisition. What we don’t expect is that a literary prize that has already included on its long list multiple followers of a faith-based ideology that most people find, at the very least, offensive and insulting to women, gays and lesbians, to throw ITSELF on the Inquisition’s pyre. I thought the @PolariPrize was standing firm in its choice to assess art on its merits rather than on whether a writer believes that men can magically become women by claiming to be women. For shame Polari Prize. The sound of a few little Twitter jackboots on the march had you running for cover. You couldn’t stand for freedom of thought, belief and expression. And you couldn’t stand with a gay man and CSA survivor who just believes in things like the right of female rape victims to female-only care and counselling. Clear for all to see how societies come to accept throwing gay men off buildings, locking them up for being gay, and giving them the choice of castration or execution, when the stakes for anyone standing against these practices are very high. You couldn’t withstand… Read more »
‘Tranish Inquisition’ – phrase of the day.
What the ….has happened to Scotland now a country following those terrified of wrong think
They lost the Scottish church
Good for JK Rowling. Her books are not my thing and I think I have watched all the films but avoid them now due to the snivelling ungrateful children she made very rich and into global stars that are in them.