sometimes things are bad and are bad at their core (both because they financially support someone who is doing so much to make the world more transphobic than it already is and also all the antisemitism, racism, classism, misogyny, transphobia, and just plain old bad writing decisions at the core of the story) and we just need to let go and stop participating in the fandom because it inevitably leads to people saying shit like "oh i can just buy this harry potter game even though i know jkr sucks and this gives money to her that she will use to fund bigotry, it belongs to the the fans now!" when it doesn't, as long as jkr is alive it's her space and spending time in it will eventually lead to money making its way over to her!!!
and the game itself is bad because it's about the goblins, who have long been noted to be fairly antisemitic caricatures in harry potter, being swarthy hooked nosed creatures who run the banks, have a long history of pogroms being run on them, have different moral values around ownership (very similar to accusations of judeo bolshevism) and have a literal star of david as their symbol in the films. and in this game they kidnap children for ritual purposes which is just straight up blood libel
if you still aren't sure what's antisemitic here and you somehow aren't a bad faith poster, look up judeo bolshevism, look up blood libel, look up images of antisemitic caricatures and compare them to descriptions of goblins in harry potter. there are so many antisemitic tropes in there it's impossible to imagine no one was aware
The house elfs also want to free their race from slavery perpetrated by humans, and that makes them bad guys because in HP lore they « are happy with servitude » and « it’s natural for them ».
In the books, Hermione is made fun of by the narrator and the characters for suggesting that house elfs should be freed.
And Harry at some point gets his own house elf slave but the story never paint it as a bad thing because « he is a good master so it’s ok ».
There is no universe where this isn’t slavery apologia.
yeah the last line of the last book (before the epilogue) is harry thinking "gee, i sure hope my slave brings me a sandwich," as he lounges in bed. i didn't talk about the house elf stuff because my focus was on the goblins but it's just as, if not more, rancid and evil. many such bits in the books, rita skeeter was really the first sign of jkr's transphobia
sometimes things are bad and are bad at their core (both because they financially support someone who is doing so much to make the world more transphobic than it already is and also all the antisemitism, racism, classism, misogyny, transphobia, and just plain old bad writing decisions at the core of the story) and we just need to let go and stop participating in the fandom because it inevitably leads to people saying shit like “oh i can just buy this harry potter game even though i know jkr sucks and this gives money to her that she will use to fund bigotry, it belongs to the the fans now!” when it doesn’t, as long as jkr is alive it’s her space and spending time in it will eventually lead to money making its way over to her!!!
I'm sorry, but this is such an insane view (with so many inaccuracies in it I'm not going to bother debunking them all) that it's pointless to argue here. Maybe spend your energy on something else, you're giving her more mindspace than she is doing actual harm to the community. And she's probably making very very little off of HL as a whole. Warner Brothers owns the majority of the copyrights around the HL universe, unless it's theater or books, JK Rowling's website even says so.
and the game itself is bad because it’s about the goblins, who have long been noted to be fairly antisemitic caricatures in harry potter, being swarthy hooked nosed creatures who run the banks, have a long history of pogroms being run on them, have different moral values around ownership (very similar to accusations of judeo bolshevism) and have a literal star of david as their symbol in the films. and in this game they kidnap children for ritual purposes which is just straight up blood libel
This has been debunked time and time again. If you don't believe me, maybe you'll believe the actual CAMPAIGN AGAINST ANTISEMITISM. She's so against antisemitism that the fucking Campaign Against Antisemitism says "So it is with JK Rowling, who has proven herself over recent years to be a tireless defender of the Jewish community in its fight against antisemitism, for which we are immensely grateful".
It's you that are seeing antisemetism. It's not there. It's a folk tale that has evolved over actual centuries into tales that go beyond the original tropes. Maybe instead of getting into arguments around this stuff you should look into the history of it and realize that, just because something looks bad, doesn't mean it is.
if you still aren’t sure what’s antisemitic here and you somehow aren’t a bad faith poster, look up judeo bolshevism, look up blood libel, look up images of antisemitic caricatures and compare them to descriptions of goblins in harry potter. there are so many antisemitic tropes in there it’s impossible to imagine no one was aware
maybe you should actually research the history of things rather than just looking at pictures and comparing. It's quite racist (and antisemetic) to think that just because things look similar that they were intended to be the same thing. They're not.
