J.K Rowling has been accused of being “anti-transgender” from her 2019 tweet. She claims that she was misunderstood. Her tweet stated that she does not care about how an individual dresses, doing whatever they want, but she questioned about forcing women out of their jobs for saying that biology is real.
Dress however you please.
Call yourself whatever you like.
Sleep with any consenting adult who’ll have you.
Live your best life in peace and security.
But force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real? #IStandWithMaya #ThisIsNotADrill— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) December 19, 2019
The tweet stemmed from Maya Forstater, a researcher, who faced job loss from a think tank due to her controversial tweet claiming that biological sex cannot be changed. Forstater also said, “a man’s internal feeling that he is a woman has no basis in material reality.”
J.K Rowling then received immense backlash for supporting Forstater as people began calling her transphobic. The Harry Potter writer suffered from the cancel culture. Furthermore, replies under her tweet expressed an immense amount of support towards the author.
J.K Rowling claims that she is not transphobic
Intentionally
— Gays Against Groomers (@againstgrmrs) February 16, 2023
When word got out that her claims are misunderstood, many agree that her viewpoints have been intentionally misunderstood. The LA Times reported that she said, “is when fans say, ‘You’ve ruined your legacy. Oh, you could have been beloved forever, but you chose to say this.’ And I think: ‘You could not have misunderstood me more profoundly.’”
When most of those trans people are natal born males who don't want anyone standing up for female rights.
— Sinnerella🏳️🌈 (@Sinnerella6) February 15, 2023
Online commentators have raised concerns about why women seem to be discouraged from speaking out about the various challenges that women face. Some have countered with the argument that transgender women are essentially men who object to women having the right to express their opinions freely. Nonetheless, this is a complex issue that warrants further discussion at a later time.
https://twitter.com/DrEvans_Brains/status/1625786377878093825?s=20
Several other online users have contended that J.K Rowling’s tweets were unambiguous and not in any way transphobic. They argue her words were merely misconstrued by a select few, which ultimately resulted in her being doxxed and subjected to death threats. Numerous individuals on Twitter appear to share this view.
J.K Rowling a bully?
JK Rowling likes to play the victim when in reality she's a giant bully. When people criticize her, she sends her legal team to threaten them with legal action and financial ruin to retract it and apologize. A billionaire is abusing the legal system to silence her critics. pic.twitter.com/bHGPuZQXK4
— Alejandra Caraballo (@Esqueer_) February 14, 2023
Netizens are stating that she is in fact a bully who threatens others with lawsuits if they tweeted against her. They claim that she is a billionaire that is using her wealth and power to silence those that dare criticise her.
People have been very publicly going after critics of Rowling, in some cases brutally, in many cases because she broadcasts even mild disagreement to her 14M followers and tags her critic for a good ol' pile-on.
You can't just vomit vitriol without consequences, indeed.
— ErisApparent (@ErisApparent) February 16, 2023
There were those that defended the author as you can’t really go against someone for having an opinion. But other netizens disagreed with this statement as she is a public figure and has millions of followers on Twitter.