Author J.K. Rowling continued to prove she will not back down in her criticism of transgender radicalism in a recent podcast episode in which she called the movement “dangerous.”
Speaking on the Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling podcast, the acclaimed Harry Potter author said she tried listening to transgender activists to better understand their views but ultimately concluded that something “dangerous” lurked within.
“I can only say that I’ve thought about it deeply and hard and long. And I’ve listened, I promise, to the other side,” Rowling said. “And I believe, absolutely, that there is something dangerous about this movement, and it must be challenged.”
The British author addressed the trolls who say she somehow “betrayed” the values espoused in her books.
“I’m constantly told that I have betrayed my own books, but my position is that I’m absolutely upholding the positions that I took in ‘Potter,’” Rowling said. “My position is that this activist movement in the form that it’s currently taking, echoes the very thing that I was warning against in ‘Harry Potter.’”
“I am fighting what I see as a powerful, insidious misogynistic movement that I think has gained huge purchase in very influential areas of society. I do not see this particular movement as either benign or powerless,” she continued.
“I can only say that I’ve thought about it deeply and hard and long and I’ve listened, I promise, to the other side. I believe absolutely that there is something dangerous about this movement and it must be challenged.” – J.K. Rowling. pic.twitter.com/Ay86Hnf78f
— Written by J.K. Rowling (@rowlingmore) March 14, 2023
In the summer of 2020, J.K. Rowling said that transgender ideology could lead to the erasure of womanhood as we know it by denying the basic biological functions that differentiate women from men.
“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 tweeted.
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.
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 6, 2020
Following her post, Rowling faced severe social media backlash, prompting “Harry Potter” stars Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, and Eddie Redmayne to publicly declare their support for the trans movement. Actors Ralph Fiennes, who played Voldemort, and Robbie Coltrane, who played Hagrid, have both defended Rowling.
As criticism mounted, Rowling penned an essay about her experiences as a survivor of both sexual assault and domestic violence and argued that the concept of men becoming women erases womanhood entirely.
“It isn’t enough for women to be trans allies,” she wrote. “Women must accept and admit that there is no material difference between trans women and themselves. But, as many women have said before me, ‘woman’ is not a costume. ‘Woman’ is not an idea in a man’s head.’”