J.K. Rowling posts 700-word diatribe trying to justify her transphobia

After recent rants opposing a transgender-inclusive hate crime law and implying that trans people are criminals who don’t need legal protections, billionaire Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling recently published a 709-word social media post explaining her anti-trans views and what she has decided defines a woman.

Her April 6 post post ends with two tired transphobic tropes: that trans women are a violent threat to cis women and gender-affirming care harms children. Neither one is true, but her post still provides insight into the views that inform Rowling’s bigotry.

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Rowling starts by defining a woman as “a human being who belongs to the sex class that produces large gametes” — that is, egg cells as opposed to sperm cells. Rowling says it makes no difference if a woman has ever been pregnant, birthed a child, or able to produce viable eggs, “She is a woman and just as much a woman as the others,” she writes.

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She then says that a woman is still a woman no matter their sexual orientation, skin color, and behavior. “Womanhood isn’t a mystical state of being, nor is it measured by how well one apes sex stereotypes,” she continues. Rowling then says that cis women are born with biological differences that subject them to societal misogyny and violence.

“Women are probably subject to certain experiences because of our female bodies, including different forms of oppression, depending on the cultures in which we live,” she writes. “When trans activists say ‘I thought you didn’t want to be defined by your biology,’ it’s a feeble and transparent attempt at linguistic sleight of hand. Women don’t want to be limited, exploited, punished, or subject to other unjust treatment because of their biology, but our being female is indeed defined by our biology… We are likely to have had experiences men don’t and can’t, because we belong to our sex class.”

She then writes that “Some people feel strongly that they should have been, or wish to be seen as, the sex class into which they weren’t born,” adding, “Gender dysphoria is a real and very painful condition and I feel nothing but sympathy for anyone who suffers from it. I want them to be free to dress and present themselves however they like and I want them to have exactly the same rights as every other citizen regarding housing, employment and personal safety.”

She then repeats a common transphobic trope: “I do not, however, believe that surgeries and cross-sex hormones literally turn a person into the opposite sex, nor do I believe in the idea that each of us has a nebulous ‘gender identity’ that may or might not match our sexed bodies. I believe the ideology that preaches those tenets has caused, and continues to cause, very real harm to vulnerable people.”

She doesn’t name which “vulnerable people” she means, but she could be referring to children — implying that trans identities are a threat to kids — or she could mean adults who have received gender-affirming care. A recent study found that 97% to 99% of people who have received such care express satisfaction about it. Almost all major American medical associations say that such care is essential and lifesaving for trans youth.

Nevertheless, Rowling then moves onto a second transphobic trope, writing that people assigned a male gender at birth (namely trans women) may “have exactly the same pattern of criminality” as other men as well as “speed and strength” that make them a threat to women.

“I am strongly against women’s and girls’ rights and protections being dismantled to accommodate trans-identified men,” she writes. “I think the safety and rights of girls and women are more important than those men’s desire for validation.”

Here, Rowling used the common transphobic argument that granting trans people rights somehow puts cis women in danger. In reality, trans folks are the ones in danger due to dangerous rhetoric like Rowling’s. The Williams Institute found that trans people are over four times more likely than cisgender people to be victims of violent crime.

You’ve asked me several questions on this thread and accused me of avoiding answering, so here goes.

I believe a woman is a human being who belongs to the sex class that produces large gametes. It’s irrelevant whether or not her gametes have ever been fertilised, whether or not… pic.twitter.com/X6mbdJ0YVm

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) April 6, 2024

Rowling’s second-wave trans-exclusionary radical feminism

Rowling’ has a long history of transphobia. In 2019, she first revealed her anti-trans views by tweeting her support for an anti-transgender activist. Since then, she regularly spreads fearmongering misinformation about how trans women would potentially commit assaults if allowed in women’s restrooms, has written long essays denigrating trans women, repeats baseless conspiracy theories about kids being coerced into transitioning, and promotes transphobic merchandise vendors on social media.

Additionally, Rowling has come out in support of conversion therapy for trans people and claimed that almost everyone agrees with her, even as famous people that she has worked with condemned her words. She also published a book about a man who wears dresses in order to kill women. She recently donated £70,000 (about $89,000) to a transphobic Scottish women’s organization to oppose trans-inclusive governmental policies.

Rowling claims her position on transgender issues has been “profoundly” misunderstood, but her position is easy to understand in the light of historic feminism.

The 58-year-old author’s transphobia aligns somewhat with second-wave feminist activism from the late 1960s to the late ’80s. Second-wave feminists highlighted misogynist inequalities created by male-dominated spaces and championed the need for “women’s only” safe spaces for escaping domestic violence and marital rape, such as women’s shelters and support groups.

Second-wave feminists, like Rowling, are wary about men rolling back women’s hard-won visibility, civil rights, and social spaces. These feminists also believe that womanhood is an inborn and largely biological characteristic and that anyone who wasn’t born as a cis female is essentially a man. Second-wave feminists have been criticized for this view and for mostly focusing on white middle- and upper-class concerns while ignoring the intersectionality of oppression facing LGBTQ+ women and women of color (a focus of third-wave feminists).

Rowling’s transphobia has only grown more unhinged over time. She is online friends with anti-trans activists like Helen Joyce, who has called for a “reduction” in the number of trans people. Rowling has also publicly tweeted her support for anti-gay, anti-trans activist Caroline Farrow. 

Recently, Rowling was accused of engaging in a form of Holocaust denial for questioning the persecution of trans people under the Nazi regime, a fact which has been well documented.