This has been debunked time and time again. If you don't believe me, maybe you'll believe the actual CAMPAIGN AGAINST ANTISEMITISM. She's so against antisemitism that the fucking Campaign Against Antisemitism says "So it is with JK Rowling, who has proven herself over recent years to be a tireless defender of the Jewish community in its fight against antisemitism, for which we are immensely grateful".
Yeah, I don't think an organization that carries water for the Zionist regime in Israel actually cares about the safety of Jews at all. Israel has been proven to stoke antisemitism abroad and make the situation for Jews outside of Israel worse in order to entice them to emmigrate to Israel. Any organization that doesn't acknowledge and challenge the racist framing of Jews with the Israeli state is itself incredibly antisemitic, and demonstrates that they don't really care about the welfare of Jews. I think it's safe to say that a far right organization would be willing to hold water for other far right figures, and that real Jews like my partner are correct when they say that Joanne's depicted stereotypes of goblins as essentially Jewish bankers is incredibly hurtful and encourages real life harm against Jews.
One of the most horrifying details in the game too, of which the director for it for most of it's development was a far right media personality, is that the "goblins" use an "annoying horn" for a status effect that's directly modeled off of the Shofar. The Jewish Shofar is a very holy and important cultural artifact for Jews which is directly paralleled in the game as an "annoying horn".
Yeah, I don’t think an organization that carries water for the Zionist regime in Israel actually cares about the safety of Jews at all. Israel has been proven to stoke antisemitism abroad and make the situation for Jews outside of Israel worse in order to entice them to emmigrate to Israel. Any organization that doesn’t acknowledge and challenge the racist framing of Jews with the Israeli state is itself incredibly antisemitic, and demonstrates that they don’t really care about the welfare of Jews. I think it’s safe to say that a far right organization would be willing to hold water for other far right figures, and that real Jews like my partner are correct when they say that Joanne’s depicted stereotypes of goblins as essentially Jewish bankers is incredibly hurtful and encourages real life harm against Jews.
🤦 you seriously want me to just go find plenty of other sources agreeing that you're arguing about folklore at this point instead of racist stereotypes? If people like you weren't bringing it up, literally no one would even notice. You sure aren't getting up in arms about the exact same depiction of goblins in literally every other piece of fantasy out there.
One of the most horrifying details in the game too, of which the director for it for most of it’s development was a far right media personality, is that the “goblins” use an “annoying horn” for a status effect that’s directly modeled off of the Shofar. The Jewish Shofar is a very holy and important cultural artifact for Jews which is directly paralleled in the game as an “annoying horn”.
yeah, so you clearly haven't played the game, and the fact that you think that there's an "annoying horn" in the game that has a status effect (what in the fucking world are you even talking about?) says pretty clearly that your opinion does not matter at all here. You're just spreading inaccuracies in the hopes of trashing something. Spreading lies doesn't help your case, it just makes you look like an angry person out for revenge, no matter what the truth is. JK is a terrible person, you don't need to make up shit in order to make that case, there's plenty of actual things she's said you can use.
gee you really like citing fuckin fascists to defend an antisemite and a transphobe.
This is why we call zionism antisemitism. They will carry water for actual antisemites because for their little genocidal ethnostate to continue to exist they need antisemitism to scare people into moving to their colonizer project.
It's quite racist (and antisemetic) to think that just because things look similar that they were intended to be the same thing. They're not.
"Oh, you think that this fantasy race that has many of the anti-semitic tropes of Jewish people might in fact be a reference to Jewish people? Well, you're the one who associates those features with Jewish people, not me. Just saying."
This is where the moronic "maybe the curtains are just blue" reddit-tier analysis of literature gets you - completely unable to see any kind of allegory or metaphor, especially when bigots say that, no, that person in that book totally isn't a racist caricature, it's just a person with those traits!
