By Jeremiah Ancheta

J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series, has made several transphobic remarks in the last couple of years. Despite the criticism she has received from trans people and activists, Rowling continues to make such comments and doubles down on them in the face of trans people. Unfortunately, it seems that most in the public sphere are in support of Rowling, characterizing the attacks towards her as unjustified and simply due to “cancel culture.”

The public debate has re-emerged in popularity with the recent release of the popular video game Hogwarts Legacy which is based on Rowling’s Harry Potter novels.

This post will give a comprehensive explanation of why J.K Rowling is transphobic. 

Rowling’s Support for Maya Forstater

In 2019, Maya Forstater, a researcher who worked for the Center for Global Development, “lost her job at a thinktank after tweeting that transgender women cannot change their biological sex” according to a piece by The Guardian.

Forstater has a history of transphobic comments on Twitter. She has previously tweeted “… male people are not women. I dont think being a woman/female is a matter of identity or womanly feelings. It is biology.” Additionally, she has misgendered Pips Bunce, a non-binary and gender fluid person who was listed on the Top 100 Female Executives in 2018 by HERoes, having tweeted “he is a man who likes to express himself part of the week by wearing a dress.”

In response to Forstater’s losing her job, Rowling sent out a tweet in December 2019 that said: 

Dress however you please. Call yourself whatever you like. Sleep with any consenting adult who’ll have you. Live your best life in peace and security. But force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real? 

#IStandWithMaya #ThisIsNotADrill

Obviously, Forstater said more than “sex is real.” She has denied the existence and identity of trans people. By standing with Maya Forstater, it is clear that Rowling is defending Forstater’s transphobic comments and is in agreement with them. 

Rowling’s Problematic Conception of a Woman

A June 2020 tweet by Rowling revealed her conception of a woman – a person who menstruates. While this has the strange entailment of excluding some cis-women from being considered women due to a hysterectomy or menopause (people that I’m sure Rowling herself would consider as being women), it also excludes trans-women from being considered women and counts trans-men who menstruate as being women.

Rowling’s Transphobic Essay

In response to the criticism that she has received, Rowling published an essay on her website discussing her views on trans issues and problems she has with trans activism. Despite Rowling’s attempt to justify her comments and stances on trans issues, Rowling only revealed more of her transphobia.

Magdalen Berns

Rowling talks about the criticism she received after following Magdalen Berns, who unfortunately passed away years ago from an aggressive brain tumor.

Months later, I compounded my accidental ‘like’ crime by following Magdalen Berns on Twitter. Magdalen was an immensely brave young feminist and lesbian who was dying of an aggressive brain tumour. I followed her because I wanted to contact her directly, which I succeeded in doing. However, as Magdalen was a great believer in the importance of biological sex, and didn’t believe lesbians should be called bigots for not dating trans women with penises, dots were joined in the heads of twitter trans activists, and the level of social media abuse increased.

Here, Rowling seems to characterize the criticism she has received as unjustified  by painting Berns as an unproblematic individual fighting for feminism. Just as she did with Forstater, Rowling characterizes Berns as merely making claims about biological sex. However, what Rowling failed to mention was the more blatant transphobic remarks made by Berns, which is the actual reason why such criticism was made in the first place by trans people and activists. 

For instance, Berns has denied trans women their identity and existence, saying that “trans women are male” in a YouTube video of hers. Furthermore, she has previously likened trans women to “blackface actors,” calling them men who pretend to be women for perverted reasons. This was reported by The Guardian and an image of the original tweet can be found here. 

Rowling’s Vilification of Trans Activism

In the second half of her essay, Rowling gives her reasons for being worried about trans activism. 

First, she says that:

It’s been clear to me for a while that the new trans activism is… pushing to erode the legal definition of sex and replace it with gender.

This definitely isn’t happening and it’s hard to believe Rowling when she doesn’t give examples of any organized activist efforts to replace the legal definition of sex with gender.

Second, she says:

I’m an ex-teacher and the founder of a children’s charity, which gives me an interest in both education and safeguarding. Like many others, I have deep concerns about the effect the trans rights movement is having on both.

Again, Rowling doesn’t give any substantial examples of the effects that trans activism has on education and safeguarding.

In her third reason, she simply says:

As a much-banned author, I’m interested in freedom of speech and have publicly defended it, even unto Donald Trump.

Rowling seems to be saying that trans activism is a threat to freedom of speech, perhaps due to the criticism she has received for her remarks. As Rowling doesn’t give an explanation of how trans activism threatens freedom of speech, there isn’t much to respond to.

Given all this, we see that Rowling is vilifying the trans movement, stating that it is a threat to the legal definition of sex, education and safeguarding, freedom of speech. Despite these concerns, Rowling doesn’t give any evidence or explanation of how the trans movement threatens all these things.

Perpetuating Predator Myths

In December 2021, Scottish police stated that they will “record rapes as being committed by a woman if a male attacker simply identifies as a female” according to a piece by The Scottish Sun. Rowling responded to this by tweeting:

War is Peace. 

Freedom is Slavery. 

Ignorance is Strength. 

The Penised Individual Who Raped You Is a Woman.

To be clear, the first three lines come from George Orwell’s 1984 and are meant to convey contradictions present in the fictional world of the book. By saying “the penised individual who raped you is a woman,” Rowling conveys that this message is a contradiction and that in fact a person who identifies as a woman and has a penis is a man. 

Not only is Rowling, again, denying the identity of trans people; she is perpetuating the myth that trans people, particularly women with male genitalia, are sexual predators and only identify as women in order to find opportunities to commit sexual assault towards other women. Proponents of this claim typically believe that such sexual assaults would occur if we allow trans people to use public restrooms that correspond with their gender.

Despite this popular myth, there is absolutely no evidence to back it up. In fact, a 2019 study in the Sexuality Research and Social Policy journal found that the enactment of laws permitting trans people to use public restrooms that correspond with their gender “is not related to the number of frequency or criminal incidents in these spaces. Additionally, the study finds that reports of privacy and safety violations in public restrooms, locker rooms, and changing rooms are exceedingly rare.”

Final Words

As we have seen, Rowling has made various transphobic remarks the last couple of years – showing support for other transphobes, vilifying trans activism, and perpetuating trans predator myths. 

Much of her justification of her stances involve obfuscation or lack of context that make it seem like the criticism towards her as unjustified, For instance, she characterizes Maya Forstater and Magdalen Berns is simply being believers in biological sex, leaving out the fact that they have made blatant transphobic remarks. In failing to mention these latter facts, people learning about the controversy through her own words do not get the whole picture. Rather, they get an embellished one that paints Rowling as a “victim” of trans activism.