JK Rowling will 'continue to speak out' on trans views despite receiving 'an avalanche of threats'
JK Rowling has said she is 'shocked and disgusted' by women who have 'vilified' her for her stance on trans issues in a new essay.
Rowling, the author of Harry Potter, has been vocal on the transgender community in recent years - something which has led to her receiving backlash.
In 2019, Rowling tweeted her support for Maya Forstater, who had been fired from her job for tweets she'd shared that were deemed 'transphobic'.
In June 2020, she mocked a tweet that said 'people who menstruate', replying: "I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?"
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Around the same time she posted her article on her website addressing her reasons for 'speaking out on sex and gender issues'.
Many of the Harry Potter cast have since criticised her statements on trans issues, although others have defended her.
Six years later, Rowling has penned an update as she 'thought it was time' for one.
Part of her new essay reads: "For nearly thirty years I’ve funded women’s domestic abuse refuges, rape crisis centres and projects helping women affected by hardship or disadvantage.
"I well remember receiving abuse by post, years ago, because I spoke up for single mothers. I’ve also fallen foul of no small number of men’s rights activists online."
Rowling continued: "However, what to me represents no change at all in my political or ideological outlook has, in recent years, seen me and women like me subject not only to criticism but also to death threats.
"This is because we oppose the current, dominant strain of trans activism, which holds that a man who declares himself a woman is, literally, a woman, and is therefore entitled to be treated as a woman in all contexts.
"Where women go to undress, he, too, should go to undress. If there’s an award or job advertised as exclusively for women, he should be eligible. Should he wish to play sports, he must be on the women’s team.
"No breast-feeding or rape support group should be allowed to exclude him. If he’s sexually orientated towards women, lesbians should include him in their dating pool. If convicted of a crime, even rape, he should be locked up with women."
Further detailing the kind of abuse she has received, Rowling said she has been subjected to 'an avalanche of death, rape and torture threats', but insisted that this has not 'noticeably affected [her] life'.
Rowling went on to discuss her 'privileged position' in light of her wealth. Earlier this year, the author made it on The Sunday Times Rich List, which said she has a net worth of £975 million (over $1 billion).
"As everyone knows, I’m in the privileged position of never needing to work again and of not needing state run services, but I once lived hand to mouth," she said in her latest essay.
"I was one of the women who couldn’t afford to insulate herself from potential physical harm and who fell into the categories of both domestic abuse and sexual assault victim.
"Large numbers of women who’ve never been poor, who’ve never worked the kind of job where they’d be vulnerable to predatory men and who’ve never needed a rape crisis centre have spent the last few years vilifying members of their own sex for fighting to retain their hard-won rights and single-sex spaces, in ways that have shocked and disgusted me. I freely confess that I feel an extra layer of abhorrence for any woman who claims to be a feminist while doing it."
The 61-year-old went on: "And so I’ll continue to speak out, continue to use my money to help women who otherwise couldn’t afford to go to court, and continue to ensure that women in my area can still access female-delivered, female-centred support after rape."
If you’ve been affected by any of these issues and want to speak to someone in confidence, contact the LGBT national hotline at 888-843-4564, available Monday to Friday 4pm-12am ET and 12pm-5pm ET on Saturdays.
Or, if you've been affected by any of the issues in this article in other ways, you can contact The National Sexual Assault Hotline on 800.656.HOPE (4673), available 24/7. Or you can chat online via online.rainn.org.
Topics: JK Rowling, Feminism, Transgender, Celebrity, News
Niamh Shackleton