J. K. Rowling

Double, double toil and trouble.

It's a social construct Gender

Spectra and binaries

Cisgender Day of Silence Gender pay gap Misandry Rape culture Transgender Cathy Brennan Radfem Hub SlutWalk Abigail Shrier CitizenGo FiLiA v - t - e

Joanne Rowling, (1965–) pen name J(ust) K(idding) Rowling^{[note 1]} and sometimes known as^[3] the male writer Robert Galbraith,^{[note 2]} is a British author, former billionaire,^[4] prominent TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminist),^{[note 3]} and Nazi crimes denier.^{[note 4][8][9]} Since becoming a vocal TERF, she has been known among some Harry Potter fans as "she who must not be named"- a reference to a similar moniker for Lord Voldemort, the main antagonist of her magnum opus.^[10] She went from hailed author of the beloved Harry Potter series to a fallen hero who now spends her time concern trolling and defending transphobia as sacred and untouchable.

Harry Potter series[edit]

The logo

Harry Potter, a series of seven (or so) fantasy novels by J. K. Rowling, relates the adventures of a teenage boy and his two best friends who attend a school of "witchcraft and wizardry", learning a whole range of magical skills; fighting Dark Magic and evil; and demonstrates how Alan Rickman got snubbed of another Oscar.^[11]

The series portrays Good triumphing over Evil. It became a literary and critical success; nevertheless, fundamentalist religious groups condemn it as a harmful work that will seduce children into the occult and witchcraft. In the United States (the so-called "great land of liberty"), the books became the most challenged of the 21^st century.^[12] Fortunately for Harry Potter fans, magic and witchcraft are only a concern if you're stuck in the 17^th century or living in Africa,^[13] Indonesia, or Papua New Guinea in the present century.

The response to the books represents an excellent example of modern-day fundamentalism and would-be authoritarianism, with numerous attempts to ban the books.

Commercialisation[edit]

Expelliarmus!

The commercialisation of the Harry Potter series by capitalist industries, especially by Hollywood and the media, has been criticised. Scholar Jack Zipes critiqued the mass commercialisation and corporate hegemony behind the Harry Potter franchise, likening such hegemony to a form of cultural imperialism. In his Adornean analysis of Harry Potter's global brand, Zipes wrote, "It must conform to the standards of exception set by the mass media and promoted by the culture industry in general. To be a phenomenon means that a person or commodity must conform to the hegemonic groups that determine what makes up a phenomenon".^[14]

Themes[edit]

Scholars subject the Harry Potter novels to serious social scrutiny, with studies of the series' political intricacies performed by columnists, professors, and doctoral students alike. As of 2007, the catalog of the Library of Congress recorded 21 volumes of criticism and interpretation; at least seven master's dissertations, and 17 doctoral theses have been devoted to the Harry Potter books. Seriously.^[15] From the concepts of hierarchy and purity found in the relations between pure-blooded and Muggle-born wizards to the struggle for house-elf freedom, equality is a central theme of the books. It portrays a dishonest, incompetent government and media. It paints war as a great evil in which innocent people die. The school Harry attends, Hogwarts, is multicultural, multiracial, and (seemingly) secular. Some critics, however, called the books patronising and conservative,^[16] or sexist and neoconservative.^[17] This is odd since Rowling herself was a Labour supporter at time of writing (though she later drifted away from the party).

Unrelated controversies include comparisons to some older book series such as the Howl's Moving Castle and Wizard's Hall (The Worst Witch is the most commented-on), which have resulted in accusations of plagiarism, or (far worse) being derivative. The works feature frumpy and disaster-prone protagonists, a couple of loyal best-friends (one book-smart and rational, one street-smart and slightly problematic), a blond and rich but cowardly and rather inefficient rival, a scary and seemingly unfair potions-teacher with hidden depths, a childish headmaster with a penchant for candy, and a big bad-guy who desires the destruction of the protagonist after their fateful first encounter. Whether this is more than just a re-hashing of tropes is a matter of debate.^[18] Some fans, especially older ones, also believe that Rowling's later additions to the franchise are inferior to the original seven novels, with some outright comparing her work to that of George Lucas on the later Star Wars films,^[19] though one could hardly throw a rock within geek culture without running into similar complaints regarding one particular franchise or another.

Rowling is a Christian herself. The final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, contains an epigraph from the Gospels (Matthew 6:21), Harry's parents' gravestones display another Bible quote (1 Corinthians 15:26), and Rowling also has a scene where Harry sacrifices his own life and is resurrected and then proceeds to save everybody.^{[note 5]}

Fundamentalist hysteria[edit]

Ghosts? Potions? Divination?! The horror!

Dozens of legal cases concerning copyright infringement, libel, and breach of contract have involved the Potterworld. Flocks of religious leaders (plus Jack Chick) have fulminated against the series.

Note, however, many moderate and some evangelical Christians have spoken in favour of the books. The Catholic Church has no official position, but many Cardinals oppose the books. It seems that once people make the distinction between fiction and real belief in magic, they can see past any objections to demons and witchcraft to realise what the series supports.

Islamic fundamentalists have denounced the series. The Islamic preacher Sheik Feiz Muhammad regarded the books and films as "Satanic" and claimed they were introducing young children to pagan rituals (like drinking goat blood) which Islam forbids. The esteemed Sheik criticised Muslim parents who allow their children to watch the films or read the books, claiming they were being irresponsible.^[20]

Furthermore, the drinking of dead animal blood, Satanic human sacrifice, demonic possession, etc. described in the quote at the top of the H.P. section, are actions practised by the book's Wilhelm-screaming^{[21][note 6]} antagonist, Lord Voldemort, the murderer of Harry's parents; the books do not exactly present Voldemort as a morally praiseworthy figure.^{[citation NOT needed]}

As to the claims that the books promote witchcraft by teaching impressionable children to cast spells, well… we hate to break it to you, but the spells described in the books don't work in real life, even if you wave a piece of carved wood in the air.

Satirical news source The Onion, in its inimitable style, once ran a spoof of the fundamentalists' claims, saying that children were converting to Satanism because of the books.^[22] As if to prove their idiocy to anyone yet unconvinced, the fundies took the article as proof that they were right.^[23]

Secular criticism of Harry Potter[edit]

Goblin banker model from the films.

Goblins as an antisemitic trope[edit]

In the Harry Potter novels, goblins are a short, humanoid race with "swarthy" skin and "dark, slanting eyes." They run Gringotts, the sole banking institution in the wizarding world. They're characterized as shrewd, secretive, and untrustworthy. The films give them hooked noses and pointed ears.

Critics link them to antisemitic caricatures of the Evil Jew and conspiracy theories about Jews secretly controlling the world's financial system.^{[24][25][26][27]} In 2001, a reader letter to The New York Times called out the paper's review of the first film, charging that it failed to identify the "goblin bankers" as a "thinly veiled representation of Jewish stereotypes."^[28] Writing in the literary journal The Lion and the Unicorn in 2010, Jackie C. Horne held that the goblins' features "mark them as physically other," while their role as bankers distinguishes them as "morally suspect" and a "modern-day embodiment of the stereotype of the Jewish moneylender or perhaps even an Italian Mafiaso."^[25] Daniel Levy and Avichai Snir, in the journal Oxford Open Economics, note that the films' goblins, in particular, have been condemned for their "acquiline noses and greedy-looking faces, similar to the cartoons that were used to depict stereotypical bankers and financiers in Europe in the late 19^th century."^[27]

This criticism gained new traction in 2022 after it came up during a discussion on Jon Stewart's podcast:^[29][30][31]

Jay Jurden: The Jews have arrived. What chapter of Harry Potter is that in? That's when they get to Gringotts, right?
Stewart: Can I tell you something about Harry Potter? … Here's how you know, like, Jews are still where they are. Talking to people, what I say is, "Have you ever seen a Harry Potter movie?" And people are all like, "I love the Harry Potter movies!" I'm like, "You ever see the scenes in Gringotts bank?" They're like, "I love the scenes in Gringotts bank!" Like, "Do you know what those folks that run the bank are?" And they're like, "What?" And then, like, "Jews."
Jurden: And then that person says, "No, goblins." And then you go, "Do you hear yourself?"
Stewart: Let me show you this from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. I just want to show you a caricature, and they're like, "Oh, look at that! That's from Harry Potter." You're like, "No, that's a caricature of a Jew from an antisemitic piece of literature." J.K. Rowling was like, "Can we get these guys to run our bank?" And you're like, "It's a wizarding world." … The train station has a half a thing and no one can see it. And we can ride dragons and you've got a pet owl. … Who should run the bank? Jews."

Stewart later clarified that these remarks were intended as a "lighthearted conversation" and that he was "not accusing J. K. Rowling of being antisemitic."^[32]

House-elves and portrayal of slavery[edit]

One of the most understated parts of the book series is the portrayal of slavery and abolitionism. One of the main characters, Hermione Granger, seeks to abolish slavery and is mocked for it. The enslaved group, the house elves, are portrayed as comic relief and themselves show hostility to the only slave who sought freedom.^[33] Thankfully, this portrayal of slavery is almost completely removed from the films, with only Dobby (appearing only in Chamber of Secrets — in which he's freed from the Malfoys — and Deathly Hallows — in which he dies) and Kreacher (where any mentions of Harry owning him are scrapped) making any appearances, likely as a result of the screenwriters noticing "Hey, this part's kinda weird."

"Dumbledore is gay" and queer-baiting[edit]

Wingardium Levi-loafers! Dumbledore as depicted by a fan.