If I wrote a book about a fantasy world where I used lots of sexist stereotypes about women - that they're less intelligent; that they're inherently subservient to men; that they "belong in the kitchen"; that they should be "barefoot and pregnant"; etc, and without ever even making a critical judgement of those traits or showed that the men in that society are bad for maintaining this status quo, then I would rightfully be called a raging sexist by people. They would probably believe I was one of those tradcath, alt-right MGTOW incel people. If I turned around and said "Uh, it says a lot about liberals that they think these traits are stereotypically true of women! Maybe they're the real sexists, not conservatives?" then you would, hopefully (though I'm not so sure given your lack of sensitivity towards Jewish people) call me a total fucking dipshit.
i don't know why i'm responding to this, but whatever. doing this all in one post, but i'm responding to both of yours, which is why this is so long. it's also long because i'm actually responding to the things you say, which isn't something you seem to know how to do
first things first, that substack you linked. many things wrong there. immediately, you're invoking 'i know a jewish person who says it's fine.' ok, on my end i know jewish people who think it is extremely not fine. in fact they were the ones who explained to me why the goblins in harry potter are problematic. second, having read the article it just blatantly lies in its base premise.
Goblins, the fantasy creature that has existed in various incarnations for centuries, may have initially been based on antisemitic stereotypes - short, big noses, greedy money-hoarders. Therefore, fantasy that depicts goblins (even if in a complex or sympathetic way that subverts some of the tropes) is automatically inherently antisemitic because goblins are representing Jews, and doing it in the most harmful stereotypical way possible. (note that I have yet to personally see this standard applied to a fantasy series other than HP)
this just isn't a claim anyone is making. the claims about harry potter are much more specific about that. there are antisemitic tropes in the water surrounding goblins, but jkr ramped that up dramatically. this author just breezes past the fact that the goblins are bankers which is a whole lot more specific than a generic greed! people don't say that shit about tolkien (as much, because people do rightly point out problematic elements in tolkien's goblins quite a bit if you don't ignore that to try and lie about how people are being mean to a bigoted billionaire) because tolkien goblins don't run the banks!!! this shit is so blatant it's unsurprising anyone trying to carry water for rowling has to just ignore it
she also claims that there's no actual child kidnapping in the game, and that if there was it would be fine because other fantasy stories contain bits where people kidnap children to use their blood. i'm pretty sure the first point is untrue, because i can find many references to the goblins wanting to use the main character (who is 15 years old, so firmly a child)'s blood for a ritual, but i haven't played the game and am not going to so i suppose it's possible everyone referencing this just made it up in some kind of mass hysteria for some reason. but crucially that second bit is such bullshit it doesn't matter. the problem is taking all these things together! when you have someone stealing a child's blood for a magic ritual that is not problematic or blood libel on its own, but it becomes so once you have it done by members of the greedy hook nosed race that run the banks and don't think it's possible to own property and prefer to eat raw bloody meat and stab the heroes in the back and have stars of david on the floors of their banks. that shit is antisemitic, a lot more so than the culture broadly already is.
similarly it isn't a pogrom when violence against goblins happens in other fantasy media because those goblins don't run the banks and aren't nearly as coded!!!!! what are you even fucking talking about!!!! anyways as you can see i read her whole piece and it was all wrong and poorly argued. next!
sorry this is so long it had to be split up anyways, despite my efforts. you're just too wrong to fit into the character limit!
Maybe spend your energy on something else, you're giving her more mindspace than she is doing actual harm to the community.
Are you trans? If not then maybe shut the fuck up and listen when other trans people tell you what's harming them and what's not? Why do you think you even get a say in the matter?
And she's probably making very very little off of HL as a whole.
She's literally a billionaire what the fuck are you talking about.
You still haven't addressed the fact that the game sends money to a rabid TERF of a billionaire who directly lobbies to harm trans people to the British government.
And she’s probably making very very little off of HL as a whole. Warner Brothers owns the majority of the copyrights around the HL universe, unless it’s theater or books, JK Rowling’s website even says so.
