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J. K. Rowling's ethnicity/nationality has been discussed here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. Current consensus is that she is British, and that whether she is also English, Scottish or Welsh has no bearing on her work or her biography, and is best not discussed.
The topic of her middle name has been discussed here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Her full name is simply Joanne Rowling; she contracted the first name and chose the middle initial K from her grandmother's name, Kathleen, in order to remove the gender association from her own name.
Her married name has been discussed here, here, here, here, here and here. She uses her married name, Murray, for private business, but her maiden name, "Rowling", is used here, as it is the one by which she is most widely known.
The pronunciation of her name has been discussed here, here, here, here and here. She has commented that her name is pronounced like bowling and not like howling.
Allegations that she supports communism in the series have been discussed here, here, here, here, here and here. She has not publicly espoused any such views; attempts to describe such views in her works have been rejected as original research of published material.
If you have a question relating to the spelling in this article (such as "instalment"/"installment") remember that this article is written in British English.
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The convention I follow is that the location (i.e. the city of publication) should be given for every newspaper unless it is part of the paper's name. This is necessary because there are, for instance, several newspapers around the world called The Guardian. So I don't agree that these locations are "unnecessary". In the case of mainstream newspapers at least, this is a more useful form of disambiguation than giving the name of the publisher, since publishers of newspapers nowadays tend to change because of company mergers, etc., whereas they very rarely change location. The Daily Mirror, for example, is now on at least its fifth owner, but it has been published in London consistently for 121 years. This distinguishes it from the Daily Mirror in Sri Lanka. Also, Template:Cite news says "Do not use the publisher parameter for the name of a work (e.g. a website, book, encyclopedia, newspaper, magazine, journal, etc.)".
I wasn't aware of the "featured article" rule you mention, sorry. I absolutely agree with you about the desirability of consistency within any one article but on this occasion I realised I wasn't going to have time to do everything that needed doing. -- Alarics (talk) 21:34, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for explaining; I understand the logic behind your personal convention, but that's not the CITEVAR used on this article, or agreed upon in many featured articles. If others agree that locations should be more broadly added, we could consider changing the established style, but most of the newspapers used here are well known. I think we're using the work/publisher parameters correctly throughout, but if you see a place where that is not the case, pls advise. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:40, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Putting aside the misrepresentation of Rowling's issue here, and the fact that her comments on Banda are not even related to trans issues, the article does not classify Rowling as an 'anti-transgender activist', meaning it is not appropriate to put the article in such a category.Daff22 (talk) 15:20, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Per Daff22. Arbeiten8, please have a look at a broader sampling of unbiased sources, along with the scores of times the same discussion has been had on this talk page, and in particular, the high quality sources required for a Featured article. And I believe we have the same situation with this. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:32, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Rowling is the textbook definition of what is transphobia. She has
#Misgendered trans people
#Misgendered cis people who she perceived as the wrong gender like India Willoughby
#Authored the book Troubled Blood & The Silkworm claiming that trans women are supervillains wanting to rape women casting "trans women as a threat" according to GLAAD
Rowling, meanwhile, has made her campaign against trans identity the central focus of her online persona. On Sept. 10, she posted the U.K. open casting call for the roles of Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley to her 14.2 million followers on X. That was an exception: Over the next two months, Rowling posted or reposted more than 200 times (excluding replies) about trans-related issues to support her conviction, as she posted on Oct. 7, that gender identity “is defined by little more than a person’s subjective feelings, or (more accurately) their claim to feel those feelings.” Within the same time frame, she posted or reposted about Harry Potter just eight more times, [...[
The industry has never quite faced a scenario in which the sole creator of a beloved, multibillion-dollar global franchise has plunged so unabashedly into one of the culture’s most contentious social issues. She’s effectively made herself toxic to many within the core fandom, whose devotion began 25 years ago when they were children and has sustained the franchise long after the books and the film series concluded. It’s placed those fans in a vexing dilemma: How can they engage with the new show, or any other iteration of the franchise, if they vehemently disagree with Rowling’s views on gender identity?
