Rowling’s argument is essentially that if you have an outie, you’re a boy, and if you have an innie, you’re a girl, which makes a lot of logical sense if all you’re doing is looking at specific physical characteristics.
However, humans are much more complicated than that, and hormones, chromosomes, and DNA can tell a much different story than what the outside presents. Rowling knows this, and I suspect it’s the reason she has never gotten tested to see whether all these categories reflect the physical characteristics she believes to be true of herself (i.e., she’s a woman).
Rowling obviously has breasts and a vag, but she might find out she’s effectively male in terms of other deeper characteristics. Because we don’t typically test for these in the population, there are lots of folks running around who will never know their biological truths.
This is not true for everyone, especially trans folks who have a much deeper relationship with their inner life and biology. And if Rowling had sat down with doctors and scientists who have done this work, she would have realized just how complicated this issue really is.
But because she chose to run the opposite direction and keep running, she has effectively erased everyone who does not fit the female physical characteristics. Don’t have any breasts because of a cancer preventative? Not female. No uterus due to disease? No longer female. No longer menstruating? No longer female.
These, of course, are exaggerations of her viewpoint, but to return to my main point: The biological reality of humans is simply too complex to divide it into a binary so easily. Trans folks make up a very small portion of the human population but have been around since the beginning of humanity, just like all members of the LGBTQIA+ have been around forever.
I think that she was thoughtful to acknowledge that trans folks—and other threatened minorities—need to be protected, but that’s about all the help she’s been to those causes.
I’m still holding out hope that this is all some huge stunt she’s had to pull because her children have been abducted and the only way she can get them back is to torpedo her career.
As you get older the lenses become stiffer and interfere with reading things close up. Your eyes have to worker harder to do what they used to do naturally at a younger age. This effort slows down the reading process, and I don’t know that there’s any way to counteract that. Healthy diet, I’m sure, is helpful, but it’s not a magic wand.
I’m experiencing the same thing as well, but I’m seeing improvement from dedicated time and more consistency in my reading routine.
Still, it sucks because I remember being so much more voracious when I was younger.