You really dont see how its an issue that a billionaire is making 'a little' off of a franchise that then is funneled into TERF shit? Or that the brand's image is associated with TERF shit because of her relentless campaigning, an attempt at making TERF shit more mainstream? A thing that is working in Britain as rights are curtailed?
And I doubt she sold the rights to WB for 'a little'. In fact the most recent sale of the rights was for something like 3.8 billion USD
"It's called the Campaign Against Antisemitism, surely it's an authority on antisemitism. I also go to the National Endowment for Democracy for my democracy news and the Foundation for Economic Education for etc."
And here's some reading from a Jewish person on the topic. You should really really give it a read. https://smrosenberg.substack.com/p/a-brief-analysis-of-hogwarts-legacys, though I understand not wanting to give substack a click (maybe you don't know about that though?).
oh one jewish person said it so everythings alrighty! Great! Ignore the far larger contingent of jewish people on this platform and in the wild world who thinks its FUCKING ANTI-SEMITISM
don't "they" me, my pronouns are right in my name. using gender neutral pronouns for people who have non-neutral pronouns prominently displayed is soft transphobia
i could give you a critical reading of a plot synopsis, but i think that wouldnt do much good here, cromalin's summary is correct. and for the record you have just talked with 3 trans people that agree that its a problem. in fact i havent met a single trans person (i know many hundreds of trans people) that thought it wasnt a problem.
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ok fine, i'll try and be as clear as possible
sometimes things are bad and are bad at their core (both because they financially support someone who is doing so much to make the world more transphobic than it already is and also all the antisemitism, racism, classism, misogyny, transphobia, and just plain old bad writing decisions at the core of the story) and we just need to let go and stop participating in the fandom because it inevitably leads to people saying shit like "oh i can just buy this harry potter game even though i know jkr sucks and this gives money to her that she will use to fund bigotry, it belongs to the the fans now!" when it doesn't, as long as jkr is alive it's her space and spending time in it will eventually lead to money making its way over to her!!!
and the game itself is bad because it's about the goblins, who have long been noted to be fairly antisemitic caricatures in harry potter, being swarthy hooked nosed creatures who run the banks, have a long history of pogroms being run on them, have different moral values around ownership (very similar to accusations of judeo bolshevism) and have a literal star of david as their symbol in the films. and in this game they kidnap children for ritual purposes which is just straight up blood libel
if you still aren't sure what's antisemitic here and you somehow aren't a bad faith poster, look up judeo bolshevism, look up blood libel, look up images of antisemitic caricatures and compare them to descriptions of goblins in harry potter. there are so many antisemitic tropes in there it's impossible to imagine no one was aware
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The house elfs also want to free their race from slavery perpetrated by humans, and that makes them bad guys because in HP lore they « are happy with servitude » and « it’s natural for them ».
In the books, Hermione is made fun of by the narrator and the characters for suggesting that house elfs should be freed.
And Harry at some point gets his own house elf slave but the story never paint it as a bad thing because « he is a good master so it’s ok ».
There is no universe where this isn’t slavery apologia.
yeah the last line of the last book (before the epilogue) is harry thinking "gee, i sure hope my slave brings me a sandwich," as he lounges in bed. i didn't talk about the house elf stuff because my focus was on the goblins but it's just as, if not more, rancid and evil. many such bits in the books, rita skeeter was really the first sign of jkr's transphobia
I'm sorry, but this is such an insane view (with so many inaccuracies in it I'm not going to bother debunking them all) that it's pointless to argue here. Maybe spend your energy on something else, you're giving her more mindspace than she is doing actual harm to the community. And she's probably making very very little off of HL as a whole. Warner Brothers owns the majority of the copyrights around the HL universe, unless it's theater or books, JK Rowling's website even says so.
This has been debunked time and time again. If you don't believe me, maybe you'll believe the actual CAMPAIGN AGAINST ANTISEMITISM. She's so against antisemitism that the fucking Campaign Against Antisemitism says "So it is with JK Rowling, who has proven herself over recent years to be a tireless defender of the Jewish community in its fight against antisemitism, for which we are immensely grateful".
