J.K. Rowling's Unyielding Support for Women and Girls

December 21, 2022

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American readers may not be aware that the Scottish parliament is on the precipice of completely stripping away the sex-based rights of women and girls by eliminating any barriers to the ability of men to obtain a “Gender Recognition Certificate” (i.e., be legally recognized as female). This is known (mostly outside the U.S.) as “gender self-ID.”

To be clear, I’m not in favor of so-called “gender recognition” at all, even for people who have taken hormones and had surgery to make themselves look more like members of the opposite sex. Sex is real and it matters.

But removing ALL barriers to legally change sex is unforgivable.

(Side note: Self-ID has already been the law in California since 2018. In that state, literally anyone can obtain a new birth certificate with the sex noted as the opposite sex to the sex that the person actually is. The law does not require any note from any physician, or any surgical or hormonal changes to the person’s body.)

As far as I have been able to tell, the final vote is scheduled to take place today at 6:30 p.m. local time, which is 1:30 Eastern time for those of us in the States. Most people predict that it will pass, despite the fact that 2/3 of Scottish people oppose it and over warnings from the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women about the dangers that this new law will pose to women and girls.

For days, countless women (and plenty of men) have been protesting outside of Parliament wearing suffrage banners and carrying signs that read Women = Adult Human Female, and it’s quite the sight.

In that first image, you can see a sign that reads “Women Won’t Wheesht.” Being involved in the global movement to protect the sex-based rights of women and girls has taught me many things, and one of them is that “wheesht” is Scottish vernacular for “shut up.” So this is Scottish women refusing to shut up in the face of their government’s total abandonment on their rights.

Last night, J.K. Rowling had a statement read aloud to the women protesting. Readers may recall that in June 2020 she published an essay about why she was standing up for the sex-based rights of women and girls.

Her statement from last night is public, and I am reprinting it here.

I really wanted to be with you tonight, but for family reasons it was impossible. However, if you happen to spot a man who looks a lot like my husband in the crowd, it’ll be because he is my husband. As I couldn’t be there, Neil volunteered to take my place - I didn’t even ask him.

We all know why women across Scotland are standing up right now, often at a high cost to themselves. We’ve come together to resist the single biggest roll back of women’s rights in our lifetimes. Experts inside the country and abroad have warned the government and its allies that the risks to women from this ill-considered reform may be dire, but the First Minister [Nicola Sturgeon] and her allies have refused to listen.

I believe this legislation, which polls show is clearly opposed by the public, will come to be seen as a stain on the Scottish parliament, and on the CVs of every MSP [Member of the Scottish Parliament] who votes for it. Meanwhile, the coalition of women that’s come together to oppose it continues to grow. I’ve met some of the bravest, funniest, most inspirational women in Scotland over the last few years - women from all walks of life, women I’m proud to call my friends, women who’ve spent a lifetime trying to better the lives of all women - and we’re organizing. The solidarity forged across party lines has been the single biggest source of hope and inspiration to me over the last couple of years, and it won’t be extinguished by the loss of a single battle. Whether or not this bill passes, the fight isn’t over, and I’m with you all the way. We are the women who will never wheesht.

I could not possibly be more proud to stand with women everywhere, all over the world, who refuse to wheesht.