In 2007, at a fan event a few months after the release of the last Harry Potter book, Rowling revealed that she "always thought of Dumbledore as gay."^[34][35][36] The revelation drew praise from fans and the LGBT community at the time, but predictably angered the Religious Right.^[37] Many fans later became more critical, viewing it as a cop-out when she could have made it more explicit in the books.^[38][39] The Fantastic Beasts prequels in particular drew fire for ambiguously portraying Dumbledore's relationship with Grindelwald.^[40][41][42] It was eventually made unambiguous in Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (2022) — fifteen years after the original revelation.^[43]

Rowling stated in a 2008 interview that, after being made an "utter fool" and "[losing] his moral compass completely" through his love for wizard supremacist Grindelwald, Dumbledore "became quite asexual" and "led a celibate and a bookish life."^[44] Critics have linked this to the "hate the sin, love the sinner" framework of anti-gay conservatives, which accepts gay people so long as they renounce their "sinful" desires and never act on them.^[45] Prof. Catherine Tosenberger wrote in 2008, "Dumbledore also arguably fits into the category of the 'safely contained' homosexual, as he is both elderly (and therefore presumably celibate) and dead."^[46] Tosenberger elsewhere wrote: though it might "smack of ageism," it spared "squeamish readers" from having to "confront the threatening specter of a sexually active gay male body."^[47] Victoria Vestić wrote in 2018 that, because Dumbledore's teenage sister died in the crossfire of his parting duel with Grindelwald, he "does not pursue other homosexual relationships until his death." Thus he's "punished by the narrative for not sacrificing his homosexuality" in service to the heteronormative family ideal, but offered redemption by "dedicat[ing] his life to the protection of other's children" as Hogwarts' headmaster.^[48] In 2018, Prof. Thomas Crisp said gay readings of Dumbledore mean the "sole depiction of a gay male in this series is of a sensitive man with a flamboyant sense of style and a penchant for fashion, a man whose love for another man is the great tragedy of his life."^[49]

Dumbledore/Grindelwald isn't the only time that Rowling has been accused of "queer-baiting". Early in the fandom's history, some readers saw evidence of subtextual gay romance between Sirius Black and Remus Lupin, citing canonical details like their joint Christmas gift to Harry in the fifth book.^[46][50][51] In 2004, when asked at a book festival if Harry had a godmother, Rowling said his godfather Sirius had been "too busy being a big rebel to get married."^[52] However, with the release of the sixth book the following year, Lupin was shoehorned into a heterosexual romance with Nymphadora Tonks.^{[46][50][53][54]} Some fans saw this as Rowling deliberately shutting down the possibility of canonical queer romance, particularly since Tonks, a pink-haired shapeshifter, has also been interpreted by some as genderqueer or lesbian.^[53][54] In Deathly Hallows (2007), Harry visits Sirius Black's teenage bedroom and sees "posters of bikini-clad Muggle girls", seen by fans as another example of Rowling imposing heteronormativity. In 2016, Rowling peevishly denied that Sirius Black was gay in response to a Twitter inquiry, prompting upset fans to launch the hashtag "#JKRowlingIsOverParty" (this was before the first rumblings of her descent into transphobia).^[55][56][57] Prof. Tosenberger wrote that Sirius's character arc in Order of the Phoenix (2003) follows the "trope in early gay-themed YA literature that homosexual characters must be lonely, tormented, and then die."^[46]

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (2016) renewed queer-baiting and LGBT erasure accusations.^[58][59][60] The play, written by Jack Thorne based on a story outline by Rowling, centers on the friendship of Albus Potter and Scorpius Malfoy (sons of Harry and Draco, respectively).^[58][59] Vox commented that "sexual subtext hovers at the edges of Albus and Scorpius' interactions," with the "poorly written" female characters serving as "shameless props for the giant, flashing 'NO HOMO!' sign that the play hangs over the two boys' heads"; and that the boys' interest in the girls seemed to have been "added as an afterthought" in "underdeveloped, unconvincing moments."^[58] A 2018 Logo review saw Scorpius and Albus as "secret lovers with all of the subtext and none of the follow through."^[60] The play's script was eventually reworked in 2021 to remove the references to female love interests and add new dialogue suggesting romantic feelings on Albus's part.^[61][62][63]

Model of Lupin's werewolf form used in the films.

Rowling explicitly shut down a fan theory that dragon-keeper and confirmed bachelor Charlie Weasley is gay. In the 2007 documentary J.K. Rowling: A Year in the Life, she was directly asked if Charlie was gay after dropping the Word of God that he never married, and replied, "Um, no, I don't think Charlie's gay. Just more interested in dragons than women."^[64]

Werewolves as an AIDS metaphor[edit]

In the Prisoner of Azkaban (1999), Remus Lupin is introduced as a new Hogwarts professor, proving to be a competent instructor and supportive mentor to Harry. It's eventually revealed that Lupin's mysterious monthly absences are due to lycanthropy. For a time, Lupin keeps his condition secret with the aid of sympathetic headmaster Dumbledore by sequestering himself away from students every full moon. Ultimately, he forgets to take a special potion and nearly attacks Harry, revealing his condition to the wizarding world. He is forced to resign as a teacher amid angry protests from parents.

In Half-Blood Prince (2005), Lupin reveals he was bitten as a child by Fenrir Greyback, who he describes as the "most savage werewolf alive today." Greyback, unlike most werewolves who attack in a state of uncontrolled frenzy, knowingly plans and stalks his victims in advance. He "specialises in children," following a philosophy of "bite them young … and raise them away from their parents, raise them to hate normal wizards." Greyback hopes to "bite and to contaminate as many people as possible" to create a werewolf army and "overcome the wizards." In Deathly Hallows (2007), Lupin volunteers to join Harry on his quest. Harry accuses Lupin, having hastily-married the expectant Tonks, of abandoning his wife and child-to-be. Lupin calls the marriage a "grave mistake" and worries that he has made Tonks an "outcast." He castigates himself for having "knowingly risked passing on [his] own condition to an innocent child." He says that, even if the child isn't born a werewolf, it will be better off "without a father of whom it must always be ashamed." Tonks and Lupin later reconcile. Their son Teddy is born without lycanthropy, but is orphaned when they die fighting Voldemort.

Rowling first revealed that she'd used lycanthropy as a metaphor for HIV/AIDS in 2008 while testifying in her lawsuit against Harry Potter Lexicon creator Steven Vander Ark:^[65]

I know that I've said publicly^{[note 7]} that Remus Lupin was supposed to be on the H.I.V. metaphor. It was someone who had been infected young, who suffered stigma, who had a fear of infecting others, who was terrified he would pass on his condition to his son. And it was a way of examining prejudice, unwarranted prejudice towards a group of people. And also, examining why people might become embittered when they're treated that unfairly.

This explanation was also given in a supplementary biography of Lupin written by Rowling and published on the site Pottermore in 2015:^[66]

Lupin's condition of lycanthropy (being a werewolf) was a metaphor for those illnesses that carry a stigma, like HIV and AIDS. All kinds of superstitions seem to surround blood-borne conditions, probably due to taboos surrounding blood itself. The wizarding community is as prone to hysteria and prejudice as the Muggle one, and the character of Lupin gave me a chance to examine those attitudes.

The AIDS metaphor drew criticism even before its confirmation by Rowling due to the parallels to real homophobic fearmongering.^{[48][67][68][69]} In 2006, Tison Pugh and David L. Wallace wrote in the journal Children's Literature Association Quarterly that if werewolves "serve as a queer figure within the world of the Harry Potter books, it becomes distressingly apparent that they must then also serve as figures of pederasty and child sexual abuse."^[67] They described Fenrir Greyback as "delight[ing] in the pederastic pleasures of preying on children," citing a passage in which he tells Dumbledore "you know how much I like kids."^[67] Gay people – particularly gay men – have been accused of "recruiting" young people into homosexuality through seduction or abuse since the post-War era.^[70] Homophobes propagated urban legends and moral panic that HIV was being deliberately spread during the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and 1990s.^[71][72][73] LGBT teachers have long faced public outing and calls for their sacking under the notion they are a threat to children.^[74]

Yer a transphobe, Joanne[edit]

"Show me one 'transphobic' thing she's said!"[edit]

TL;DR — "JKR's top hits"[edit]

Long story, but if you want some of the key points…

• Began by oversimplifying views of specific anti-transgender activists to make their extremism less obvious — a kind of "motte and bailey" or "iron man" gambit.^[77][78] An early blog post she made on the matter was cited to block a proposed anti-discrimination law in the United States that would have protected lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people alike.^[79]
• Strongly implied she would finance Kellie-Jay "Posie Parker" Keen-Minshull's legal bills.^[80] Later said she "never met anyone who doesn't think trans people deserve the same rights and protections as everyone else."^[81] The same month, Parker called for employers, funeral homes, and landlords to discriminate against trans people.^[82]
• Donated £70,000 to a campaign to legally redefine "woman", so it wouldn't include trans women with a Gender Recognition Certificate.^[83] Called them "men with gender recognition certificates".^[84]
• "Liked" a post opposing a proposed ban on involuntary conversion therapy.^[2][85] Then turned around and claimed trans hormone replacement is like anti-gay conversion therapy;^[86] a cursory read finds the opposite is true since anti-gay and anti-trans conversion therapy were, historically, intimately linked.^[87][88]
• Alienated from the UK's Labour Party she used to vote for,^[89] suggested her followers who planned to spoil their ballots should cast them for the Communist Party of Britain, a minor tankie party, because it emphasized "biological sex".^[90][91] This despite Labour leader Keir Starmer agreeing with Rowling on some points (which was criticised^[92][93]), but he calls for "respect" of trans people.^[94]
• Denied that the Nazis burnt research books about trans topics and targeted trans people.^[9] She was accused of Holocaust denial.^[8] At the very least, it's a form of "Nazi crimes denial".^[9]
• Her Twitter/X feed generally just turned into a lot of complaining about trans people. Anyone from random criminals to newsreaders^[95] or football managers^[96] became subjects of scorn if they happened to be trans. This led even some people who agree with her to get a bit sick of it; the top example was probably Elon Musk.^[97][98]
• Praised the author Stephen King for retweeting her. Then deleted the praise and blocked him when he said elsewhere that he believes trans women are women.^[99]
• Once posted about how she pressured a man in real life to talk with her about crackpot theories concerning transgender people's penises, and how supposedly "a cross-dressing fetish is one of the most common paraphilias in heterosexual men", citing Freud. She reported back: "I cannot overstate how little he wanted to talk about this … the impression given was that I was depraved to say such things aloud".^[100]
• Assumed the Harry Potter film actors Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson may apologize for disagreeing with her on trans topics. Rejected the non-existent apologies in advance.^[101]
• Wrote a crime fiction book about an artist "cancelled" online for transphobia and ultimately murdered. It is over one thousand pages long; some of the pages are just sheets of fake Twitter posts from nonexistent social justice activists. Rowling insists any similarity to her is coincidence.^{[102][103][104]} The book also casts people with chronic conditions like CFS/ME as antagonists for no apparent reason.^[105][106]

2017–2019: The mask starts to slip[edit]

The first sign of Rowling's developing transphobia was her "like" for an October 2017 Medium blog post framing "sex segregated spaces" and "smears of TERF" as a #MeToo issue.^[107] She later confirmed that she began "reading books, blogs and scientific papers" about transgender topics around this time.^[108] Vice proposed a scene in her 2014 novel The Silkworm was an earlier sign.^[109] This scene has the hero, Cormoran Strike, warn a trans woman that going to prison "won't be fun for you, Pippa … not pre-op."^[109] This would read as just a terrible joke about prison rape if it weren't for the weird implication that vaginoplasty would make the experience "fun" — exactly the kind of thing someone might have if their brain was already half-cooked by believing in autogynephilia.^{[note 8]}

In March 2018, Rowling liked a post declaring: "Men in dresses get brocialist solidarity I never had. That's misogyny!"^[110] Rowling's representative issued an apology claiming she had a "clumsy and middle-aged moment", accidentally liking the post by "holding her phone incorrectly."^[110] However, that September, she liked another post by Janice Turner promoting her Times op-ed on trans prisoners;^[111] it had tagline, "No fox has a right to live in a henhouse, even if he identifies as a hen."^[111] Trans author Owl Fisher sarcastically replied, "Did you have another 'middle-aged' moment and accidentally like a clearly transphobic article, @jk_rowling?"^[111] Rowling ignored Fisher but liked a subsequent post by Turner rebuking "the thought police [who] patrol a woman author's every 'like' for wrongthink."^[111]

