What did JK Rowling say on Twitter about trans rights?
TRANS activists came down on Harry Potter author JK Rowling for a tweet she posted in 2020.
In July 2021, she claimed she was still receiving backlash, and even death threats, from her comments.
What did JK Rowling say on Twitter about trans rights?
The Harry Potter author questioned women’s safety in changing rooms in 2020.
She was accused of transphobia last summer when replying to an article with the headline: “Opinion: Creating a more equal post Covid-19 world for people who menstruate.”
She tweeted: “‘People who menstruate’. I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?”
Several people hit back to point out it was not only women born women who menstruate.
Her remarks led to an angry backlash, including criticism from Potter actors Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint and Eddie Redmayne.
She was also blasted in 2019 for backing a researcher who was fired for tweeting “men cannot change into women.”
Rowling, who is said to be worth hundreds of millions, responded: “My life has been shaped by being female.
"I do not believe it’s hateful to say so.”
What did people say in response to JK Rowling's tweet?
Rowling says she has received rape and death threats from hundreds of trans activists.
She called out a troll who told her: “I wish you a very nice pipebomb in mailbox.”
She replied: “When you can’t get a woman sacked, arrested or dropped by her publisher, and cancelling her only made her book sales go up, there’s really only one place to go.”
One follower asked: “Is this still because of her comments about the safety of women in toilets/changing rooms if men can use them by simply saying they identify as a woman?”
Rowling, 55, replied: “Yes, but now hundreds of trans activists have threatened to beat, rape, assassinate and bomb me I’ve realised this movement poses no risk to women whatsoever.”
What did JK Rowling publish about speaking on sex and gender issues?
On JKRowling.com, the author published a lengthy statement to her website after she received a flurry of backlash for her trans opinions.
She claimed she had a multitude of reasons her concern "about the new trans activism."
Among them, she claimed to be worried "about the effect the trans rights movement is having" on education and safeguarding children.
She said she was "interested in freedom of speech" and "concerned about the huge explosion in young women wishing to transition and also about the increasing numbers who seem to be detransitioning (returning to their original sex)."
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"I know transition will be a solution for some gender dysphoric people, although I’m also aware through extensive research that studies have consistently shown that between 60-90% of gender dysphoric teens will grow out of their dysphoria."
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In one of her final reasons challenging the new wave of trans activism, she said she "wants trans women to be safe" but also doesn't want to make "natal girls and women less safe."
"When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman – and, as I’ve said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones – then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside. That is the simple truth," she wrote.