JK Rowling has accused transgender activists of “rewriting history” by dismissing the thousands of threats of murder, rape and violence she has suffered for publicly defending women’s sex-based rights as the “unsparing criticism” of “a few angry critics” (Mail, Telegraph).
Last week, The New York Times published a piece on transgender activists rethinking their “all-or-nothing” approach.
“We have to make it OK for someone to change their minds,” the article at one point quotes the Executive Director of Advocates for Transgender Equality, Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, as saying. “We cannot vilify them for not being on our side. No one wants to join that team.”
However, the article goes on sketch a revisionist portrait of the ‘gender wars’ in which the frenzied backlash against those such as the Harry Potter author who hold the gender-critical belief that sex is biological and immutable is described as “unsparing criticism”.
Having conceded that JK Rowling’s views may have prompted “a few angry critics” to post videos of themselves burning her books, the article claims that, for the most part, she has merely had to contend with a series of spirited but essentially scholarly accusations of “betraying real feminism”.
Now the celebrated author has hit back, reminding the paper that over the last few years she has been sent “thousands of threats of murder, rape and violence” by activists who believe that trans rights take precedence over those of biological women in every conceivable aspect of modern society.
Writing on X (formerly Twitter), the Edinburgh-based author said: “The rewriting of history begins.
“Opponents of gender ideology haven’t merely ‘endured unsparing criticism’. I haven’t simply been told I ‘betrayed real feminism’ or received a few book-burning videos.
“I’ve been sent thousands of threats of murder, rape and violence. A trans woman posted my family’s home address with a bomb-making guide.
“I could write a 20,0000-word essay on what the consequences have been to me and my family, and what we’ve endured is NOTHING compared to the harm done to others.”
JK Rowling went on to write that gender-critical activists have been “smeared and defamed” by standing up to a movement “that relies on threats of violence, ostracisation and guilt-by-association”.
“But many have lost their livelihoods. Some have been physically assaulted by trans activists. Female politicians have been forced to hire personal security on the advice of police.
“The news that one of the UK’s leading endocrinologists, Dr Hillary Cass, was advised not to travel by public transport for her own safety should shame everyone who let this insanity run amok.
“Lest we forget, gender apostates have been targeted for crimes such as doubting the evidential basis for transitioning children, for arguing for fair sport for women and girls, for wanting to retain single-sex spaces and services, especially for the most vulnerable, and for thinking it barbaric to lock in female prisoners with convicted male sex offenders.
Rowling wrote that the political landscape has shifted and those who have participated in aggressive trans activism “are waking up with a hell of a hangover”.
“They’ve started wondering whether calling Left-wing feminists who wanted all-female rape centres ‘Nazis’ was such a smart strategy.
“Maybe parents arguing that boys ought not to be robbing their daughters of sporting opportunities might, sort of, have a point?
“Possibly letting any man who says ‘I’m a woman’ into the locker room with twelve-year-old girls could have a downside, after all?
“Mealy-mouthed retconning of what has actually happened over the past ten years is predictable but will not stand.
The author added that a full understanding of the effect of gender ideology on individuals, society and politics “is still a long way off”. However, she added: “The receipts will make very ugly reading when that time comes, and there are far too many of them to sweep politely under the carpet.”