In June 2019 — Pride month, no less — Rowling was revealed to be following nearly a dozen transphobic Twitter accounts.^[112][113] Twitter user @Persenche looked through the nearly 670 people Rowling was following at the time and concluded that 11 of them were anti-trans activists (including Julie Bindel and the notoriously vicious Magdalen Berns).^[113] Rowling's representative told PinkNews "J.K. Rowling won't be commenting", and she "follows a wide range of people she finds interesting or thought-provoking."^[112]

On December 19, 2019, Rowling officially came out as a TERF with a tweet supporting Maya Forstater, an anti-trans activist who had recently launched a wrongful dismissal suit against her former employer.^[114][115] Rowling characterised Forstater's case as a woman being forced out of her job simply for "stating that sex is real."^[114] The reality is, Forstater was working on a contract that her employer didn't renew when it expired.^[116][117] Forstater's co-workers also went to management because they found that her frequent espousal of anti-trans views (at one point she blasted out 150 transphobic tweets in a single week) was creating a hostile work environment.^[116][117]

Rowling's full-throated support of Forstater drew stronger backlash than any of her previous slip-ups. It's commonly thought of as the moment that she officially "came out" as a TERF. Nonetheless, some held out hope at the time that Rowling was simply misinformed, and sought to educate her rather than condemn her. GLAAD offered to "facilitate an off-the-record discussion" between Rowling and "members of the trans community", but she refused.^[118]

2020–2021: TERF manifesto and Twitter punditry[edit]

In May 2020, Rowling released a children's fairytale, The Ickabog, as a free online distraction from the COVID-19 pandemic.^[119] She also began liking more "hideously transphobic" posts around the same time.^{[120][121][122]} On May 29, she threatened legal action against Canadian trans politician Nicola Spurling, over a post suggesting the author's bigotry means she "can no longer be trusted around children."^[123] The same day, Rowling accidentally copied a vulgar quote from Feminist Current into a reply to 9-year-old fan, later apologizing for the "un-Ickaboggish message" but not for the transphobia.^{[124][125][126][127]} This was followed by Rowling mocking the phrase "people who menstruate" on June 6.^[128] The next day saw her endorse biological determinism in yet another Twitter tirade: "If sex isn't real, there's no same-sex attraction. If sex isn't real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isn't hate to speak the truth."^[129][130]

In response to the backlash over this, Rowling published a long TERF manifesto on her website on June 10, 2020.^[131] Stephen King liked a post by Rowling quoting Andrea Dworkin, prompting Rowling to thank him and praise his work.^{[5][132][133][note 9]} However, after King publicly stated "trans women are women", Rowling deleted her praise and blocked him.^{[5][132][133]} King later stated that Rowling had "canceled" and "kinda blocked" him for supporting trans women.^[134][99] On July 7, 2020, Harper's Magazine published an open letter signed by Rowling and 100 other public figures,^[135] decrying a "vogue for public shaming and ostracism" supposedly threatening the "free exchange of information and ideas."^[135] It was a response to New York Times editor James Bennet resigning after printing a controversial Tom Cotton op-ed calling for the military to suppress Black Lives Matter protests.^[136][137] Around this time, Rowling lambasted trans writer Jennifer Finney Boylan for withdrawing initial support for the Harper's letter,^{[138][note 10]} and threatened to sue UK teen-oriented news site The Day for reporting on the controversy surrounding her anti-trans remarks.^[139]

In August 2020, Kerry Kennedy called out Rowling's "deeply troubling transphobic tweets and statements," leading Rowling to return an award given by the RFK Center for her charity work in 2019.^{[140][141][142]} Now fully content with being an arsehole, Rowling shilled for a TERF store called Wild Womyn Workshop in September, posting a selfie of herself in a shirt proclaiming "this witch doesn't burn."^[143][144] The shop sells a variety of products featuring such lovely slogans as "sorry about your dick bro," "f*ck your pronouns," "transwomen are men," and "transmen are my sisters."^{[143][144][145]}

Her Lady of the Two Foreheads. AI-generated fanart of Rowling by a TERF, depicting her in the style of a religious icon.

In November 2021, Rowling claimed to have been "doxxed" after three protestors shared a photo of themselves holding signs with trans-rights slogans outside the gate of her Edinburgh mansion.^[146] However, this property was already known to the public as a listed building featured on tourist sites,^[147][148] and has been featured on Harry Potter-themed fan tours of Edinburgh without comment from Rowling.^[149] The mansion also ends up in the news whenever Rowling pisses off her neighbours. In 2012, she earned their ire by building two 40-foot-high, "Hogwarts-style" treehouses in her garden.^[150][151] She created "traffic chaos" by closing down the road multiple times between 2015 to 2024 to allow her 30-foot-tall hedges to be trimmed.^{[152][153][154][155]} The Edinburgh Council warned her that the overgrown hedges were blocking streetlights in 2019.^[156] Rowling also owns a country estate called Killiechassie, a centuries-old castle with its own Wikipedia article. She seems to expect total privacy and anonymity despite buying and living in famous landmarks.

2022–2023: Throwing a literal transphobia party[edit]

On March 12, 2022, Rowling tweeted^[157] "Big love to you xxx" to Caroline Farrow, a homophobic CitizenGo activist who once harassed a trans woman so intensely that a High Court judge granted an injunction against her, ordering her to stop the harassment.^[158] Farrow once expressed outrage over "deviant" gay penguins,^[159] and accused Disneyland of engaging in "LGBT indoctrination" of children.^[160] It's unknown whether Rowling was aware of this, but she never retracted her support or apologized after Farrow's views were widely reported. Farrow is also a "verified" Kiwi Farms user; police received a complaint of her activity on the site in 2022.^[161][162]

On March 18, the South Wales Police's LGBT+ Network set up a kiosk with information about their efforts to combat anti-LGBT crimes and attitudes. The kiosk was set up near Bute Park, where the bisexual Dr. Gary Jenkins was beaten, robbed, subjected to homophobic abuse, and murdered. Prosecutor Dafydd Enoch said that the crime was motivated by "greed, homophobia, and a straightforward liking for violence"; and that it was "torture, pure and simple". When anti-LGBT Twitter users began mocking the kiosk as "virtue signalling", the police responded with: "Good evening, supporting our communities is not virtual signalling and we make no apologies for doing so." On March 21, Rowling added to the pile-on with: "Virtual signalling. Like virtue signalling, but for people who aren't really arsed. #VirtualSignalling".^[163]

She opposed reform of gender recognition legislation in Scotland aiming to make the process "less traumatic and inhumane for trans people" (according to Scotland's First Minister), because it would remove some of the obstacles to legal gender changes.^[164] Speculating that politically correct zealots would rename International Women's Day, she wrote: "Apparently, under a Labour government, today will become We Who Must Not Be Named Day".^[164] In April 2022, she attended a lunch with other prominent TERFs at the River Cafe in Hammersmith, London. Other guests included Rosie Duffield, Helen Joyce, Julie Bindel, Kathleen Stock, Maya Forstater, and LGB Alliance co-founders.^[165] Joyce, author of Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality, has referred to trans people as "damaged", saying "every one of those people is someone who needs special accommodation in a sane world where we re-acknowledge the truth of sex"; she called for immediate action "reducing or keeping down the number of people who transition".^[166][167] Duffield repeatedly called trans women "male-bodied people",^[168] and said they should be banned from "refuges, women's prisons, single-sex wards and school toilets".^[169]

On April 22, Rowling marked Lesbian Visibility Week (LVW) by "saluting the resilience and courage" of her friend Allison Bailey.^[170] This lead LVW founder Linda Riley to say she never intended the observance to be a "vehicle to stir up more hate within our community."^[170] Rowling replied with a mocking post, featuring a photo of what she deemed a "white, bearded, Stonewall-approved lesbian."^[170] The photo was of Alex Drummond, a Welsh psychotherapist and author^[171] who released two LGBT-interest books in 2011-2012.^[172][173] She gave a series of interviews in 2015 explaining why she kept her beard.^{[174][175][176]} From all appearances, she's done little to earn anyone's umbrage, except exist as a bearded trans woman. Rowling lambasted so-called "beardsplainers" in an unrelated tweet,^[177] in response to which Michael Deacon penned a Telegraph piece bemoaning how "woke men are ruining beards".^[178]

In May 2022, Rowling began sharing material from Reduxx, a far-right anti-trans blog.^[179]

In July, singer Macy Gray walked back transphobic comments made in a Piers Morgan interview, leading conservative pundit Matt Walsh to tweet that women who "publicly renounce the definition of 'woman' for fear of mean comments from trans activists deserve all the scorn they get."^[180][181] Rowling replied, claiming TERFs have received serious threats, and telling him "If you don't yet understand what happens to women who stand up on this issue, back off."^[180][181] In the following exchange, Rowling criticised Walsh for "shouting 'coward' at individual women" like Gray, but praised his propaganda film What Is a Woman? for "exposing the incoherence of gender identity theory."^[180][181] In September, Rowling liked a shockingly insensitive tweet from radio presenter Julia Hartley-Brewer stating: "At least the Taliban know what a woman is," in response to someone explaining he had been compared to the Taliban for "supporting trans people's existence in society."^[182][183]

On July 11, 2022, Canadian author Will Johnson (@LiteraryGoon) tweeted a picture of his children at Rowling, stating that he planned to teach his "minions" to "stick to their principles even when it's unpopular."^[184][185] Rowling replied telling Johnson that he had "beautiful minions!"^[184][185] Johnson published a tweet in 2021 threatening to murder trans-rights supporters in graphic detail.^[184][185]

In October, TV host Graham Norton gave an interview at a literary festival, and was asked about cancel culture.^{[186][187][188]} He said cancel culture would be more accurately called "accountability."^{[186][187][188]} When asked specifically if this applied to the backlash against Rowling's transphobia, he gave a measured comment that the media should "talk to trans people, talk to the parents of trans kids, talk to doctors, talk to psychiatrists" rather than amplifying celebrity opinions.^[187][188] Musician Billy Bragg approved of Norton's interview.^[186] Rowling quoted-tweeted Bragg with a rant excoriating an alleged "spate of bearded men stepping confidently onto their soapboxes to define what a woman is and throw their support behind rape and death threats to those who dare disagree."^[186][188] Norton deleted his Twitter account a few days later after a barrage of hate from anti-trans activists.^{[186][187][188]} By now, people noticed Rowling's bizarre fixation on beards, leading her to tweet that she "like[s] beards" except "when they're attached to misogynists."^[189] In Rowling's view, a reasonable plea to listen to trans people and experts represented misogyny.

