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<\/p>\nJK Rowling has vowed to keep speaking out and financially supporting women with legal cases in the face of “trans activism”, as she told how she has faced “an avalanche of death, rape and torture threats” in recent years.<\/p>\n
The Harry Potter author said she felt “shocked and disgusted” at what she described as “large numbers of women” who had “spent the last few years vilifying members of their own sex for fighting to retain their hard-won rights and single-sex spaces”.<\/p>\n
Publishing an essay on the topic on Wednesday, she argued that current “trans activism” is “elitist to its core” and affects mainly women who are not in positions of privilege.<\/p>\n
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She hit out at “wealthy women who repost the vogueish mantras while sitting in dressing rooms guarded by private security guards” as well as “headline-hungry female politicians”.<\/p>\n
Harry Potter stars Emma Watson, Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint have previously distanced themselves from Rowling’s views.<\/p>\n
Last year, Rowling suggested Watson, who played Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter eight-part film series, had “so little experience of real life she\u2019s ignorant of how ignorant she is”.<\/p>\n
Rowling added in September 2025: “I\u2019d be astounded if she\u2019s been in a high street changing room since childhood. Her ‘public bathroom\u2019 is single occupancy and comes with a security man standing guard outside the door.”<\/p>\n
More recently, the author\u2019s views have been met with a wave of protests and boycotts by trans rights activists targeting Harry Potter-themed events and locations.<\/p>\n
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\nProtesters at the Palace Theatre in London last week<\/p>\n
Several protesters rushed the red carpet ahead of the gala performance of Harry Potter And The Cursed Child at the Palace Theatre in London.<\/p>\n
Rowling said her latest piece this week is an update to her 2020 essay on the subject in which she had told how she was partly motivated to speak out because of her experience of abuse and sexual assault.<\/p>\n
The writer strongly denies being transphobic, stating that “without question” there are “vulnerable trans people”.<\/p>\n
But she added: “The current, dominant strain of trans activism bears no resemblance whatsoever to the great social justice movements of the twentieth century.”<\/p>\n
Rowling said: “Of course, all men aren\u2019t rapists, voyeurs or flashers, but enough are to make safeguarding necessary. That\u2019s why women and girls want separate changing rooms and public bathrooms.<\/p>\n
“That\u2019s why women need male-free spaces when seeking to recover their sense of self and safety after rape.<\/p>\n
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\nHarry Potter stars Rupert Grint, Emma Watson and Daniel Radcliffe<\/p>\n
“Not because we hate trans people, not because we want them dead, not because we want them somehow eradicated from existence, but because women and girls have specific issues and needs that men do not, even if they\u2019re calling themselves women and even if they\u2019ve taken cross-sex hormones.”<\/p>\n
She said the sexual violence support centre she founded had been “defamed” by Amnesty International which had, in a now-withdrawn briefing, included it in a list of organisations it labelled “anti-rights”.<\/p>\n
Beira\u2019s Place was established in Edinburgh in 2022 by Rowling to provide women-only support for women who have experienced sexual violence.<\/p>\n
In her essay, Rowling wrote: “It\u2019s true, of course, that trans activism doesn\u2019t impact all women negatively. In fact, the more privileged you are, the less it tends to affect you, and the more it might benefit you.<\/p>\n
“Aside from an avalanche of death, rape and torture threats, it hasn\u2019t noticeably affected my life. Nor does it hurt wealthy women who repost the vogueish mantras while sitting in dressing rooms guarded by private security guards.<\/p>\n
“It doesn\u2019t hurt women in the upper echelons of media, publishing and academia, who don\u2019t need a changing room at work and who feel a snobbish disdain for working class women who don\u2019t want to strip off in front of heterosexual males who\u2019ve \u2018identified\u2019 into the women\u2019s changing room.<\/p>\n
“Trans activism doesn\u2019t hurt headline-hungry female politicians whose attitude to women\u2019s rights is \u2018whatever is good for me personally\u2019. On the contrary, trans activism has been good for those women. It\u2019s fashionable, and keeps them popular with their progressive tribe, and costs them, personally, absolutely nothing.”<\/p>\n
She claimed that “large numbers of women who\u2019ve never been poor, who\u2019ve never worked the kind of job where they\u2019d be vulnerable to predatory men and who\u2019ve 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”.<\/p>\n
Rowling added: “I freely confess that I feel an extra layer of abhorrence for any woman who claims to be a feminist while doing it.<\/p>\n
“And so I\u2019ll continue to speak out, continue to use my money to help women who otherwise couldn\u2019t afford to go to court, and continue to ensure that women in my area can still access female-delivered, female-centred support after rape.”<\/p>\n
Source: Press Association<\/p>\n