Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling has defended her transphobic comments from last weekend in a lengthy essay written for her fans. Rowling, who is best known for creating the expansive Wizarding World through her Harry Potter books and additional projects, drew criticism last weekend for her comments on social media that many found to be anti-trans. It all began when Rowling responded to an article titled "Opinion: Creating a more equal post-COVID-19 world for people who menstruate" with the tweet, "People who menstruate.’ I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?" Almost immediately, fans and activists alike criticized Rowling's words, but Rowling continued to back up her first statement with several more.
In the days since, several people within Rowling's Wizarding World have opposed her comments and restated their support of the transgender community. The first was Katie Leung, who played Cho Chang in several Harry Potter films; Leung shared a thread filled with pro-trans organizations and fundraisers. Then Daniel Radcliffe, best known as Harry Potter himself, shared a thoughtful statement with The Trevor Project apologizing to Harry Potter fans who were hurt by Rowling's comments. Finally, earlier today Fantastic Beasts star Eddie Redmayne stated he disagrees with Rowling's words.
Up until this point, Rowling had remained silent on this matter. Now, however, she is defending her position through a lengthy post on her website. Within that post, Rowling restates her support of the trans community, but also lays out her "five reasons for being worried about the new trans activism, and deciding I need to speak up." Much of the essay is spent dissecting both those reasons and her take on trans activism, which Rowling essentially deems as dangerous. "Huge numbers of women are justifiably terrified by the trans activists; I know this because so many have got in touch with me to tell their stories," she writes at one point.
Rowling also touches upon her previous actions that have been viewed as anti-trans. The most recent came last winter, where Rowling voiced her support for a woman who had been fired over anti-trans comments. Harry Potter fans have since grown wary about Rowling's feelings toward the transgender community, and this essay seems to be aimed at those who, in the past few days, have labelled her as a TERF (or trans-exclusionary radical feminist). Rowling discusses that term at length within the essay, at one point saying, "In practice, a huge and diverse cross-section of women are currently being called TERFs and the vast majority have never been radical feminists."
Essentially, Rowling explains that she wishes to reassert her stance without garnering any further online abuse for her beliefs. She concludes the essay with this: "All I’m asking - all I want - is for similar empathy, similar understanding, to be extended to the many millions of women whose sole crime is wanting their concerns to be heard without receiving threats and abuse." Whether or not people will be appeased by her words remains to be seen, though since she didn't retract the initial statements that caused so much backlash, it's likely this won't do much to fix things. In fact, Rowling has drawn more criticism for this statement since it doubles down on much of the same transphobic points she'd made on Twitter. The Harry Potter author has made her opinions perfectly clear, and now it's in the hands of the public to decide how they feel about it - and the companies she works with will have to decide whether they'll support or denounce her views.
Source: J.K. Rowling
