As a cis man who is only tangentially acquainted with transgender issues, and as a person who isn't particularly eloquent, I cannot do this topic justice myself. You'll have to trust me when I say that the image of "just any bloke can call himself a woman and go into the bathroom and assault women" is language that is deeply colored by propaganda, and has no basis in reality. When you indulge in language and ideas like that, you are doing harm. Similarly, the "men doing women's sports" idea is harmful to both cis and trans women, and has, again 0 basis in reality.
If you are truly interested, and not some right wing troll who's "just asking questions" (we get a lot of those on .world, it's like the instance attracts them), please, please give these YouTube videos a watch:
The shorter one is from a cis man, but it seems to me that he explains the idea very well, at least behind the sports thing. And I promise that the longer one is worth it. It will help you understand a deeply marginalized segment of the population much better, and you will be a better person for it. I think that's worth 2 hours.
The art does not reflect the beliefs of the author.
It really does though. The moral universe of Harry Potter says a lot about J K Rowling as a person, and there are many parallels with her own life. Morality in the Harry Potter universe is not inherent to an action, but to an actor. Is bullying bad? Depends on who does it. If a bad guy does it (for example the Dursleys), then it's bad. If a good guy does it (Hagrid), then it's good! There's a parallel with the abolition of slavery about half way through the series, and it's only one character doing it, and they're the butt of the joke. And of course there's Cho Chang and Blackie Shackleslave or whatever she called the one black character. The work speaks volumes about her, and vice versa. And you're depriving yourself of this deeper level of analysis. You're missing out.
There's a YouTuber called Shaun who's done a thorough analysis of her work and its parallels with her dealings with nazis and fellow transphobes. It's worth a watch.
You're probably joking, but know that there's a subset of us that gets pathologically anxious and confused by small talk. Autistic people for example. Different folks, different strokes. Not everyone deals well with talking about the weather, and that's ok. There's billions who do deal well with it, and that's ok too! Be a mensch and talk to them instead.
I completely disagree, both on a subjective selfish aesthetic level, and on a moral level.
On the aesthetic side, you're doing yourself a huge disservice by making this separation. You're missing out on this whole other dimension a piece of art has to offer you; namely the context that the author operates in. Star Wars gains this whole other rich level of interpretation if you consider the fact that George Lucas lived through the invasion of Vietnam and other forms of US imperialism and completely opposes it, for example. You're missing out by ignoring the author.
On the moral side, the argument is more obvious, I think. By ignoring the author you're denying yourself the opportunity to spend your money and support folks in a way that aligns with your own morals. In my case, I consider trans people people, and think they deserve to be treated with respect and dignity. Since I know J K Rowling completely disagrees, I know that if I spend money on her, I will be putting money in the pocket of someone, and platforming them, who actively works against my morals. And I'm thankful for being able to know that spending money on her goes counter to my own morality.
It's good to publicly remember every now and then. Plenty of people don't know that she's a raging transphobe, and if even one of them recently joined lemmy and sees this post and is convinced to no longer buy her work, then that makes this post worth it, imo.
But they don't. There's Jewish voice for peace, there's Norman Finkelstein, Code Pink, and so on. Countless Jews oppose settler colonial Zionism, and many more oppose the genocide. Do not fall for the lie that Israel and Judaism are the same thing.
I don't fault you for thinking what you do though. The propaganda that tries to equate antizionism to anti-Semitism is incredibly insidious and convincing. A German Christian man gets murdered for collaborating with this genocidal state, and all mass media outlets call it antisemitism. The planes that drop the bombs that have murdered tens of thousands of children have the star of David painted on them. The moment anyone criticizes Israel, immediately folks bring up the Holocaust as a counterargument. What are people supposed to think? Everything is geared towards making people believe Jews are Israel and Israel is Jews.
I recently saw a photo of a hand drawn picture here on lemmy protesting the genocide. It was very heartfelt and nice. I don't fully recall, but it had a girl in a Hijab in the center holding hands with people next to her, and it said things like "not in our name", and 'stop the genocide".
Along the center of the picture, they had drawn stars of David. And my immediate gut reaction was to think that this was incredibly distasteful; it was like drawing swastikas on a picture remembering the Holocaust. I had completely forgotten that the star of David is a religious symbol, and that it is not owned by the Israeli state. The propaganda has worked on me too, and I know better.
The person who had drawn this was convinced that the genocide was wrong based on her Jewish identity. Her religious beliefs told her that what Israel is doing is wrong. And my instinctive reaction on seeing a symbol indicating this was disgust. I felt so ashamed when I recognized what I was feeling. This is what people mean when they say Zionism breeds antisemitism. This is what people mean when they say Zionism makes the world less safe for Jews. An entire generation is growing up watching a livestreamed genocide, and CNN, Fox News, all politicians, the entire nation of Israel are all telling them "this is what Jews want". How could they not grow up to be antisemites?
Your comment is incorrect and immoral. But I hope the mods keep it up as an illustration of what Israel has really done for Jews after all these years.
People who deny genocides (either the current ongoing one in Palestine as committed by Israel, or the one carried out by the Germans in WWII) are the lowest of the low. Absolute scum. To see people make excuses for atrocities as the Nakba, Sabra and Shatila, and the Holocaust in real time, as one is happening has been the most disturbing development of our age.
I don't think downloading things illegally is OK, and I also don't think spending money on genocide deniers like Irving is ethical. I also don't think reading Irving will help you in any way, because genocide deniers are pretty much all the same, and there's not a shred of credence or validity to what they have to say. If you still wish to see genocide denial and defense of people who say stuff like "Erase them, their families, mothers and children. These animals can no longer live", and the denial of that which is obvious, you'll find plenty of it available for free in modern day conservative shitrags talking about the ethnic cleansing Israel has been carrying out for 77 years.
It's great that it worked out for you, and I'm happy for you, but we don't need to force everyone to fit the same mould.