Honestly that's one of the good things about this place. In America, normie libs aren't even THINKING about throwing trans people to the wolves like British people routinely do. People might whine at the president to pivot right on this or that, but queer stuff really isn't one of those things!
Indeed! It’s so weird seeing that—like why the huge difference? How much blame just falls on JK Rowling? How much is negative polarization putting anti-trans stuff solidly in the “things the GOP does, not the Democrats”?
there's an article about it, how Mumsnet put this in the bloodstream there. possibly Mumsnet connections with prominent UK journos? feel free to fact check this, i could be wrong
part of this also may come down to tribalism. transphobia is the Religious Right's domain and they're not our team. UK doesn't have a RR. their transphobia comes from the "left" aka TERF shit; i saw someone else say that today, no RR means it's a wedge for the left and right(???).
also their famous TERFs were prominent feminists with Guardian bylines, is my understanding? like. i'm trying to name a post-second wave clique of feminists with name recognition. there are names I know, but no one on a Gertrude Stein level. then again ihni if Bindel et al are on that level there
I think the original TERFs were American even, but for whatever reasons the other big names in radical feminism at the time here (think this was kinda in the Dworkin-McKenna era? Was that second or third wave?) didn’t go for it, it stayed super-marginal
But yeah, besides JKRowling they got some “big names” in academic feminist philosophy on board early, all of which provided a direct pipeline into left-of-center politics there
