CALLAHAN: Free-speech heroine Judy Blume has bowed to trans activists and betrayed JK Rowling

Judy Blume has done the unthinkable: she bows to the awake crowd.

Eighty-five years old, a self-described “active feminist” and lifelong fighter for free speech, she appears to fear trans activists. Afraid of being labeled TERF.

A day after an interview with a British newspaper, in which Blume expressed her support for JK Rowling, she backtracked on her comments.

This is a sad moment for women like me, who grew up loving Blume not only for her books, but for her courage.

She wrote about what happens when you get your first period, your first crushes and loves, and lose your virginity. Before that, she was denounced as a dirty peddler, a pornographer bent on corrupting America’s youth—girls in particular.

Blume never apologized. She has never given in to booking bans or calls for censorship. She defended herself and her work — and, most importantly, her young readers, coming of age in a time before TikTok and Instagram and Google, when the mysteries of adolescence were often terrifying.

She was a hero to many of us. To see her back down now isn’t just sad – it’s alarming.

When someone so loved and so committed to the cause of free speech can’t say what they really think, our culture is in big trouble.

“I love her,” Blume said of Rowling to interviewer Hadley Freeman in The Sunday Times. “I’m behind her 100 percent when I watch from a distance… But I haven’t had any contact with her during this difficult time. I probably should.’

It was clear that Blume was referring to Rowling’s outspoken concerns about trans-orthodoxy and its subsequent demonization. And for a moment this was heartwarming. Another woman of equal esteem joined Rowling in the town square and said: Hi! Wait a second. There are some things that need to be discussed here. Asking these questions does not make me transphobic or bigoted.

Blume had used up her considerable cultural capital for good.

Alas, it really felt like a minute. On Monday morning, Blume tweeted that her comments were “taken out of context.”

How cowardly. What a betrayal for one writer to accuse another of carelessness if not nefarious intent. And ‘taken out of context’ is such a cliché. As any decent writer knows, clichés should be avoided. Lazy language equals lazy thinking.

Blume clearly couldn’t argue that Freeman had misquoted her or made up the quotes. Freeman herself took to Twitter following allegations that she had framed the legendary author with her own so-called TERF agenda. Freeman posted screenshots of her interview transcript, writing, “For the record, my quotes are accurate and uncontested. I didn’t ask Blume about JK Rowling’s criticisms—she brought them up herself.”

But among Blume’s awakened defenders, Freeman is to blame — a crafty journalist who, as one critic tweeted, twisted Blume’s words “in support of her own anti-trans rhetoric.” Either Blume is an easily manipulated frail octogenarian or a sharp, smart writer who has been very famous, controversial and media savvy for over 50 years. It can’t be both.

Blume self-published the boilerplate me a culpa that we know all too well: “I support the trans community,” tweeted Blume, “and strongly disagree with anyone who is not in favor of equality and acceptance for LGBTQIA+ people. Anything else is total bull****.”

What an insult to our intelligence. We all read what she said. There was no ambiguity about that. Besides, does anyone even remotely familiar with Blume’s work think she’s bigoted? It’s absurd.

So why would Blume act so unusually? Is she so afraid of a tainted legacy? Or is she worried that the upcoming film adaptation of her beloved coming-of-age novel ‘Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret’ could suffer at the box office? One can only imagine the crisis talks with her film studio this weekend.

Here’s a question: Could the Judy Blume who rejected her support for Rowling write “Margaret” today?

Margaret longed to wear lipstick, buy a training bra, and get her first period. This was revolutionary. Such things were not openly discussed when the novel was first published in 1970. If anything, menstruation was to be feared. Blood. Cramps. Tampons vs Sanitary Napkins. The care guys could tell, or would laugh and have fun.

As young adult literature critic and professor Dr. Roberta Trites told Vice, for Gen X women, “Margaret was the first person who gave us the idea that it was a good thing to menstruate because it is the sign of maturity and the potential to menstruate. having children, no curse or taboo.’

But would this now be considered an exclusion? Would it be fair for Margaret to be a sixth grade biological girl who likes to identify as such? Can only biological women get pregnant and give birth?

After all, we’re in an era where Dylan Mulvaney, born biologically male but identifies as female, is modeling Nike sports bras for women and pushing Tampax on TikTok.

Why, trans activists would surely say, can’t a young biological male desire to have female breasts? Menstruating? Why should such changes be the province of biological females?

For Blume to pull out of JK Rowling feels like apostasy. If anyone had to take a stand against witch trials and Orwellian groupthink, it would have to be Blume. It’s beyond disappointing to see self-declared liberal feminists defend their own gender – it’s disgusting.

A week after Riley Gaines was attacked at San Francisco State University for saying biological female athletes should not be competing against biologically born men, Democratic Representative Katie Porter went on Bill Maher’s HBO show and said, “It’s me absolutely disagree’ with Gaines.

Besides, Porter should be ashamed of herself for calling her new book “I Swear: Politics is Messier Than My Minivan.” What an indulgent, condescending title, clearly aimed at women she thinks are stupid. Tormented moms who just don’t have time to deal with the news, you know?

Porter went on to claim that Gaines was in it for the clicks — as if someone who was chased into a small room for three hours while trans activists threatened her outside, as Gaines was, is having fun here. Or considered popular.

It took fellow panelist Piers Morgan to explain.

‘Everything I’ve seen [Gaines] to do,” Morgan said, “is to stand up for women’s rights for fairness and equality… which she was actually competing against [trans swimmer] Lia Thomas, and it was clearly unfair. Lia Thomas won one of the races. . . by 50 seconds, against a bunch of biological females who just couldn’t keep up. That can not be true. It can’t be fair.’

That’s common sense right there. But to express that view is to be quite lonely. It’s to put your job and your reputation on the line – essentially cancellation.

This is exactly why we need those few who have the cultural power and financial resources to speak the truth, to stand up for girls and women, to be feminists.

Judy Blume did more than any author in her time for young girls and women. I am one of many, sure, she has failed. It feels like she tarnished her legacy at our expense, and that’s a greater loss than any amount of box office earnings.