JK Rowling has written a new essay about her political views, noting that they have not changed despite the harassment and death threats she received.
“It has been six years since I wrote my essay explaining why I chose to speak out on the issue of trans activism and the risk I believe it poses to women’s rights and to everyone’s freedom of expression and belief,” she wrote in the introduction to the essay, which is more than 2,000 words long and was posted on her website on Wednesday.
“My opinions haven’t changed (you can read the original essay here), but the landscape has certainly changed, and my own involvement in the issue has become practical as well as theoretical, so I thought it was time for an update.”
Rowling has faced an “avalanche of death threats, rape and torture” due to her objection to what she describes as “the current dominant trend in trans activism, according to which a man who identifies as a woman is, literally, a woman, and therefore has the right to be treated as a woman in all contexts.”
“Where women go to undress, he too should go to undress,” she continues. “If there is an award or job advertised as exclusively for women, he should be eligible. If he wants to play sports, he should be on the women’s team. No breastfeeding or rape support group should be allowed to exclude him. If he has a sexual orientation toward women, lesbians should include him in their dating pool. If he is convicted of a crime, even rape, he should be locked up with women.”
Her critics have described her views as “anti-trans”, although this is a label Rowling has rejected.
In the essay, the author states that there are “without doubt” vulnerable trans people, adding: “Should trans people be discriminated against in housing or employment? Of course not. Should trans people be deprived of their human rights or denied their personal safety? Again: of course not.
Referring to last year’s UK Supreme Court ruling that the word “woman” in equality legislation refers to biological sex, she writes that “for a decade or more, trans activists and acolytes in positions of influence have insisted and behaved as if women’s rights were outdated and even meaningless.” They created a climate of fear and intimidation in which a single misplaced pronoun could result in a woman being disciplined. »
“This climate persists,” she said.
The JK Rowling Women’s Fund was among those financially supporting the feminist group that took legal action, and in her essay she says it continues to provide assistance to those who take legal action.
“When it came to civil rights, gay rights, and women’s rights, ordinary people who had little or no individual power organized at the grassroots level to challenge powerful institutions, from government down, on their entrenched biases, and campaigned to change harmful and discriminatory treatment,” she writes.
“Twenty-first century trans activism is the opposite of these movements. It is fundamentally elitist.”
Rowling concludes the essay by saying in the penultimate paragraph: “I will continue to speak out, I will continue to use my money to help women who otherwise could not afford to go to court, and I will continue to ensure that women in my area can still access women-led and women-centered support after rape.” »
Last week, trans activists disrupted the premiere of a new version of Rowling’s play “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” in London by storming the red carpet.
Despite the controversy, Rowling’s original idea, “Harry Potter,” continues to go from strength to strength. The Warner Bros. title Games 2023’s “Hogwarts Legacy” sold more than 22 million copies in the year of its release, last year’s Universal Studios theme park expansion Epic Universe saw the launch of new “Wizarding World” rides and experiences and this Christmas an epic new HBO adaptation of the original book series is set to launch with a new cast.
Read Rowling’s full essay here.
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