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She's a blairist, and blairists are only slightly less morally bankrupt thatcherites.

For all their sins, a true European style liberal wouldn't want the state to tell you which restroom you use or what medical treatment they have access to - of course they also believe that trans people that were born into poor families don't deserve access to any medical treatment at all but that's another story.

She's not a conservative, she's a liberal...

You are mixing definitions.

In fiscal policy, "conservatism" is opposite "liberalism".

In social policy, "conservatism" is opposite "progressivism".

No one here is accusing this homophobic bridge troll of having conservative fiscal policy.

She is socially conservative. And as such, she is a bigot. There can be no defense of her from anyone who is not a bigot.

Her world views are absolutely conservative by today’s standard. Especially her views on gender roles. I mean have you read Harry Potter when you were younger? All important characters that actually shape the plot are male. She went out of her way to give Harry different father figures, believing that‘s what a boy needs when he grows up. But it‘s enough when his mother just loved him. Her female characters are far less layered than the male ones and more often than not reduced to mere tropes. The most prominent one being the pedantically strict auntie, a template which wich gets pasted a lot. There’s also the crazy auntie character and the tomboy. But that‘s pretty much it, really. Hermione herself ranges between overly strict and tomboy throughout the books and the only way she managed to escape this pattern is by… magic plastic surgery to shrink her front teeth. Rowling has clearly defined genders to be a black or white kind of thing for herself and she clearly outlined which gender has to fill what role.

She’s not a conservative, she’s a liberal (in the political science sense of the word, not the USian synonym for leftist).

No leftist self-identifies as a liberal in the US.

Liberal and leftist are synonyms to the US right such that everyone left of them is considered a "liberal", and the term is usually used pejoratively.

I think the trans thing started as a sincerely held conviction very much a long the lines as you're describing, and while this is and can only be utter speculation, I have a feeling a lot of what comes after as in Chappelle, probably with Linehan (but I don't really know anything about his case) and also other examples like the vaccines cause autism guy, I think these people are seeing an opportunity in their ostracism to keeping their profiles high and business opportunities as well.

I think it's a sort of a 'hung for a sheep as for a lamb' kind of logic where you mightn't really have had any particular common cause with a lot of conservative views, or fringe elements before, but their willingness to embrace and lionize you for this one particular stance creates a new audience and market for you just as others are shrinking. From there it makes sense to gradually dole out hints and allusions to more conservative talking points and just keep ratcheting it up piecemeal to keep that profile up. For this to work you have to eventually be less hinting and more direct and the positions have to be more extreme and on more and more diverse matters, even ones you probably never had any opinion on because this is a pathway to becoming a kind professional provocateur and shock jock.

For some feminists, especially older ones, the transphobia comes from the long fight against the patriarchy and the feeling that men are trying to encroach on everything they fought for by becoming women. I had that explained to me by multiple (three) feminists in the last few years.

Graham Linehan

Wow, Linehan really dug in hard according to his Wiki.