In October 2022, it was revealed that Jacob Breslow, a trustee for UK trans kids charity Mermaids, gave a presentation at a conference for "paedophile support group" B4U-ACT in 2011.^[190][191] Breslow promptly resigned and Mermaids issued an apology.^[191][190] Rowling blasted Mermaids for "appoint[ing] a paedophilia apologist" and committing a "catastrophic safeguarding failure."^[192][193] Despite these protestations, Rowling followed James Cantor on Twitter back in 2020.^[194] Cantor is an American sexologist with an extensive history of pedophilia-related research and advocacy.^[195] Cantor's belief is "preventative treatment for pedophila" will help "people manage their sexual interests" before they offend.^[196] This is a legitimate, though controversial, area of clinical research.^[196] However, Cantor has gone much further than most sexologists might, saying "ethical principles require us to add P [pedophilia] to GLBT."^{[194][197][198]} He volunteered for the advisory council of Prostasia, a group that "has campaigned against bans on sex dolls resembling children and has hosted support groups for 'minor attracted people' open to adults alongside people as young as 13."^[199] The SPLC identified him as one of an "old guard" of anti-trans shrinks from the CAMH in Toronto.^[200] Since 2018, he has moonlighted as a paid "expert" in pushes to ban gender-affirming care in several U.S. states,^{[201][202][203]} despite stating under oath that he has no clinical experience with trans youth.^[204] Unlike Mermaids with Breslow, Rowling has never issued any statement about why she followed Cantor.

On November 21, 2022, the day after five people were murdered in a mass shooting at a gay bar in Colorado, Rowling liked a tweet by Libs of TikTok, which mocked another Twitter user for criticizing Kanye West amidst his antisemitism and white supremacy controversy.^{[205][206][207]} Libs of TikTok's well-known, relentless anti-LGBT fearmongering was credited with setting off violent threats against children's hospitals and drag events.^[208][209] On May 29, 2023, she expressed support^[80] for Kellie-Jay "Posie Parker" Keen-Minshull and implied she would finance her legal bills. Parker gained notoriety for organizing an anti-transgender event that attracted support from neo-Nazis.^[210][211] She also openly wished death on innocent trans people,^[212] called for sterilization of trans men,^[213] and admitted to lying about being a lesbian^[214] to dishonestly bolster her political argument against a gay man. Rowling has also taken it upon herself to speak for lesbians and gay people in general despite not being a lesbian.

On June 16, Rowling liked a post from Three Percenters movement leader Erik Rohde proclaiming, "we stand with you and III% is ^[sic] proudly members of House Gryffindor".^[215][216] Rodhe's post was in reply to an earlier one by himself declaring "Fu<k ANTIFA" in reference to a counter-rally planned for June 17 against an anti-trans protest in Washington State.^{[215][216][217]} The Three Percenters are a far-right militia recognised as an extremist group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.^[218] The movement was officially deemed a terrorist group by the Canadian government in 2021.^[219] Symptomatic of her radicalization, Rowling supported a supposed "Black Women's Caucus Statement Against Gender Ideology" from Women's Declaration International – an anti-trans hate group whose leaders are all white.^[220]

On October 15, 2023, Rowling was a surprise guest on a panel at a FiLiA conference in Glasgow, stating she could "take the hit" as someone who will "always be able to feed [her] family."^{[221][222][223]} The appearance is believed to be Rowling's first time speaking publicly on trans issues and was reportedly not publicised beforehand.^[222][223] Two days later, she tweeted a photo (which was at that point more than five years old^[224]) of the text "Repeat after us: trans women are women" projected on a government building, commenting "No."^[225] This prompted a series of batshit tweets in which she fantasised about being sent to prison for misgendering trans people, declaring that she'd "happily do two years" over "compelled speech and forced denial of the reality and importance of sex."^{[225][226][227]} To no one's surprise, there was no arrest.

On November 3, The Australian ran a story about how the state of South Australia had implemented a policy of using preferred pronouns in court.^[228] Rowling fired off a tweet declaring it "state-sanctioned abuse" to ask a woman to refer to "her male rapist or violent assaulter as 'she' in court."^{[229][note 11]} A Twitter user pointed out the fallacy of "treating trans women like predators" when they are "statistically far more likely to be [sexual assault] victims."^[229] A 2015 U.S. study found that nearly half of surveyed trans people reported having experienced sexual violence.^[230] Surveys in Canada and Australia have also found trans people to be at increased risk compared to cis people.^[231][232] Despite this evidence, Rowling smeared the Twitter user as a "rapists' rights activist," accusing them, unironically, of ignoring facts that "contradict [their] fallacious argument."^[229] Courts SA released a statement calling Rowling's claims "completely unfounded."^[233]

2024: Going full Graham Linehan[edit]

On February 2, 2024, Rowling broke a period of Twitter inactivity to join the anti-LGBT book-banning crusade, decrying the Glasgow Women's Library for displaying an indie comic about trans lesbians.^[234][235] Initially, she characterised the zine as a "delightful penis-centred work" intended to "shame and coerce lesbians out of same-sex orientation,"^[234] but shortly after said it "centres the desires of straight men."^[235] On Valentine's Day, Rowling tarred Jonathan Liew, lead Guardian sports writer, as a "'progressive' misogynist" for a piece defending Parkrun, a non-competitive fun run, against gender-critical fury over its lack of sex segregation.^[236] It was also noted around this time that Rowling had liked a series of November 2023 tweets mocking and misgendering metal guitarist Katy Montgomerie for discussing her experiences with domestic violence.^[237]

On February 16, 2024, Rowling donated £70,000 to a crowdfund by For Women Scotland, an anti-trans group founded by Magdalen Berns.^[238][83] FWS plan to launch a Supreme Court challenge to legally enshrine a definition of "'sex' … referring to biology."^[238][83] The case will ostensibly be an appeal of a 2022 Scottish ruling concerning a law requiring that public boards in Scotland be made up of 50% women.^{[238][83][239]} This decision, much to the consternation of UK transphobes, held that trans women legally count as women.^{[238][83][239]} TERFs have made no secret of the fact they're following the anti-abortion playbook of mounting successive regional legal challenges in the hope of eventually winning a landmark national ruling like Dobbs. Daniel Sanderson of The Telegraph crowed that FWS are seeking an "'historic' Supreme Court ruling stating that men cannot become women."^[239] Commentators noted the challenge could lead to a rollback of existing legal recognition and protections for trans people in the UK if successful.^[240][241]

As TERFs squabbled over pronouns, and UK prime minister Rishi Sunak faced widespread backlash for his transphobia, Rowling zeroed in on trans women in the prison system. This began with a February 20 broadside accusing trans-rights supporters of using incarcerated cis women as "validation tools or emotional support props for trans-identified male sex offenders."^[242] In this four-pagagraph tweet, Rowling claimed that "activists" are "knowingly forcing [cis women prisoners] to live in fear of, and, in some proven cases, to suffer abuse."^[242] Rowling held that housing cis women with trans women constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment" due to potential sexual violence. Meanwhile, research consistently finds that trans women are at greater risk in prison.^[243] A 2007 study found 59% of trans inmates in California were victims of sexual assault while incarcerated in contrast to 4.4% of the general prison population.^[244] In 2016, an Australian trans woman revealed that, while serving time for auto theft in a men's prison, she was raped over 2000 times.^[245]

Rowling quickly betrayed that her outrage was born more of a desire to cherry pick crime statistics to prove that AMAB people are inherently violent while AFAB people are not. On February 26, Sky News published a story about the conviction of Scarlet Blake, a trans woman, for murdering a man years earlier.^[246] In response, Rowling said: "I'm so sick of this shit. This is not a woman. These are #NotOurCrimes."^[247] She re-tweeted an open letter from Louise Tickle condemning the Guardian for not initially reporting Blake's trans status.^[248] Tickle insisted this editorial choice "falsif[ied] the public record" and caused the "wrong perception that women are suddenly more aggressive."^[248]

On March 3, Rowling argued bans on "men" in "women's spaces" allow alleged interlopers to be "challenged" for "breaking a rule decent men respect."^[249] Twitter @OwenJonesStan replied with a .gif of trans newsreader India Willoughby, asking, "So you are saying this lady should use the men's locker room then?!"^{[250][95][251]} Rowling responded the next day with a blatantly transphobic attack on Willoughby, calling her a "man revelling in his misogynistic performance of what he thinks 'woman' means: narcissistic, shallow and exhibitionist."^{[95][251][252]} She then accused Willoughby of "cosplaying a misogynistic male fantasy of what a woman is."^{[95][251][253]} These comments were probably the first time Rowling unambiguously misgendered a trans public figure. Byline TV (a branch of Byline Times) released an exclusive interview with Willoughby on March 6.^{[254][255][256]} The interviewer, Caolan Robertson, formerly worked for white nationalist Tommy Robinson, but has since disavowed his association with the extreme right.^[257] In the interview, Willoughby stated she received "putrid" abuse on social media in the wake Rowling's outburst, revealing that she reported the author to the police.^{[254][255][256]} Byline TV's Twitter account suggested this report "could lead to Rowling's arrest."^[254] Transphobes launched a fresh wave of attacks. Robertson clarified that he'd extended an interview invitation to Rowling.^[258][259] Rowling responded by accusing Robertson of "call[ing] India 'him' twice" in the video.^{[260][note 12]} This lead to a tit-for-tat culminating in Robertson calling Rowling a "cunt."^[259] Robertson offered a grovelling apology to Rowling for his "unforgivable and inexcusable" language on March 8.^[259] Rowling accepted this "spontaneously made" apology and asked "any supporters of mine giving Caolan grief to please stop now."^[259] (She predictably hasn't told her flying monkeys to lay off Willoughby and every other trans person she's targeted.) Northumbria Police stated they would not be pursuing Willoughby's complaint since it "did not meet the criminal threshold."^[261] According to Willoughby, UK hate crime law only covers speech targeting people on the basis of race or religion, but Rowling's tweets were recorded as a "non-crime hate incident."^[262]

On 13 March 2024, Rowling denied that the Nazis persecuted trans people, saying the idea is "a fever dream".^{[8][263][264]} She cited Malcolm Clark, an LGB Alliance co-founder who isn't a historian.^{[265][266][267]} Clark's thread said transgender people weren't a "key target" of the Nazis',^[268] then conflated trans surgery with Nazi eugenics^[269] and concentration camp experiments.^[270] Contrary to Clark's claims, however, the Nazis did specifically persecute transgender people.^{[9][271][272][273][274][275][note 13]} According to the Museum of Jewish Heritage, the Nazis "brutally targeted the trans community, deporting many trans people to concentration camps and wiping out vibrant community structures."^[276] Laurie Marhoefer, a historian specializing in this, said: "The author of a 1938 book on 'the problem of transvestitism'^{[note 14]} wrote that before Hitler was in power, there was not much that could be done about transgender people, but that now, in Nazi Germany, they could be put in concentration camps or subjected to forced castration. That was good, he believed, because the 'asocial mindset' of trans people and their supposedly frequent 'criminal activity … justifies draconian measures by the state.'"^[275] After a Jewish person, Rivkah Brown, called "a Holocaust denier" in response, Rowling threatened Brown with legal action, saying "I'd be delighted to meet you in court, Rivkah, to discuss holocaust denial."^[278] This forced Brown to issue an apology on April 15.^[279] Rowling has previously threatened legal action over commentary on her transphobia, including against Canadian politician Nicola Spurling (2020),^[123] UK youth news site The Day (2020),^[139] and Irish actor JJ Welles (2023).^[280] UK libel law enables SLAPP lawsuits to a much greater extent than other countries.^{[281][282][283][284]} News of the legal threat against Brown lead "JK Rowling is a Holocaust [Denier]" to trend on Twitter.^{[279][285][286]}

