JK Rowling faces backlash over tweets considered transphobic

JK Rowling faces backlash over tweets considered transphobic

Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling is facing backlash after being accused of making transphobic comments on social media.

Rowling’s latest controversy began when she shared an opinion article from a global health website Devex titled “Opinion: Creating a more equal post-COVID-19 world for people who menstruate”, and commented on her confusion with the phrase “people who menstruate.”

“‘People who menstruate.’ I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?” Rowling tweeted.

Quickly thereafter, the author became a trending topic on Twitter as many followers and people on social media began calling her out for her comments.

Despite the backlash she received for her initial comments, Rowling continued to express her viewpoint. In a follow-up tweet she criticized the idea that someone’s biological sense isn’t real.

“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,” she wrote. “The idea that women like me, who’ve been empathetic to trans people for decades, feeling kinship because they’re vulnerable in the same way as women — ie, to male violence – ‘hate’ trans people because they think sex is real and has lived consequences — is a nonsense.”

She added that she respects trans people’s right to live comfortably and later struck out at people calling her a TERF, a trans-exclusionary radical feminist.

“I respect every trans person’s right to live any way that feels authentic and comfortable to them. I’d march with you if you were discriminated against on the basis of being trans. At the same time, my life has been shaped by being female. I do not believe it’s hateful to say so,” she added.

The LGBTQ rights organization GLAAD responded to Rowling’s comments, saying the author has aligned herself with an ideology that “willfully distorts facts about gender identity and people who are trans. In 2020, there is no excuse for targeting trans people.”

GLAAD listed several Black trans organizations for people to make donations and ended by saying people should check out Percy Jackson author Rick Riordan if they need a summer read.

Rowling has come under fire for voicing similar opinions before. In December, she received backlash for supporting a researcher who lost her job after saying a person cannot change their biological sex. GLAAD had issued a statement in response to Rowling’s previous tweets.

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6 Comments

  1. D
    June 07, 11:34 Reply

    Her attempt to paint valid criticism as misogyny is just classic Karen. She’s a white woman who made way too much money from a mediocre children’s book, and now think that gives her license to say whatever she feels, without doing any actual research or considering the hate her words are contributing to. Trans women and men, especially black ones, are routinely tortured and murdered by people with her disgusting ideology, but of course, once you tell a Karen she’s wrong, obviously you’re bullying her. This is why I never trusted her “Dumbledore is gay” nonsense; there was not text or even subtext to back it up, she just wanted to pander to gay men and the Hollywood crowd to make more money. She’s white trash, and it was a mistake to elevate her beyond that station.

  2. Dunder
    June 08, 11:08 Reply

    There is sex and there is gender. Sex is genetic- a y makes you male and no y makes you female. Being trans is about gender and that can be altered by medication and surgery for people who psychologically see themselves in the bio-psycho-social construct of a gender opposite the one they were assigned at birth based on their phenotype.

    This debate rages on because of the terms sex and gender were already cemented in the English lexicon before we had such a rich understanding of genetics. It was physical/ biological so males had testes and a phallus while females had a vulva. Newborns presenting with both were termed interSEX.

    With genetics and it’s revelations, we know more about conditions like kleinfelter and turner syndromes and how the Y chromosome is the genetic basis of having male features while it’s absence makes one female and now, we are walking the terms backwards.

    Difference exists and pointing this out does not make JK Rowlings a hater. Being objective is not being hateful. We need more conversations and education, not a cult-like cancel culture.

  3. Mandy
    June 09, 08:01 Reply

    So many infuriated responses to JK Rowling, people calling her a disappointment, that she’s endangering trans lives by saying biological sex is real.

    And yet, considering that biological sex has been a reality since humans came into existence, it is a mystery how transexuals survived this alleged mortal danger for all these millenia.

    How does acknowledging that sex is a thing invalidate trans lives? This transgender movement is starting to seem like a cult.

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