While I somewhat agree with you, feminism and related ideologies created a whole new network of concepts of what is good and wrong, and these can bite you as much as the old prejudices. A good example is the Harry Potter lady: while I don't necessarily agree with her view, I do understand her concern and the right to express it - but for many people it's a criminal offense. Almost as if we replaced one cage with another.

What are "related ideologies" of feminism?

By all accounts, JK Rowling hasn't suffered any negative consequence of her transphobia, she has even marketed it and is benefiting from it: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ink-Black-Heart-Robert-Galbraith-eb... https://www.amazon.co.uk/Troubled-Blood-Cormoran-Strike-5-eb...

And Harry Potter merchandising and derived works are still selling like pancakes.

Troubled Blood isn't marketing transphobia save in the mind of a reviewer with an axe to grind wrt Rowling's public statements.

The wikipedia page outlines the charge that it contains "pernicious anti-trans tropes" and continues:

    Nick Cohen, writing for The Spectator, argued that the transphobia accusations were baseless and slanderous, noting that Dennis Creed is investigated along with a dozen other suspects.

    He also stated that the book does not engage in the politics of women-only spaces and access to gender reassignment treatments.

    Alison Flood, writing for The Guardian, expressed similar views, arguing that people who have not read the book were making wrong assumptions based on a single review.

    Allan Massie, writing for The Scotsman, stated of the character of Creed that "there is no suggestion that he was transgender".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Blood

The point is not that these books include transphobia or not, the point is she chose to include transgender characters after all the drama on twitter relating to her likes and accounts she folllowed/supported.

She definitely used all that drama to sell books and benefited from it.

> the point is she chose to include transgender characters

Which character in Troubled Blood is transgender? Is there a transgender character in The Ink Black Heart ?

It's not Dennis Creed as I recall from my reading some time past, certainly not Edie Ledwell.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41536875

It's all under the same umbrella.

Is this non sequitur from a meconium account intended to convey a meaningful response, or is it a baby-bot randomly attaching nonsense to threads to establish a beachhead?

The prime suspect of the novel is a serial killer who cross-dresses. A book written years after she started campaigning near-daily about the threat of trans women. Those media outlets are being very misleading.

The Spectator is a right-wing British newspaper with dozens of anti-trans articles and op-eds. The Scotsman and The Guardian also have very anti-trans skews. (The latter less so, but definitely more anti than pro overall.)

It's fair to say that fearmongering about trans people isn't the central focus of the novel, but she obviously knew exactly what she was doing and why.

> The prime suspect of the novel is a serial killer who cross-dresses.

And Barry Humphries is a beloved Australian entertainer who cross dresses. Neither are transgender.

Further, the prime suspect of the novel, Dennis Creed, is closely based on real life serial killers such as Angus Sinclair, Jerry Brudos, and Russell Williams who all share victim name details and traits with the fictional Creed, such as messing with bodies, fetishism, etc

None of these real life serial killers were trans gender, at least two cross dressed, and there are very few serial killers that lack a pathology.

There appears to be some in the world who will see a crime genre author write about a serial killer and immediately conclude that killer must be trans and some kind of transphobic stereotype.

I'm not one of those people.

FWiW I did vote for Leigh Varis-Beswick as mayor of Kalgoorlie but that was mainly due to her having some good ideas for change and having been a lifelong friend of my sister.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Williams_(criminal)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Brudos

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s_End_Murders

https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/heavy-metal-heaven-20050828...

None of it would've been a problem if not for her stated, vocal positions long before writing the novel.

If JKR is your worst example of feminism, we're just fine. She's extremely wealthy, popular, and 100% not in jail.

>the right to express it - but for many people it's a criminal offense

No it wasn't. Even in the UK, a supposed hellscape of unfree speech, she only finally got into any trouble when she repeatedly told outright and trivially knowable lies about another person. There's no guarantee she loses that court case either, so she hasn't exactly faced any repercussions for her speech. Companies are still making boatloads of harry potter content and it still sells like hotcakes.

This is 100% correct. We haven't become more enlightened and tolerant, we have simply exchanged what we don't tolerate. That may or may not be good, but it certainly isn't worth patting ourselves on the back as if we're somehow better than our forebears.

> People discriminate because of religion, etc

Which is illegal in most places.

Only for certain protected activities like employment or housing, otherwise it's entirely legal to be a bigot.

Thats the whole point, that some people view promiscuity and sexualising ones self no differently to smelling bad, or wearing scruffy clothes, or having a negative attitude. Its just another trait which some people view dimly.