J.K Rowling hits back at haters
<p><em>Harry Potter</em> author J.K Rowling has addressed her controversial comments about transgender people in her new podcast, calling out those who claimed she “ruined” her legacy.</p>
<p>In the first two episodes of her podcast, The Witch Trials of J.K Rowling, the author claims she “never set out to upset anyone” by sharing her opinions on gender ideology numerous times, with some people branding her as “transphobic”.</p>
<p>Rowling said what has “interested" her in the past year, particularly on social media, is the people saying, “you’ve ruined your legacy” and “you could have been beloved forever but you chose to say this”.</p>
<p>The author hit back, saying, “I think you could not have misunderstood me more profoundly.<br />“I do not walk around my house, thinking about my legacy. You know, what a pompous way to live your life – walking around thinking, ‘What will my legacy be?’</p>
<p>"Whatever. I’ll be dead. I care about it now. I care about the living.”</p>
<p>Rowling made waves in June 2020 when she mocked an article that used the phrase “People who menstruate”.</p>
<p>The author responded on Twitter, “I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?”</p>
<p>She also wrote a 3,600-word essay in response to the backlash, explaining why she was so “worried about the new trans activism” and the effort “to erode the legal definition of sex and replace it with gender”.</p>
<p>Rowling has strongly denied the accusations of transphobia and described transgender women having access to female bathrooms as throwing “open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman”.</p>
<p>Her 2020 novel, <em>Troubled Blood</em>, which was published under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, featured a cisgender male serial killer who dresses like a woman to lure his victims.</p>
<p>LGBTQIA+ charity community labelled this a “longstanding and somewhat tired trope, responsible for the demonisation of a small group of people”.</p>
<p>In the past, users on Twitter discovered Rowling had also liked a tweet that referred to transgender women as “men in dresses”.</p>
<p>The cast members of <em>Harry Potter</em>, Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson, have all spoken out in support of the trans community in the wake of Rowling’s comments.</p>
<p>The Witch Trials of J.K Rowling podcast, produced by the Free Press, is hosted by American political activist Megan Phelps-Roper.</p>
<p>It appears that Phelps-Roger tries to draw similarities between the threats from rightwing religious groups who wanted to ban <em>Harry Potter</em> and the backlash the author has received from trans activists in recent years.</p>
<p>In 2000, Rowling and her team were forced to leave a bookstore during a signing due to a bomb threat by an alleged far-right religious fundamentalist.</p>
<p>Rowling shared that she had “direct threats of violence” made against her.</p>
<p>“I have had people coming to my house where my kids live, and I’ve had my address posted online. I’ve had what the police, anyway, would regard as credible threats,” she said in her podcast.</p>
<p>Rowling warned against the idea of “black and white thinking”, saying it is often the “easiest” and “safest” place to be for many people.</p>
<p>She added, “Many people mistake that rush of adrenaline for the voice of conscience. In my worldview, conscience speaks in a very small and inconvenient voice, and it’s normally saying to you: ‘Think again, look more deeply, consider this.’”</p>
<p><em>Image credit: Getty</em></p>