On 1 April, Rowling listed several trans public figures (including Willoughby) alongside violent sexual offenders, in what MSNBC reporter Clarissa-Jan Lim deemed "an apparent attempt to draw a connection between trans people and sexual perversion".^[287][288] Rowling sarcastically called the listed individuals women throughout the thread, but then declared they "aren't women at all, but men, every last one of them" in an April Fool's gotcha the very end.^[289] Rowling intentionally posted this the day a new hate crime law came into effect in Scotland.^[290] Critics of this law fear it might chill free speech and criminalise the expression of TERFish views.^[291] In true edgelord fashion, Rowling, who was holidaying "out of the country" at the time, said "I look forward to being arrested when I return to the birthplace of the Scottish Enlightenment."^[292] The police clarified her comments were not criminal and no action would be taken.^[293]

On May 1, the transphobic troll account "Dr. Dame Katy Elise" posted a beach photo of Sam Smith, calling them a "time line^[sic] cleanser" and a "hunk of a man."^[294] Rowling replied mockingly scolding "Dame Katy" for misgendering the non-binary singer.^[295] She then bantered with "Dame Katy" about the latter's pretend charity "Chairs 4 Trans." This was a running joke between Rowling and "Dame Katy" since October 2022.^[296] The "Dame Katy" account has posted some truly horrific things, such as a January 2024 tweet imagining openly gay, pro-Palestine journalist Owen Jones as the star of a fake porn film titled "Oreo Delights: Twink Boy vs Chocolate Soldiers 2 - Allah's Revenge."^[297]

On May 4 2024, Elon Musk told Rowling: "While I heartily agree with your points regarding sex/gender, may I suggest also posting interesting and positive content on other matters?"^[97][98] (Musk reportedly became interested in buying Twitter after right-wing Onion knock-off The Babylon Bee was suspended for transphobia in 2022.^[298])

Not keen to take Musk's advice, on 11 May, in response to a tweet praising Lucy Clark for becoming the first transgender manager in the top five divisions of English women's football, Rowling posted: "When I was young all the football managers were straight, white, middle-aged blokes, so it's fantastic to see how much things have changed."^[299] On 12 May, Rowling doubled-down several times. When The Daily Mail reported Rowling had compared Clark to a "straight, white, middle-aged bloke", Rowling responded by tweeting: "I didn’t compare him to one. He IS one."^[300] In response to criticism that she had been publicly bullying Clark and "punching down", she said: "You're right. No demographic is more vulnerable and oppressed than large, tattooed crossdressers who get plum jobs in women's sport. I don't know how I can have been so cruel."^[301] and "Calling a man a man is not 'bullying' or 'punching down.' Crossdressing straight men are currently one of the most pandered-to demographics in existence, and women are under no obligation to applaud the people caricaturing us."^[302] She continued to compare being transgender to being "transracial", saying "Does this apply to any other demographic, Landon? Do I get to be black if I like Motown and fancy myself in cornrows? What if I claim the authentic me has always been black and that you're being racist to me? Would that be OK, or would you find it ludicrous and deeply offensive?"^[303] Clark said she had a "day of hate-fuelled transphobia" after Rowling's comments.^{[96][304][305]} On 13 May, Rowling dug out a video of Clark being interviewed on transphobia from 2019, and commented: "Publicity-hungry men who declare themselves lesbians, go on TV to tell female athletes they 'need to be careful' about what they say, advocate for males' inclusion in women's sport and send women abuse for standing up for their rights aren't 'quietly getting on with their life.'"^[306] Rowling continued to describe Clark's advice (again, from several years prior) to not tweet transphobic statements if you don't want to be called a transphobe: "Big Tommy DeVito vibes. 'Be a shame if anything happened to those nice Twitter accounts of yours, ladies. Just be careful, is all I'm saying. Count this as a friendly bit of advice.'"^[307]

On 17 May, Rowling tried to downplay her hate by claiming, "I've never met anyone who doesn't think trans people deserve the same rights and protections as everyone else. Militant trans activism doesn't want trans people to have the same rights, though. It wants women's and girls' rights and protections dismantled for the benefit of men."^[81] However, recall that she previously expressed support for Kellie-Jay "Posie Parker" Keen-Minshull,^[80] and implied she would finance Keen's legal bills. Keen has explicitly called for employers, funeral homes, and landlords to discriminate against transgender people,^[82][308] a violation of equal rights and opportunities.

For the 2024 United Kingdom general election, Rowling wrote a Times opinion piece saying she'd "struggle" to vote for the Labour Party, and party leader Keir Starmer was "dismissive and often offensive" to anti-trans feminists.^[89] The next day, she found out the Communist Party of Britain, a Stalinist party, made a statement "recognising the nature of biological sex". She suggested people who "were going to spoil [their] ballot" vote for the party.^[90][91] To rhetorically indict Labour, she referred to legally transitioned trans women as "men with gender recognition certificates" (GRCs) and highlighted that some Labour MP candidates disagreed with her on the topic of whether trans women with a GRC "can access women-only spaces".^[84] Then she called Doctor Who actor David Tennant the "Gender Taliban",^[309][310] and announced that her real life friend was uncomfortable when she insisted on discussing transgender penises as well as sexual kinks/cross-dressing fetishism.^[100]

Tarnishing legacy as a beloved author[edit]

Anti-trans personality cult[edit]

Guests at a #JKRLadiesLunch wearing cut-out masks of J. K.'s face.

A bizarre personality cult emerged in TERFdom since Rowling joined its ranks. The phrase "I Love J. K. Rowling" became one of the most recognisable transphobic dog whistles.^[311][312] Anti-trans activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull has infamously plastered the slogan on billboards and merchandise.^[311] Rowling has claimed that 90% of her fans agree with her transphobia but are "afraid to speak up" due to "fear for their jobs and even for their personal safety."^[313]

One prominent example of this personality cult is the mythical status Rowling's IStandWithMaya tweet attained in so-called gender-critical circles. Disgraced screenwriter-turned-professional-transphobe Graham Linehan proclaimed the tweet's anniversary of December 19 to be "Gender Critical Coming Out Day" in 2021.^{[314][315][316]} By 2022, the hateful holiday had come to be known as "TERFmas," and Rowling personally wished a follower "Merry Terfmas."^[317][318] In 2020, transphobes began circulating a conspiracy theory that Twitter was stealing likes from the hallowed tweet, supposedly as part of a sinister trans-activist plot to artificially lower the like count.^[319] The conspiracy theory originated in Twitter failing to display a red heart on older tweets as a result of a glitch or deliberate process.^[319][320] Allison Bailey warned Jack Dorsey in November 2020 that he would inevitably need to "defend twitter against accusations of rampant manipulation of data" due to the supposed missing likes.^[319] Rosie Duffield declared in March 2021 that she was "putting [her] 'like' on record as it won't stick despite originally liking ages ago - sinister much…?"^[319][321] At one point there was even a Twitter account (@RelikeReminder) that posted daily reminders to relike Rowling's tweet.^[320]

TERFs in the UK began holding so-called #JKRLadiesLunchs in 2022. These events were inspired by Rowling inviting nearly every prominent TERF in the UK to a "boozy" lunch at a posh London restaurant that April.^[322][323] The luncheon took place as thousands marched on Downing Street against a plan to exclude trans people from a proposed ban on conversion therapy.^[322][323] TERFs predictably decided that critics were merely upset over women gathering and having fun rather than at a rich transphobe throwing a party celebrating transphobia while trans people were literally fighting for their rights. On April 16, 2022, a Welsh TERF group shared a photo of their lunch date, commenting, "Only fair we had drinks & lunch! Oops do women need permission for that @jk_rowling?"^[324] Rowling replied, "It's ok, I'll get your permit postdated for you. I've got a contact in the Women's Lunch Permissions Office."^[324]

This isn't the only time that Rowling has directly encouraged the obsessive fawning of transphobic fans. In April 2022, an anonymous Scottish TERF claimed she had quit a book club after its members "roundly attacked and smeared" Rowling, tweeting that she'd founded her own club called JKR's Barmy Book Army.^[325][326] Rowling caught wind of this and vowed to personally attend a meeting of the club.^[325][326] She made good on her promise in June.^[327]

Reaction of Harry Potter cast[edit]

Many actors who appeared in the original Harry Potter films have spoken out in support of trans rights since Rowling's transphobic awakening.^[328][329] This has included the series' three main stars: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint.^{[330][331][332]} Eddie Redmayne and Katherine Waterston, stars of the spin-off franchise Fantastic Beasts, have denounced Rowling's remarks.^[333][334] Potter alumni who have defended Rowling include nearly every major villain and tedious anti-"woke" crank John Cleese.^{[335][336][337][338]}

Daniel Radcliffe is an adult now. He doesn't have to obey Momma Rowling.

Transphobes have taken aim at cast members for criticising Rowling and affirming their support of trans people. Helen Joyce tweeted in 2020 that it "must hurt being insulted and betrayed by two young people [Radcliffe and Watson] whose careers she made."^[339] In late 2021, Piers Morgan lambasted the stars as "ungrateful little twerps" more interested in "pathetic virtue-signalling" than defending the right of the "woman who made them all rich and famous" to her views.^[340] Judith Woods branded Radcliffe "the world's most ungrateful man" in the Telegraph after he reaffirmed his support of LGBT rights in a November 2022 interview.^[341][342] Woods accused Radcliffe of being a "33-year-old man child" (but also a "petulant pup") seeking to "once again … cancel his creator."^[341][342] Graham Linehan labelled Radcliffe an "ungrateful, traitorous, talentless misogynist" in an April 2023 tweet.^[343] In early 2023, transvestigators spun the conspiracy theory that Radcliffe's slightly-taller cis girlfriend Erin Darke must be trans, despite the couple having just announced they were expecting their first child.^[344][345] Watson set off a wave of abusive online comments by making a mildly trans-supportive quip at the BAFTAs in early 2022.^[346] Trolls variously accused her of being an "ungrateful woke brat" and of "biting the hand that feeds [her]."^[346] In April 2024, after the release of a heavily cherry-picked anti-trans government report in the UK, a self-described "FarRightHooligan" on Twitter suggested that "Dan and Emma" would soon issue a "very public apology" to Rowling.^{[347][348][349]} Rowling replied stating the actors could "save their apologies."^{[347][348][349]} Radcliffe broke his silence in an Atlantic interview later that month, stating that he has "had no direct contact" with Rowling in years and finds her anti-trans activism "really sad," as it contradicts the "deeply empathic" side he saw in their past interactions and in her writing.^[350]

The framing of the actors' denunciation of Rowling's transphobia as "betrayal" and "ungratefulness" has drawn sharp criticism. Cartoonist Barry Deutsch wondered how playing Rowling's characters could possibly mean "ow[ing] her undying fealty to the extent of never disagreeing with her in public."^[351] LibDem councillor Matt Severn similarly observed that a "contract signed by an 11 year old" does not impose a "legal duty of lifelong fealty and/or silence."^[352] Twitter user @HimeOnion opined that transphobes were "literally pulling the 'I made you!' bullcrap abusive parents do."^[353]

It's been speculated that Katherine Waterston had her role reduced from the female lead of the first two Fantastic Beasts films to a glorified cameo in the third in retaliation for calling out Rowling's transphobia.^[354][355] Antonia Kinlay won a discrimination suit in 2021 after being dropped from the television adaptation of Rowling's Strike series due to her pregnancy.^[356] One wonders if Rowling actually opposes forcing women out of their jobs or simply wants her TERF friends to be able to say whatever they please without consequence.