This debate has been had a number of times now, and it has become abundantly clear that there is no consensus for adding that label. TBicks (talk) 00:30, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I know we've had this discussion multiple times before and the consensus prior is that, despite Rowling's actions over the past few years, it doesn't relate much to her overall career and ongoing notability. As of yet. And the latter sentence was noted in those discussions as well. I do wonder, though, at where that line is and how long is needed of her continuing this ongoing bigotry that had been all she's gotten reporting on for years now before we can actually change or add to the article about this being a new main part of her ongoing notability. There is a time amount and line where that would be true, right? SilverserenC00:48, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Probably? Assuming reliable sources start commonly calling/alluding to her being an anti-transgender activist, I don't see why not.
The problem in past discussions seems to have boiled down not to whether she is anti-transgender (I think she's made her gender critical views clear by this point), but to if she is an activist. Few of the RSs previously discussed actually describe her that way, and there's no consensus thusfar as to if simple speech on Twitter constitutes activism (especially given the absence of campaigning elsewhere).
Anyhow, it's only been a couple of months since the last time this was discussed, and in the absence of new developments, we can't keep reigniting this every time someone wants to link some poor quality sources (LGBTQ Nation is hardly unbiased on this issue). TBicks (talk) 01:17, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Rowling also indicated that Trump's 2024 electoral win is because of the triumph of transphobia (Kamala is for they/them): According to her, the only reason that she couldn't positively declare ""Trump's win was down to the gender stuff" is because she isn't an American voter
Also, would I be wrong in stating that if Rowling were a WP user engaging in this unrepentant rhetoric, then she' be banned?
We have articles like [[Nick Fuentes]] claiming that the subject is a white supremacist in spite of Fuentes's denial. On the other hand, when Rowling is accused of transphobia, she retorts that she doesn't care and is "indifferent to your disapproval."
I think people can common sense. We don't need a hundreds sources to run a headline to the effect "Rowling is the great transphobic author of all time in human history" to decide that 2+2=4 Arbeiten8 (talk) 02:04, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think the goalposts keep moving. We have reliable sources directly talking about it now. But they'll probably insist on peer-reviewed papers, and if those are presented, will say they're not as good as ones from 10 years ago, which don't mention her transphobia. Adam Cuerden(talk)Has about 8.8% of all FPs.15:49, 12 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A little more AGF, please, Adam Cuerden. At least a few of us insist on good sourcing because we believe in enforcing FA standards - please look through the FAR archives, if you believe I am doing so out of some loyalty to Rowling. I note that we last exhaustively revised the relevant section five months ago. Has Rowling done enough since then to merit another revision? I'm inclined to think not. Also: the splashiest headlines of the last few months have been ostensibly unrelated to trans people: she has criticized Imane Khelif and Barbra Banda for not appearing feminine enough, despite them being cis-women, as far as the world knows. This could arguably be worked into her views, but it would really be stretching a point to use this as justification for "anti-transgender activist". Vanamonde93 (talk) 16:54, 12 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No, @Adam Cuerden... although featured articles should have a higher quality requirement for sources, as long as the preponderance of reliable sources (of any variety) suggest something, there is no reason not to add it. The goalposts have remained firmly in the same place.
As already mentioned, there is little mention of her being an activist in reliable sources. I don't think people are seriously suggesting that she isn't anti-trans any more, but to label her an activist requires more than just RSs pointing out that she says mean stuff on twitter. TBicks (talk) 16:56, 12 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Like, the Variety piece says anti-trans activity is the central focus of her online persona. I don't think that's particularly ambiguous, and if the only objection is exact wording, we could literally quote theirs. "In 2024, Variety wrote that Rowling 'has made her campaign against trans identity the central focus of her online persona.'" Adam Cuerden(talk)Has about 8.8% of all FPs.15:50, 13 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not opposed to adding that sentence into the relevant paragraph on her trans views.
That's different to actually labelling her an "Anti-trans Activist" in wikivoice, which is what was suggested by Arbeiten8. As I mentioned, simply quoting a single RS like Variety would be insufficient for that change - it would require much more significant usage in RSs than has been presented thusfar. TBicks (talk) 16:20, 13 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not actually opposed to inserting that quote in the body, because it is summarizing what the popular press has to say about her online presence in a way that most sources don't do. It remains insufficient for the "anti-trans activist" label, though. Vanamonde93 (talk) 16:47, 13 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]