On The Constitution Of Truth - Part 1
The Muse Letter No.8
I have always been an avid seeker of the truth. It still haunts me that I will never know for sure whether my ex-boyfriend in high school did actually cheat on me with Jennifer K. or not. But alas he reads this and finally feels remorse and tells me what happened that night at his 18th birthday: I will never know. Which, probably is for the best.
To catch the truth is like trying to hold a cloud. It does exist somehow, you can see it, but it is really hard to grasp. Some people though seem to hold onto it like it’s actually made out of cotton, ready to be squeezed like a teddy bear. – I often wonder how they do that.
How people shut off entire, complex arguments by stating the so-called: truth. It happens all the time. Like J.K. Rowling did the other day in her very, very long and at times almost convincing essay/argument, regarding a transphobic tweet she had posted a couple of days before that, claiming the truth like it was her teddy bear to crush.
To give a background for anyone who did not hear about it: Her problem was that she was angry/upset/unnerved/perplex/who knows what is going on in the mind of a rich white lady; by the fact that in an article about menstrual hygiene they used the headline “people who menstruate” instead of “women”.
The term “people who menstruate” however and that is the part where I doubt J.K. Rowling even read the article she criticized and not just the headline ( I mean it happens), is just that it’s more accurate to say “people who menstruate” because it includes everyone who actually does menstruate, because trans men sometimes still menstruate or non-binary people can have periods: It is a term used to include everyone because that is what the article is about: Menstruation.
All of this then turned into even worse tweets by her, which you may research for yourself, however I would recommend reading this thread by Andrew James Carter who goes through each of them, analyzing them. But as if that was not enough it resulted in the before mentioned lengthy essay by J.K trying to make it worse / make her point clear:
“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.”
“The simple truth.” she says plainly. I can see her smiling lightly as she writes this. Pleased to have come up with such a striking argument.