Forgetting that fans used to like her[edit]

In the third episode of The Witch Trials of JK Rowling, a "fair and balanced" podcast produced in early 2023 by ex-Westboro Baptist Church member Megan Phelps-Roper for The Free Press, Rowling recounted an incident circa 2000 (she stated she was still writing Goblet of Fire at the time) when she visited a fan-run chatroom using a "random name."^[357][358] As retold by Rowling in the podcast, she expressed a "very bland" Potter-related opinion in the chat and was "clearly an idiot who [didn't] know anything," but nonetheless "got rounded on by users who told me in no uncertain terms to get out."^[357][358]

Rowling claimed this was an example of cyberbullying and "authoritarian behaviour":

And I was thinking, I’ve written three and a half books where bullying is such a theme from the very first page, where bullying – and authoritarian behaviour – is held to be one of the worst of human ills, and look what just happened, from these people who call themselves such fans of this franchise.

This account of her first bumbling encounter with the online fandom of her books differs starkly from ones given in the past. In March 2004, she posted an update to her official site announcing that "a few weeks ago I did something I've never done before and took a stroll into a Harry Potter chat room: specifically, MuggleNet's chat room."^[359] She jokingly lamented that "nobody was remotely interested in my theories about what's going to happen in book seven," and that, after failing to "impart any gems of wisdom," she moved on to a discussion of SpongeBob SquarePants.^[359] This spawned a rumour that she had used the handle Squidward in the MuggleNet chatroom, causing fans on the site to adopt this username in jest for some time afterward.^[360]

Rowling similarly spoke of this incident as a funny story in a 2005 interview with Melissa Anelli and Emerson Spartz of the fansite The Leaky Cauldron:^[361]

ES: How much time do you go on the fan sites?

JKR: It really varies. When my site is quiet, it is genuinely because I'm working really hard or I'm busy with the kids or something. When I update a few times in a row, I've obviously been on the net. So the FAQs and that kind of stuff is just compiled by hard copy post that I get here and fan sites. I go looking to see what people want answered. It's fantastic, it's sometimes frustrating, but I do want to make clear, I do not post in comments, because I know that's been cropping up. You've both been really responsible about that, but that slightly worries me. I did go in the MuggleNet chatroom, it was hysterical. That was the first time I ever Googled Harry Potter. I was just falling into these things and Leaky — actually Leaky I already knew about, but I discovered MuggleNet that first-ever afternoon and I went in the chatroom, and it was so funny. I was treated with outright contempt. [Laughter.] It was funny, I can't tell you.

ES: I’d like to apologize for, uh -

JKR: No, no no no, not in a horrible way, but, "Yeah, yeah, shut up, you're not a regular, you don't know a thing." You can imagine!

Promoting pseudoscience and ableism[edit]

Cross-sex blood transfusions[edit]

On March 27, 2023, Rowling tweeted the false claim that it was "recently discovered" that "transfusions of blood from the opposite sex had poorer outcomes, including fatalities."^{[362][363][364]} Scientists pointed out that the single study cited by Rowling (Alshalani et al. 2022) had a small sample size and only found increased mortality in transfusions from AFAB patients to AMAB patients.^[362] It has also been noted that the study's conclusions fail to account for the confounding factor of male-assigned people generally having poorer ICU outcomes than female-assigned ones.^[362][365] The two largest studies have both found no link between donor sex and recipient survival.^{[365][366][367]} However, another large study showed a small increase of mortality in transfusions to AMAB patients from AFAB donors with a history of pregnancy, but none in transfusions to AMAB patients from never-pregnant AFAB donors.^[368] It has been posited that this may be due to antibodies created through adverse autoimmune responses sometimes triggered by pregnancy.^[363] The NHS disallows whole-blood transfusions from those who have been pregnant to newborn babies.^[363]

In short: most evidence suggests that AFAB blood recipients aren't put at greater risk by receiving blood from AMAB donors, but mother-of-three Rowling's blood could kill a trans woman recipient according to one study. As a resident of the "mad cow"-stricken UK between 1980 and 1996, she would be deferred as a blood donor in Canada and several European countries,^[369][370] and would've been deferred in Australia, Israel, and the United States until recently.^{[371][372][373]} This isn't to say that British mums-of-three shouldn't donate blood (it saves lives!). It's just that cognitive biases tend to heighten the perception of risk related to Others while diminishing the perception of risk concerning oneself.

Rowling's fearmongering over cross-sex transfusions is reminiscent of past moral panics. In 1960, the white supremacist publication The American Nationalist raged over the "thousands of critically ill [white] patients" supposedly "made sicker, or even killed" by "tainted Negro blood transfusions," an "evil practice" it said was tolerated in the "sweet name of racial 'equality' and 'democracy'."^[374] At the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis and ensuing tainted blood scandal in the 1980s, newspapers in the UK regularly carried lurid stories about the "Gay Plague", "Gay Menace", and "Gay Killer Bug".^[375] Rowling's alarmist claims about "trans blood" are unsurprising in light of her widely-criticised use of lycanthropy as a AIDS metaphor in the Potter series.

Link between autism and gender variance[edit]

In her 2020 TERF manifesto, Rowing claimed that there has been a "huge explosion in young women wishing to transition", and that "autistic girls are hugely overrepresented in their numbers."^[376][131] Research has shown an increase in transmasculine people seeking gender-affirming care since the early 2000s.^{[377][378][379]} Studies have also found that trans and gender-variant people are more likely to be autistic.^{[380][381][note 15]} The problem is that Rowling has taken evidence-supported claims and twisted them to fit the preconceived conclusion that vulnerable "girls" are being hoodwinked into thinking they're boys by social pressure or Big Gender.^[385] Evan Urquhart of Salon has linked the upward trend in transmasculine transitions to increased public awareness, as the few media reports of "successfully transitioned trans people" in past decades were "almost universally trans women, not trans men."^[386] He has also pointed to the early history of gender-related therapy primarily seeking to "cure homosexuality and effeminacy in boys" due to to the greater social stigma attached to gender non-conformity in male-assigned children.^[386] Meanwhile, various explanations have been proposed for the increased prevalence of gender variance in autistics, including prenatal hormone exposure, fixation on special interests, and rejection of social norms.^[387][388] Bryony White of The Atlantic has cautioned against conflating correlation with causation by presuming that the "need to transition is a result of [autistic trans youth's] autism."^[388]

Autistic self-advocates have highlighted how objections to autistic youth transitioning are rooted in ableist attitudes and ideas.^{[389][390][385]} A writer for disability-rights blog Cripple Media cited it as an example of autistics being "talked over, gaslit, and denied [their] right to self-determine," a product of the belief that they are "children who need to be looked after at all times, not adults and adolescences^[sic] who get to make choices about [their] own lives."^[385] Rowling implicitly endorsed such thinking by approvingly tweeting an anonymous TERF's fear that defining gender by "an internal sense of identity" would make it impossible to ascertain in people with "certain mental handicaps or learning disabilities" or those "unable to develop language skills or … communicate at all".^[391] She did it more explicitly with a April 2022 praising David Bell for his "deep concern at high numbers of autistic children … presenting at gender clinics."^[392] The supposed impressionability of autistic people figures in the plot of two Cormoran Strike books.^{[393][394][395]} In The Ink Black Heart, a "profoundly autistic" teen girl is lured into joining a terrorist group after being "convinced she'd found real friends online," while in The Running Grave a man tries to free his adult autistic son from a Scientology-like cult that serves as a thinly-veiled anti-trans metaphor.^{[393][394][395]} Ableism and transphobia don't just contribute to social stigma, but can adversely impact health, freedom, and equality. Autistic trans people have reported having their access to gender-affirming care blocked or delayed by clinicians.^[388] Several U.S. states restricted or banned gender-affirming care for people with autism, ADHD, and other psychological conditions in 2023.^[396] A man in the UK sued the NHS to try to prevent his 21-year-old autistic daughter from undergoing gender-confirmation surgery in June 2023.^[397]

On June 22, 2023, Rowling shared a tweet by far-right activist Christopher F. Rufo making the pseudoscientific claim that puberty blockers "shut down a child's hypothalamus."^[398] The tweet linked to Rufo's interview of an anonymous doctor in the Manhattan Institute quarterly City Journal, who claimed that this imaginary side effect means "shut[ting] down what makes us human" since the hypothalamus contains a "divine spark," and is the "system" that allows people to "stand in awe of the beauty of a sunset" and be moved by music.^[399] Rowling uncritically tweeted this metaphysical horseshit despite railing against gender identity as an "unfalsifiable concept" involving "unprovable essences" on June 21.^[400] The nonsense Rowling picked up from Rufo may have emerged from a conflation of the amygdala theory of autism with more recent research linking autism to structural variations in the hypothalamus.^[401][402] The amygdala theory posits that there is "an abnormality in [the] autistic amygdala" that is correlated with a "diminished ability for social interaction, [and] intersubjective capacity and empathy."^[402] This theory is tied to the Baron-Cohenian model (no, not Borat, but his uncle Simon) of autism as an innate inability to recognize that other people have their own thoughts and feelings (a concept known as "theory of mind").^[402] As such, it is regarded by many autistic people as outdated, or rejected in favor of alternate models.^[402] In short, Rowling has signed up for vaccine hysteria round two, except this time puberty blockers are the jab supposedly making kids autistic.

