Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling has come under fire for her latest anti-transgender tweets. The mind behind the beloved Wizarding World, Rowling has increasingly drawn the ire of her fans in the years since the final Harry Potter book and movie came out. Over the past decade, Rowling has become infamous for trying to retcon Harry Potter canon to make it seem more inclusive, whether it be through her comments on Twitter or official works like the Fantastic Beasts prequel series (which she writes). She's also become known for adding, frankly, bizarre details to the Wizarding World mythos, like how students at Hogwarts went to the bathroom before plumbing.
On a more personal level, Rowling has further drawn criticism for being a trans-exclusionary radical feminist or TERF, aka. a feminist who doesn't believe transgender women are real women. In addition to having a history of "Liking" anti-trans articles and comments posted to Twitter, she took to the social media platform last December to support Maya Forstater, a researcher who was fired shortly after making transphobic statements. Now, Rowling has once again sparked anger online for posting ant-trans comments.
On Saturday, June 6, Rowling tweeted about an article titled "Opinion: Creating a more equal post-COVID-19 world for people who menstruate", saying “‘People who menstruate.’ I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?” Her comments were quickly criticized for being transphobic, promoting Rowling to post a series of followup tweets. You can read her comments below.
LGBTQ rights organization GLAAD has since responded to Rowling's comments on Twitter, saying "JK Rowling continues to align herself with an ideology which willfully distorts facts about gender identity and people who are trans. In 2020, there is no excuse for targeting trans people." They've further asked people to lend their backing to organizations that support transgender individuals (particularly, transgender people of color), including the Marsha P. Johnson Institute and National Black Trans Advocacy Coalition. Queer artists like writers and cartoonists Molly Knox Ostertag and Kate Leth have also publicly criticized Rowling's tweets. Many of them, like Ostertag, have additionally mentioned being confounded Rowling would decide to go on "a transphobic screed about biological gender" in the middle of the current worldwide Black Lives Matter protests and coronavirus pandemic (not to mention, this year's LGBTQ Pride Month).
It remains to be seen if the criticism of Rowling have any noticeable impact on her career, including the Fantastic Beasts movies. Fantastic Beasts 3 had to postpone the start of filming when the coronavirus lockdowns began in late February and early March, but is now allowed to resume production in the UK. Warner Bros. is still planning to make five Fantastic Beasts movies in total, though they may abandon ship if the series continues to see a downward trend at the box office after 2018's The Crimes of Grindelwald. The situation with Rowling is also bad for HBO Max, which launched in the U.S. at the end of May with the surprise inclusion of all eight Harry Potter movies.
Source: JK Rowling/Twitter
