J.K. Rowling

The thing about Cocoa accessibility is that Apple does that all in-house. All the universal access tools and Voiceover (the screenreader) are theirs, plus they're the ones working on Cocoa. Almost nobody else has anything like it..there are a couple of third party tools I can think of, but nothing like what comes built in. On the other hand, Windows has the support of all the big names (cough freedom scientific) but there's a lot more diversity in terms of development. But they have to work with Microsoft and other third party devs and it's not perfect - one example I can think of is Firefox support in Jaws, which came only when Firefox was at like version 1.5 or 2ish. It's still not as good as msie support today. I might add that Cocoa apps are pretty accessible, but Firefox in all its xul etc. glory on OS X is mostly inaccessible with voiceover. And the main problem with web accessibility is that people just don't give a crap. There are plenty of ways to get a site to be fairly accessible using any of the main screenreaders and other accessibility tools out there. But it's apparently a complete waste of time and not worth the effort. Some of the biggest companies and websites are guilty of this - like Yahoo and their "newish" Mail webapp. Google is definitely a lot better in this aspect. So no, you don't have to stop using javascript, you just have to give more of a consideration to the small percentage of potential users (depending on your audience) that may need…

I’m not actively following the saga, but that seems like a gross mischaracterisation in all directions. I haven’t seen anyone seriously call her a Nazi¹ and her comments aren’t harmless either. ¹ Though I wouldn’t be surprised if it has happened. But then again that’s not saying much on the internet. Doing a cursory search, I found a post² on her own website where she complains someone said she has “uphold [Nazi] ideology around gender”. “Nazi” is between brackets, presumably meaning it’s a substitute for another word, and even then that’s not calling her one. ² https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/statement-from-j-k-rowling-14th-mar…

https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-her-reason… https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/my-article-for-the-sunday-times-sco… https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/my-article-for-the-times-on-the-wom… I recommend reading these if you haven't already.

I know the subreddits you're referring to (which now exist off-site), and that wasn't my experience of them. I considered these to be a supportful space for people, mostly women, to discuss and critique this recent ideological shift towards women and men being redefined as a 'gender identity' rather than a material biological reality, and the harmful effects this belief system has when implemented in law and policy. One person who I feel exemplifies the sensible middle ground here is JK Rowling. She wrote a very thoughtful essay on this topic which I think is well worth reading, if you haven't already: https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-her-reason…

> Rowling's views are not 'dated' (that's your opinion) They are. Bigotry is not static. It's a dynamic reaction to progress being made in the rest of society. Her views are not a reaction to fringe whackjobs on twitter screaming for some rights that the rest of society is not willing to give them. Her views are a reaction to changes in government policy that do not happen overnight, are themselves a result of decades of progress made in conjunction with medical and scientific subject matter experts. > they are thought out, and reasonable. They are not. They are based on strawmen interpretations of trans people's lived experiences, and their desired outcomes. It would take a really long time to go through all her points and point out the various logical flaws in it, but the main issue is they are founded on her own personal beliefs, anxieties, and prior trauma, not a reasonable detached view of the status quo. Contrapoints just did a pretty thorough deep dive analysis[1]. > The issue is not 'people not buying her books' - the issue is that people are trying to suppress and silence her An author's interaction with their audience, and their "platform" goes far beyond the books they publish. They have other channels, and other ways to reach people - in Rowling's case millions of people, primarily children. While not everyone would agree with me on this, but if Rowling was quietly harboring transphobic beliefs, and made no further follow-up, I wouldn't care, and there…

I mean, she literally is a TERF. https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-her-reason… Also, Oxfam have explicitly said that it's not Rowling. It's actually just a cartoon of a white (well, pink) woman with red hair.

https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-her-reason… https://medium.com/@briehanrahan/a-reasonable-persons-guide-to-the-j-k… and a post talking about issues One of the most blatant I'd call out is "studies have consistently shown that between 60-90% of gender dysphoric teens will grow out of their dysphoria". That's is a horribly inaccurate statement on par with "vaccines cause autism" and someone that believes it is not even trying to look for real information.

She explained her purpose in a longer blog post (https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-her-reason… She thinks (and I tend to agree) that phrases like "people who menstruate" are terribly degrading, and emphasizes at length that "trans rights are human rights". She does also have some concerns about trans women in women-only spaces, but depending on which polls you read, either a slim majority or large plurality of people agree with her concerns.