Stigmatisation of disability and mental health[edit]

In July 2020, Rowling liked a tweet by the transmedicalist @Manaxium characterising hormone replacement therapy as "the new antidepressants", something @Manaxium saw as emblematic of the "pure laziness" of people who "would rather medicate than put in the time and effort to heal people's mind.^[sic]"^{[403][404][405]} This prompted another Twitter user to wonder if anyone had foreseen Rowling one day "pivoting to supporting those who call people who take mental health medication 'lazy'."^{[403][404][405]} Rowling quoted-tweeted this user with an 11-part response accusing them of "[lying] about what I believe about mental health medication" and "misrepresent[ing] the views of a trans woman for whom I feel nothing but admiration and solidarity."^{[404][405][406]} Rowling underscored her own "mental health challenges, which include OCD, depression and anxiety," stating that she had "taken anti-depressants in the past" and found them helpful.^[406] She claimed that, like the "many health professionals" she couldn't name, she was merely concerned that struggling youngsters were "being shunted towards hormones and surgery" by Big Trans.^{[404][405][406]}

On March 6, 2022, genderqueer trans-inclusive feminist writer Laurie Penny posted a Twitter thread revealing they had suffered a breakdown after "twelve years of relentless trolling."^[407] In this thread, Penny mentioned that they had been diagnosed with CPTSD and highlighted nasty reviews of their recent book by The Times, The Observer, and The Critic.^[407] The following day, Julie Bindel, author of the Critic piece, put out a tweet claiming that Penny was alleging the reviews "caused her complex PTSD."^[407] Shortly thereafter, Bindel mockingly tweeted that she had "diagnosed [herself] with Complex PTSD" after a man "opened a packet of Cheesy Wotsits" on the train, prompting a reply of "thoughts and prayers, Julie" from Rowling.^{[407][408][409]} In response, Penny reminded Bindel that she knew "full well that these reviews didn't *cause* the CPTSD [they] experience," as they had personally disclosed the sources of their trauma to Bindel "back when [the pair] were trying to build bridges."^[407] Penny's reply to Rowling was gentler, pointing out that it was their "mental health history" Bindel was mocking in the tweet "along with everyone else who has experienced CPTSD," and hoping that the author didn't think it was acceptable to "shame" people in this manner.^[407]

Rowling came under fire for her portrayal of chronic illness and the disabled community in her 2022 Cormoran Strike novel The Ink Black Heart.^{[105][410][411][393][106]} The book features a description of the Tumblr bio of "disabled artist" character Kea Niven: "CF – fibromyalgia - POTs – allodynia – I need more spoons."^[105] A Spiral Dance, a disability-focused blog, held that Rowling "couldn't even get the details of chronic illnesses correct," citing her incorrect rendering of "POTS" and use of the non-standard acronym "CF" to mean chronic fatigue syndrome.^[105] Author Gretchen Felker-Martin wrote that Rowling is "deeply mean-spirited when it comes to anyone non-normative, especially the fat and the disabled," finding The Ink Black Heart to be "particularly savage" in its "bottomless contempt for 'spoonies' and other disabled communities."^[410] She contrasted the sympathetic portrayal of "brusque, manly Strike, whose disability is the result of a war wound" with the portrayal of chronically-ill characters as "malingerers, abusers, and emotional manipulators."^[410] Kristina Lucien of the blog The Once and Future Cripple echoed this view, commenting that it is "made clear to the readers that [Kea] is the wrong kind of disabled" as "she claims her identity openly," in comparison to amputee Strike trying to minimise his disability by declining to use a cane despite his pain.^[411] Psychologist Alicia Hendley declared the book to be "threaded throughout" with "dismissal and lazy stereotyping" of people with invisible illnesses.^[393] In Hendley's view, Rowling distinguishes "people who have valid, visible, 'real' illness/disabilities" and want to to "'get on with it', to live their lives 'despite' their difficulties, to even excel" from the spoonie who "not only wallows, but defines themselves by (and perhaps even revels in) being ill."^[393]

In May 2024, amidst wider controversy over Israel's participation in Eurovision, Irish contestant Bambie Thug accused Israeli broadcaster KAN of "incit[ing] violence" against them.^[412] They criticised the EBU's handling of their complaint against KAN in what anti-trans grifter Oli London described as a "profanity laden rant."^[412][413] Rowling liked a re-tweet of London by Dennis Noel Kavanagh, who added that "developmentally delayed as she [Bambie] is, even she realises cursing the public wouldn't go down well."^[413] Bambie (who is non-binary) has stated that they were diagnosed with ADHD as a child.^[414]

Statements on sexual assault and abuse[edit]

Rowling's own experiences[edit]

Rowling experienced domestic violence during her "short and catastrophic" marriage to Portuguese journalist Jorge Arantes in the early 1990s.^{[131][415][416]} By Rowling's account, Arantes was "very violent and very controlling" as a partner, denying her a housekey so he could have "control of the front door."^[416][417] At one point, Arantes allegedly took the manuscript of the first Harry Potter novel and hid it as "his hostage," forcing Rowling to sneak "a few pages" into work "every day" to photocopy.^[416] Rowling gradually assembled a copy of the manuscript and kept it in a staffroom cupboard.^[416] She feared Arantes would seize or destroy the original if she "wasn't able to get out [of the marriage] with everything."^[416] Arantes has admitted that he slapped Rowling on the night she fled in 1993 but denies having committed "sustained abuse."^[418] The Sun (who else?) interviewed Arantes in June 2020 and published his claims with the lurid headline "I slapped JK and I'm not sorry."^[419][420] This article was widely condemned by the press and abuse survivor advocates.^[419][420]

In her 2020 TERF manifesto, Rowling revealed that she was the victim of a "serious sexual assault" sometime in her twenties, describing it as occurring "at a time and in a space where I was vulnerable" and involving a "man [who] capitalised on an opportunity."^[131] Rowling wrote that her memories of this event spurred her to oppose Gender Recognition Act reform in Scotland, declaring it would inevitably "throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms" to sexual predators.^[131] She cited her personal history as a motivation for funding the establishment of a private "support centre for female victims of sexual violence" in Edinburgh in December 2022.^[421][422] This service – named Beira's Place after the "Scottish goddess of winter" – is frequently lauded as a "women's shelter," "rape crisis centre," and "refuge" by Rowling's supporters, but reading the website makes it clear it doesn't offer shelter space or crisis support.^[423][424] It provides one-on-one and group counselling by appointment only.^[424] The centre is not wheelchair accessible and clients are advised not to bring children.^[424] Board member Rhona Hotchkiss served as governor of the Cornton Vale women's prison until 2019.^[425] In 2016, it was reported that inmates faced "Victorian conditions" and long queues for access to a shared toilet, with some being instructed by staff to "pee in the sink" if they couldn't wait.^[426][427] Hotchkiss asserted in 2022 that she would've resigned if she'd still been governor during the Isla Bryson case.^[428][429]

According to an article published by the Wall Street Journal in 2024, Rowling invoked "her past as an abused woman" during business meetings with Warner Bros., reportedly claiming that "a group of men telling her what to do reminded her of her previous marriage."^[430]

Johnny Depp and other accused[edit]

In November 2016, weeks before the first film in the Fantastic Beasts franchise was released, it was revealed Johnny Depp would cameo as Gellert Grindelwald, and was slated to return in the sequels.^{[431][432][note 16]} His casting sparked outcry from Potter fans due to allegations of abuse made earlier in 2016 by Depp's then-wife Amber Heard.^[434] Rowling apparently blocked fans who asked her about it,^[435][436] and later issued a statement in December telling fans that she understood why they were "confused and angry," but that she and the filmmakers were "not only comfortable sticking with our original casting, but genuinely happy to have Johnny playing a major character in the movies" based on their "understanding of the circumstances" of Depp and Heard's marriage.^[437] Rowling added, "conscience isn't governable by committee."^[437] Depp said in a 2018 interview: "J.K. has seen the evidence and therefore knows I was falsely accused, and that's why she has publicly supported me."^[438][439]

Depp was cut from the Fantastic Beasts franchise in 2020 after losing a libel case against The Sun for a headline calling him a "wife beater."^{[440][441][note 17]} Depp won a subsequent defamation suit against Heard in 2022 over an op-ed she wrote for the Washington Post in 2018.^[442] In this piece, Heard described herself as a "public figure representing domestic abuse," but did not specifically name Depp.^[443] Some have speculated that Depp's legal team pushed for the case to be heard in Virginia over the couple's home state of California due to Virginia's "far weaker" anti-SLAPP laws.^[444][445]

Rowling, reportedly a long-time friend of Depp, bought his yacht sometime around 2015 for £22 million, then soon sold it at £7 million loss.^[446][447] She sent a bouquet of roses to Depp's close friend Marilyn Manson in January 2020.^[448] In 2021, actress Evan Rachel Wood named Manson as the ex-partner behind an account of sexual assault revealed in 2016, prompting several other women to come forward with further allegations of rape and torture by Manson.^[449][450] Depp stans paid to have the Depp v. Heard court records unsealed in the hope of unearthing dirt on Heard.^[451] They instead revealed a trove of unsavoury and embarrassing things about Depp. This included the transcript of a "troubling" 2016 text conversation in which Manson tried to set Depp up with an 18-year-old girl.^[452][453]

Rowling personally thanked voice actor Greg Ellis for his work on the 2023 video game Hogwarts Legacy.^{[454][455][456]} Ellis is a hardline MRA with his own history of domestic abuse allegations.^{[456][457][455]} In 2015, Ellis' then-wife successfully filed for a restraining order against him, stating that he had threatened their children.^[456][457] Another former partner of Ellis obtained a three-year protection order in 2023 in a case involving an allegation of revenge porn.^[458] Ellis is reportedly a long-time friend of Depp,^[459][460] and has been one of his fiercest defenders on social media.^[461] Ellis supposedly met Depp at his infamous Los Angeles bar The Viper Room in the 1980s and worked with him on the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.^[460]

Depp wasn't the only Fantastic Beasts cast member to generate worrying headlines. Video emerged in 2020 of Ezra Miller physically assaulting a woman at a Reykjavík bar.^[462][463] Since 2022, they have incurred multiple arrests, citations, and restraining orders for a slew of alleged crimes including assault, burglary, and grooming minors.^{[463][464][465]} Scottish actor Kevin Guthrie was sentenced to three years in prison for sexual assault in 2021.^[466] Rowling has not publicly commented on either case to date.

Flawed understanding of sexual abuse[edit]

A "tragic love story," according to Rowling.

