J.K. Rowling has hit out at the double standards of friends who have rushed to trash her views on transgender rights.
Writing in The Times of London newspaper, Rowling said she had been surprised by colleagues who had condemned her views in public, only for them to email her privately to check they remained friends.
“People who’d worked with me rushed to distance themselves from me or to add their public condemnation of my blasphemous views,” she wrote.
“In truth, the condemnation of certain individuals was far less surprising to me than the fact that some of them then emailed me, or sent messages through third parties, to check that we were still friends.”
Rowling added: “Those appalled by my position often fail to grasp how truly despicable I find theirs. I’ve watched ‘no debate’ become the slogan of those who once posed as defenders of free speech. I’ve witnessed supposedly progressive men arguing that women don’t exist as an observable biological class and don’t deserve biology-based rights.”
The author did not name names, but she has had public disagreements with those who worked with her on the Harry Potter movies in recent years.
She reignited her war of words with Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson as recently as last month following the publication of a landmark UK review into gender identity services for children and young people delivered by the National Health Service.
Rowling posted on X (formerly Twitter): “Celebs who cosied up to a movement intent on eroding women’s hard-won rights and who used their platforms to cheer on the transitioning of minors can save their apologies for traumatised detransitioners and vulnerable women reliant on single sex spaces.”
Radcliffe, one of the first Harry Potter cast members to raise his voice in defense of the trans community, told The Atlantic last month that he was saddened by Rowling’s stance.
“I do look at the person that I met, the times that we met, and the books that she wrote, and the world that she created, and all of that is to me so deeply empathic.”
Writing in The Times, Rowling said she had no regrets: “Ultimately, I spoke up because I’d have felt ashamed for the rest of my days if I hadn’t. If I feel any regret at all, it’s that I didn’t speak far sooner.”