It's you that are seeing antisemetism. It's not there. It's a folk tale that has evolved over actual centuries into tales that go beyond the original tropes. Maybe instead of getting into arguments around this stuff you should look into the history of it and realize that, just because something looks bad, doesn't mean it is.
maybe you should actually research the history of things rather than just looking at pictures and comparing. It's quite racist (and antisemetic) to think that just because things look similar that they were intended to be the same thing. They're not.
Yeah, I don't think an organization that carries water for the Zionist regime in Israel actually cares about the safety of Jews at all. Israel has been proven to stoke antisemitism abroad and make the situation for Jews outside of Israel worse in order to entice them to emmigrate to Israel. Any organization that doesn't acknowledge and challenge the racist framing of Jews with the Israeli state is itself incredibly antisemitic, and demonstrates that they don't really care about the welfare of Jews. I think it's safe to say that a far right organization would be willing to hold water for other far right figures, and that real Jews like my partner are correct when they say that Joanne's depicted stereotypes of goblins as essentially Jewish bankers is incredibly hurtful and encourages real life harm against Jews.
One of the most horrifying details in the game too, of which the director for it for most of it's development was a far right media personality, is that the "goblins" use an "annoying horn" for a status effect that's directly modeled off of the Shofar. The Jewish Shofar is a very holy and important cultural artifact for Jews which is directly paralleled in the game as an "annoying horn".
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🤦 you seriously want me to just go find plenty of other sources agreeing that you're arguing about folklore at this point instead of racist stereotypes? If people like you weren't bringing it up, literally no one would even notice. You sure aren't getting up in arms about the exact same depiction of goblins in literally every other piece of fantasy out there.
yeah, so you clearly haven't played the game, and the fact that you think that there's an "annoying horn" in the game that has a status effect (what in the fucking world are you even talking about?) says pretty clearly that your opinion does not matter at all here. You're just spreading inaccuracies in the hopes of trashing something. Spreading lies doesn't help your case, it just makes you look like an angry person out for revenge, no matter what the truth is. JK is a terrible person, you don't need to make up shit in order to make that case, there's plenty of actual things she's said you can use.
gee you really like citing fuckin fascists to defend an antisemite and a transphobe.
This is why we call zionism antisemitism. They will carry water for actual antisemites because for their little genocidal ethnostate to continue to exist they need antisemitism to scare people into moving to their colonizer project.
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This is where the moronic "maybe the curtains are just blue" reddit-tier analysis of literature gets you - completely unable to see any kind of allegory or metaphor, especially when bigots say that, no, that person in that book totally isn't a racist caricature, it's just a person with those traits!
If I wrote a book about a fantasy world where I used lots of sexist stereotypes about women - that they're less intelligent; that they're inherently subservient to men; that they "belong in the kitchen"; that they should be "barefoot and pregnant"; etc, and without ever even making a critical judgement of those traits or showed that the men in that society are bad for maintaining this status quo, then I would rightfully be called a raging sexist by people. They would probably believe I was one of those tradcath, alt-right MGTOW incel people. If I turned around and said "Uh, it says a lot about liberals that they think these traits are stereotypically true of women! Maybe they're the real sexists, not conservatives?" then you would, hopefully (though I'm not so sure given your lack of sensitivity towards Jewish people) call me a total fucking dipshit.
this dude would buy 10 copies a week and hand them out to the women in his life
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i don't know why i'm responding to this, but whatever. doing this all in one post, but i'm responding to both of yours, which is why this is so long. it's also long because i'm actually responding to the things you say, which isn't something you seem to know how to do
first things first, that substack you linked. many things wrong there. immediately, you're invoking 'i know a jewish person who says it's fine.' ok, on my end i know jewish people who think it is extremely not fine. in fact they were the ones who explained to me why the goblins in harry potter are problematic. second, having read the article it just blatantly lies in its base premise.