Rowling has demonstrated a deeply flawed understanding of sexual violence and consent. In 2024, she tweeted that "under UK law, only men can commit rape."^[467] It's correct to say the UK legally defines "rape" as the non-consensual penetration of the victim's "vagina, anus or mouth" by the perpetrator's "penis."^{[468][469][note 18]} However, it betrays Rowling's apparent belief that AFAB people are incapable of committing sexual violence, a notion rooted in the essentialist idea that men are inherently aggressive and women are inherently weak. Rowling has repeatedly mentioned penises when discussing the supposed risk of housing trans women in women's prisons.^{[471][472][473]}

Her rhetoric on such topics sometimes alludes to "sex class",^[474] taking a leaf from one fellow TERF celebrity.^[475][476] This is a vulgarization of ~1960s–1970s radical feminist class theory, which proposed sex class was an oppressive social construct. Even Shulamith Firestone, an early radical feminist author who theorized that these social classes stemmed from biological differences (specifically, historical and accumulated power imbalances from pregnancy), proposed in her book The Dialectic of Sex that social distinctions of sex class can and should be abolished with technological and medical innovation.^{[477]:10-11, 219-234} This view of sex as a class system was partly inspired by Marxist theory, which itself saw gradients and exceptions: petit bourgeois and lumpenproletariat were semi-distinguished from two main classes. Likewise, in Woman Hating, Andrea Dworkin said two sex classes were a reductive construct; speaking of the "radical biology of sex similarity" in relation to intersex and transgender people, she said humanity was "a multi-sexed species which has its sexuality spread along a vast fluid continuum where the elements called male and female are not discrete."^[478]

The "women-cannot-rape" mentality has seemingly influenced Rowling's fiction. Love potions feature in the world of the Harry Potter series.^[479] In Half-Blood Prince (2005), a female student, Romilda, gives Harry chocolates spiked with love potion, having purchased the potion as a novelty from a joke shop.^[479] The chocolates are instead consumed by Ron in an incident played mainly for comic effect.^[479] It is also revealed that Voldemort's witch mother Merope forced his Muggle father Tom to marry and conceive a child with her by continuously dosing him with love potion over an extended period.^[479] Rowling has never acknowledged that Voldemort's villain origin story involves an act of female-on-male date rape. The closest she came was describing the love potion as "coercion" and a "symbolic way of showing that [Voldemort] came from a loveless union" in 2007.^[480] Kabir Chattopadhyay wrote in the journal Gender Forum in 2020 that Rowling's love potions are a "largely harmless commodity, whose role in manipulating consent is presented not in the sinister context of abuse and gender violence, but in the frivolous, even playful, language of pranks and jokes."^[479] Chattopadhyay held that "the love potion, in its purpose and intent, is disturbingly similar" to actual date-rape drugs, but that Rowling uses "two major narrative strategies" – a desexualised "image of teenage romantic attention" (Romilda) and an "inversion of the gendered associations" of date rape (Merope) – to "dissociate the love potion from this real-world counterpart."^[479]

Another commonly cited example of gender essentialism in Harry Potter is the charmed stairs in Gryffindor Tower barring boys from accessing the girls' dormitory but not the reverse.^[481] According to Hermione, this is an "old-fashioned rule" set by Hogwarts' founders, in the belief that "boys [are] less trustworthy than girls."^[482] Tison Pugh wryly observed in 2019 that the school "incorporates gender bias into its very architecture."^[482] Not only did Rowling negate the possibility of girls wanting sex or being predators, but, once again, she conveniently forgot queer people exist. As Erin A. Delaney noted in 2007, "Hogwarts is an institution that acknowledges its students' sexuality," but it is only "heterosexual sex that the school guards against."^[483]

Rowling hailed Lolita as one of her favourite books in a Radio 4 interview in 2000.^[484] Rowling described the novel – about an adult man's abduction and rape of his 12-year-old stepdaughter – as a "great and tragic love story."^[484][485] She stated that the novel's ending – in which now-teenage Lolita dies in childbirth – "make[s] [her] cry without fail."^[484] Fans have pointed to apparent Lolita references throughout the Harry Potter series.^[486] One would think a best-selling writer would know the difference between a romantic tale and a disturbing story told by an unreliable narrator. Author Vladimir Nabokov was clear Lolita is a story about a "little girl" preyed upon by a "vain and cruel wretch who manages to appear 'touching'."^[487]

Cormoran Strike series[edit]

Since finishing the Harry Potter series, Rowling has focused on a new series, adult detective novels featuring ex-military policeman Cormoran Strike and his female assistant Robin Ellacott. These are published under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. Some have also been adapted for television by the BBC and HBO.^[488]

In the beginning, it wasn't known that Galbraith was Rowling. But then the first book, The Cuckoo's Calling (2013), was rejected by some publishing firms and sold just 1,500 copies once it did find a publisher. Her lawyer then proceeded to leak the fact that the novel was authored by Rowling to his "wife's best friend". The sales for the book then skyrocketed after The Sunday Times reported it.^[489][490] It is completely impossible that this "leak" was actually staged as a financial decision.

Initially, the books seemed unexceptional genre works, but that changed when Rowling started to inject her increasingly strange beliefs about trans people and other issues. At first it was subtle; book two, The Silkworm (2014), features two trans characters who are portrayed in a relatively sympathetic fashion, although Strike is rude to them and threatens one with prison rape.^[491]

Book three, Career of Evil (2015), is about an online community of people who wish to be disabled and have limbs amputated to meet their desire. Body integrity dysphoria is a real condition, but to some people, it felt like Rowling was using these people who wished to be disabled as a way to attack or mock trans people, whom she viewed as similarly deluded.^[491]

Lethal White (2018), book four in the series, features a pair of far-left villains who hate Israel so much that they became antisemitic.^[492] (See: J. K. Rowling § Other political views.)

Controversy increased with book five: Troubled Blood (2020) features a killer who disguises himself as a woman. Naturally, this was read in the light of Rowling's hostility to trans people and belief that trans women are all men dressing as women to attack cis women. It also contains a lot of criticism of 21^st century feminism for being sex-positive, pro-porn, holding SlutWalks to oppose slut shaming, etc.^[491]

This was followed by book six, Ink Black Heart (2022), which is about a cartoonist who is doxxed and ultimately murdered after antagonising woke online trolls with remarks about a hermaphrodite worm that are considered transphobic. Rowling insists any resemblance to her life is coincidental; most people don't believe her (not even The Daily Telegraph).^[102][493]

In the seventh book, The Running Grave (2023), the apparent connection between Rowling's real-world views and this fictional storyline is built upon further. Some drew parallels between the abusive cult present in the seventh installment and the way Rowling views her political opponents. The cult is described as (aside from the abusive behavior typical of any real-world cult) expressing positions in favor of various social justice causes. A typical profile of a cult recruit is described as someone with dyed-blue hair. They are also said to predate on autistic people and lesbians, and one of its fictional critics is a "patron of several charities" with a "reputation for intelligence and integrity". Nothing terribly subtle here.^[395]

About that pen name…[edit]

There is also a curious coincidence that the pseudonym Robert Galbraith is very similar to the name of Robert Galbraith Heath, a controversial psychiatrist. He experimented on black people; Harry Bailey, a research partner of his, stated that the two experimented on black people because it was "cheaper to use niggers than cats because they were everywhere", though Heath later denied knowing Bailey.^{[494][495][496]} He also experimented on the mentally ill and pioneered conversion therapy for gay men, including the use of electric shocks.

Rowling's spokesperson said she was unaware of the existence of Heath when she chose the pseudonym and that she had long been fond of the name "Galbraith". The spokesperson also pointed to Rowling's original explanation for the pseudonym's origin in 2013.^[497] She had then stated: "When I was a child, I really wanted to be called 'Ella Galbraith', and I've no idea why. I don't even know how I knew that the surname existed, because I can't remember ever meeting anyone with it." She attributed her choice of "Robert" to her admiration for Robert F. Kennedy.^[498][499]

Robert Colvile, the author of a 2016 article about Robert Galbraith Heath, claimed Rowling "could not have known about" Heath in 2013 when she chose the name, because it came before his article and "everyone had forgotten" about Heath.^[500] In actual fact, Heath's Wikipedia page was created in 2007, and from the point of creation made reference in-text to his experiments on black people, and view of them as "animals"; a citation referenced one of Heath's conversion therapy experiments in its title.^[501] A winter 2006 article in The New Atlantis (a conservative journal),^[502] a September 2008 article in the neuroscience blog Mind Hacks,^[503] an October 2010 article in Vice's Motherboard,^[504] an April 2012 CRC Press book,^[505] and a May 2012 article in Scientific American^[506] all discussed Heath's brutal experiments, and half the time named him in full as "Robert Galbraith Heath". To state that she could not have known about this guy is completely inaccurate, although it is likely to have been an accidental coincidence in any case. Even if she did know, it's much more likely that she simply didn't care, rather than having had some kind of admiration for Heath.

Other political views[edit]

In a 2000 interview, Rowling described herself as left-wing.^[507] As early as 2002, Rowling claimed that one of her biggest writing influences had been Jessica Mitford, whom she described as a "self-taught socialist" (Mitford had also been a member of the Communist Party of the United States until 1958).^[508] She also donated to Labour^[509] and was openly supportive of the British welfare state^[510] in the late 2000s. In April 2010, she wrote a Single Mother's Manifesto criticising Tory austerity and David Cameron.^[511]

However, she was very critical of Jeremy Corbyn, a remnant of Labour's Old Left,^[512] and mocked his (honestly mediocre and half-assed) stance on Brexit.^[513] This was driven by fear that it would lead to a repeat of the longest suicide note in history, which resulted in the Tories, under Margaret Thatcher, winning re-election in 1983 and control over national politics until 1997.^[513][514]

Rowling expressed her opposition to Scottish independence at the time of the 2014 independence referendum, donating £1m to the anti-independence group Better Together.^[515][516] This didn't endear her to some Scottish Nationalists, and she received online abuse, which caused her to double down in her opposition to independence, accusing Scottish nationalists of bigotry; she also called out the "blood and soil" ethnonationalists Siol nan Gaidheal, who are certainly bigots but whose membership is so small they can hardly be considered representative of anything.^[517] She called the independence movement "Death Eaterish".^[516]

In 2015, she signed a letter stating that "cultural boycotts singling out Israel are divisive and discriminatory, and will not further peace."^{[518][519][520]} In response to criticism of this, she wrote a bizarre essay which criticized Israel (though particularly Netanyahu), but also argued young Harry Potter would be upset with her decision not to boycott Israel. Dumbledore and an older Harry Potter would have agreed with her refusal to boycott Israel, she added.^{[521][518][522]} In 2018, she released a Cormoran Strike novel featuring a pair of far-left "Israel-hating antisemites" as the villains.^[492]

Rowling told off Vladimir Putin when he had the gall to compare Western sanctions against Russia to Rowling being "canceled" for her TERF views.^[523] In apparent response to her stance, a group of Russian trolls pranked her, convincing her that she was in a video conference with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Roughly fifteen minutes of strange nonsense ensued, with Rowling agreeing to "look into" changing Harry Potter's scar due to its similarity to the Russian "Z" symbol. She endorsed pressure on Russia "culturally and economically", in response to a question about how "not to promote Russian culture" such as music.^{[524][525][note 19]}

See also[edit]

• Anita Bryant, another celebrity whose subsequent bigotry has completely overshadowed her legacy
• Philosopher's stone
• Tatsuya Ishida, another once-popular writer turned TERF (and in his case, later turned neo-Nazi)

External links[edit]

• Religion in Harry Potter — Skeptic
• Boolean Union Tract Dissections review of The Truth For Youth's Hairy Polarity and the Sinister Sorcery Satire comic
• Harry Potter's big con is the prose
• Harry Potter and the childish adult
• "Is J.K. Rowling transphobic? Let’s let her speak for herself." — Vox
• ContraPoints video on J. K. Rowling
• Shaun's videos on Harry Potter and JK Rowling's New Friends
• Harry Potter and the Doctrine of the Calvinists

Notes[edit]

References[edit]