I'm not here to argue the merits of JK Rowlings' statement but I do think you're vastly overestimating your group if you think "most of modern society" is on your side in this subject. I've read (one of) JK Rowlings' latest blog entries, and while I don't personally agree with her statements they seemed far, far more reasonable and debatable than what the internet made of it. The internet made it seem like she was going to war against transgenders... edit: for anyone looking to read it as well, I read this one: https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-her-reason…

The recent opinion essay she wrote: https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-her-reason… A rebuttal of that essay with citations: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1270787941275762689.html And an article talking about the banning of the hate subreddit r/gendercritical: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/06/29/reddit-bann-transphobia-gender-c…

David Shor’s firing is the common example since it’s the most egregious case (getting fired for retweeting a black professor's paper arguing riots are bad for black political movements). See: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/stop-firing-innocent… Nastiness directed at JK Rowling and Jesse Singal because of trans stuff [0][1]. I’d add Bari Weiss to this list too. [2] If the mob could destroy these people and get them fired they would. As it is the pressure from the mob makes things unpleasant for them. Most people would not continue to fight back against it. Sam Harris gets a similar level of hostility for what are very nuanced conversations and it’s why he has his own platform. James Demore at Google is another more controversial case (actually read the memo - it’s way more benign then you’d think from the meta conversation and imo a reasonable thing to discuss). AGM wrote chaos monkeys and comes across as an ass in it so he had his offer rescinded from apple - I personally don’t care as much about this one since there’s some risk here with what you write and how it represents you when it comes to a hiring decision (though Apple handled it poorly). Depending on where you work not adhering to Kendi style anti-racism can also be heretical. Then there are pressures for other things like being forced to state pronouns in tech interviews or be unlikely to move forward. The song and dance around land acknowledgements (I think they're dumb, but that's…

The rules of modern virtue and values and morals are being written by school kids in public schools funded by the adult tax payers they hate. Also women can now be called menstruators’ or ‘persons with vulvas’. (Serious..not being facetious) You could be a TERF. I just found out about it. Pasting what I posted elsewhere: [..] Apparently there is a name for her. TERF. [..] If you didn’t already know – and why should you? – ‘TERF’ is an acronym coined by trans activists, which stands for Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist. In practice, a huge and diverse cross-section of women are currently being called TERFs and the vast majority have never been radical feminists. Examples of so-called TERFs range from the mother of a gay child who was afraid their child wanted to transition to escape homophobic bullying, to a hitherto totally unfeminist older lady who’s vowed never to visit Marks & Spencer again because they’re allowing any man who says they identify as a woman into the women’s changing rooms. Ironically, radical feminists aren’t even trans-exclusionary – they include trans men in their feminism, because they were born women.[..] From: https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-her-reason… As a biological woman, I feel this surprising sense of..loss. Like a loss of identity. I don’t know what to feel. I am gobsmacked. [..] This is creating ripples even amongst Uber-feminists. A friend(from India..of all…

Do you think it would be "illiberal" to hound someone for believing that white people are inherently superior to black people? To keep things in context, JK Rowling has stated that she believes that biologically male people are inherently a danger to biologically female people. This is fundamentally the paradox of tolerance: is it intolerant to be hostile to intolerant beliefs? JK Rowling's essay explaining her stances on trans people: > ... I spent much of Saturday in a very dark place inside my head, as memories of a serious sexual assault I suffered in my twenties recurred on a loop. That assault happened at a time and in a space where I was vulnerable, and a man capitalised on an opportunity. I couldn’t shut out those memories and I was finding it hard to contain my anger and disappointment about the way I believe my government is playing fast and loose with womens and girls’ safety. > When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman – and, as I’ve said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones – then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside. https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-her-reason…

“I believe the majority of trans-identified people not only pose zero threat to others, but are vulnerable for all the reasons I’ve outlined. Trans people need and deserve protection. Like women, they’re most likely to be killed by sexual partners. Trans women who work in the sex industry, particularly trans women of colour, are at particular risk. Like every other domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor I know, I feel nothing but empathy and solidarity with trans women who’ve been abused by men. So I want trans women to be safe. At the same time, I do not want to make natal girls and women less safe. When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman—and, as I’ve said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones—then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside. That is the simple truth.” I could annotate her most recent post (and all of them) pointing out all of the dogwhistles, but this paragraph is pretty demonstrative of the style I was referring to. She starts from a defense of trans women, one that rings false because of all of the qualifications she makes which anti-trans activists will pick up on -- "Like women" "Natal girls and women" etc. etc., and then transitions seamlessly into harmful and dangerous tropes (men in dresses are coming to molest YOUR daughters!) from half a century ago. And of course, all of this is an overstated panic,…

Like okay, it's all public. The essay: https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-her-reason… The law: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/politics-news/j-k-rowling-gende… More the law: https://www.indiewire.com/2020/06/jk-rowling-transphobic-trans-hollywo… Her support of the LBG alliance: https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1518542559089512448 The LGB alliance supporting her: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/10/21/lgb-alliance-jk-rowling-conferen… The book: https://www.amazon.com/Troubled-Blood-Cormoran-Strike-Novel/dp/0316498… So you don't have to read the book: https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-transphobic-is-jk-rowlings-new-novel… Her support of public TERFs: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/19/world/europe/jk-rowling-maya-forsta…