this just isn't a claim anyone is making. the claims about harry potter are much more specific about that. there are antisemitic tropes in the water surrounding goblins, but jkr ramped that up dramatically. this author just breezes past the fact that the goblins are bankers which is a whole lot more specific than a generic greed! people don't say that shit about tolkien (as much, because people do rightly point out problematic elements in tolkien's goblins quite a bit if you don't ignore that to try and lie about how people are being mean to a bigoted billionaire) because tolkien goblins don't run the banks!!! this shit is so blatant it's unsurprising anyone trying to carry water for rowling has to just ignore it
she also claims that there's no actual child kidnapping in the game, and that if there was it would be fine because other fantasy stories contain bits where people kidnap children to use their blood. i'm pretty sure the first point is untrue, because i can find many references to the goblins wanting to use the main character (who is 15 years old, so firmly a child)'s blood for a ritual, but i haven't played the game and am not going to so i suppose it's possible everyone referencing this just made it up in some kind of mass hysteria for some reason. but crucially that second bit is such bullshit it doesn't matter. the problem is taking all these things together! when you have someone stealing a child's blood for a magic ritual that is not problematic or blood libel on its own, but it becomes so once you have it done by members of the greedy hook nosed race that run the banks and don't think it's possible to own property and prefer to eat raw bloody meat and stab the heroes in the back and have stars of david on the floors of their banks. that shit is antisemitic, a lot more so than the culture broadly already is.
similarly it isn't a pogrom when violence against goblins happens in other fantasy media because those goblins don't run the banks and aren't nearly as coded!!!!! what are you even fucking talking about!!!! anyways as you can see i read her whole piece and it was all wrong and poorly argued. next!
sorry this is so long it had to be split up anyways, despite my efforts. you're just too wrong to fit into the character limit!
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i appreciate the backup and as always, i am endlessly impressed by the amount of effort you bring to the table
we may need to start handing out medals
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Cromalin out here dunking people so hard it causes a singularity
i feel like i just watched someone get taken apart at the atomic level
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Fuck yeah love the Shrieking Shack
very good podcast! i'm a little behind their catching fire read which is still a delight
First I've heard of it and am subbing now.
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You're really cool and I appreciate you
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what do you mean by this
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Are you trans? If not then maybe shut the fuck up and listen when other trans people tell you what's harming them and what's not? Why do you think you even get a say in the matter?
She's literally a billionaire what the fuck are you talking about.
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You still haven't addressed the fact that the game sends money to a rabid TERF of a billionaire who directly lobbies to harm trans people to the British government.
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I literally did address that.
You really dont see how its an issue that a billionaire is making 'a little' off of a franchise that then is funneled into TERF shit? Or that the brand's image is associated with TERF shit because of her relentless campaigning, an attempt at making TERF shit more mainstream? A thing that is working in Britain as rights are curtailed?
And I doubt she sold the rights to WB for 'a little'. In fact the most recent sale of the rights was for something like 3.8 billion USD
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"It's called the Campaign Against Antisemitism, surely it's an authority on antisemitism. I also go to the National Endowment for Democracy for my democracy news and the Foundation for Economic Education for etc."
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And here's some reading from a Jewish person on the topic. You should really really give it a read. https://smrosenberg.substack.com/p/a-brief-analysis-of-hogwarts-legacys, though I understand not wanting to give substack a click (maybe you don't know about that though?).
oh one jewish person said it so everythings alrighty! Great! Ignore the far larger contingent of jewish people on this platform and in the wild world who thinks its FUCKING ANTI-SEMITISM
wait did you just cite a zionist org?
don't "they" me, my pronouns are right in my name. using gender neutral pronouns for people who have non-neutral pronouns prominently displayed is soft transphobia
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Yes, rush to the defence of misgendering, that'll show us uppity transgenders. /s
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Enjoy your trolling.
You deebster on reddit too?
look at what @Cromalin@hexbear.net said. https://hexbear.net/comment/4444298
i could give you a critical reading of a plot synopsis, but i think that wouldnt do much good here, cromalin's summary is correct. and for the record you have just talked with 3 trans people that agree that its a problem. in fact i havent met a single trans person (i know many hundreds of trans people) that thought it wasnt a problem.
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