Last week, “Midnight’s Children” novelist and cultural icon Salman Rushdie suffered a violent attempt on his life at a lecture in New York. The author has since been taken off a ventilator and is now able to speak, though the stabbing attack left him with severe injuries, including the possible loss of one eye.
In the wake of this violence, the right wing media has taken every opportunity to do what they do best: make the story about the liberal agenda. Although Rushdie’s attacker has since been identified and is in custody, that hasn’t stopped certain factions from reading the attack as being somehow a result of “cancel culture” and the “war” on free speech.
This point of view gained considerable steam after someone tweeted that TERF author JK Rowling was “next,” prompting Scotland Yard to investigate the proposed attack.
Naturally, people jumped to the conclusion the trans community—which Rowling has made a certain enemy of due to her anti-trans efforts dating back years—was somehow behind the violent threats.
How about we take this to the next level?
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The person who tweeted “you’re next” at JK Rowling was not trans, and had nothing to do with trans people. There was nothing on their timeline related to trans rights at all. They were a religious fundamentalist, and likely a supporter of the fatwa on Rushdie. Don’t make stuff up
— Bronwen🌹🏳️🌈 (@Bronwen85) August 14, 2022
There’s a pretty important difference here, and folks have been quick to gloss over it:
JK Rowling has not been stabbed. She has not been lying in a hospital on a ventilator. She is not going to lose the sight in one of her eyes.
Salman Rushdie did not get a $3M put on his head because of “identity politics”. He did not spend years in hiding because of mean tweets. pic.twitter.com/Ngq21Y78XG
— Bad Writing Takes 🖊️🏳️🌈 (@BadWritingTakes) August 16, 2022
Yes, and defenders of the status quo are never called to account for their own (much larger and institutionally powerful) radical fringe. A tweet threatening JK Rowling is a days-long story. TERFs doxxing trans people never becomes one at all.https://t.co/pCXAKadxU1
— Michael Hobbes (@RottenInDenmark) August 16, 2022
It’s kind of incredible to see Rowling’s ego at work.
JK Rowling managing to make the stabbing of Salman Rushdie all about herself is truly incredible
— Twunk in Training (@AceHainley) August 16, 2022
As Parker Molloy has pointed out, Rushdie’s stabbing and Rowling’s decision to make it all about her have practically no relationship. Molloy also points out that a similar shitstorm kicked up around the stage rushing incident at a Dave Chappelle show a few months ago. Trans people are spending most of our time trying to survive, we simply don’t have the time (or interest!) to plan violent attacks on other people. We’ll let Alejandro Caraballo have the mic drop moment:
Next time you see people like JK Rowling crying about a threat on Twitter, just remember the average trans person or medical providers being inundated in threats as a result of anti trans harassment campaigns. They don’t have private security and a castle to hide in.
— Alejandra Caraballo (@Esqueer_) August 15, 2022
Just remember: being a public citizen whose rights are constantly under attack is very different from being a “free speech advocate” who owns property. Period!
