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J.K. Rowling says she’ll never forgive “Harry Potter” actors for supporting trans people

JK Rowling
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Transphobic billionaire author J.K. Rowling has said that she won’t forgive Daniel Radcliffe or Emma Watson, two of the lead actors in the film adaptation of her Harry Potter book series, for supporting transgender rights.

Rowling’s comment came after she expressed her thoughts on the Cass Review, a flawed U.K. report that doubted the benefits of gender-affirming care for trans youth. Over 100 other studies contradict the review’s findings.

Rowling claimed that the review proved that “kids have been irreversibly harmed” by the complicity of “not just medics, but the celebrity mouthpieces, unquestioning media and cynical corporations.”

“Even if you don’t feel ashamed of cheerleading for what now looks like severe medical malpractice, even if you don’t want to accept that you might have been wrong, where’s your sense of self-preservation?” she asked. “The bandwagon you hopped on so gladly is hurtling towards a cliff.”

A fellow X user, named “Adam Harris #FarRightHooligan,” responded to Rowling’s post, writing, “Just waiting for Dan and Emma to give you a very public apology … safe in the knowledge that you will forgive them.”

Rowling replied, “Not safe, I’m afraid. Celebs who cozied 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 traumatized detransitioners and vulnerable women reliant on single sex spaces.”

Rowling has regularly repeated untrue transphobic talking points about people regretting their medical transitions and trans women threatening women and children.

A recent study found that 97% to 99% of people who have received such care express satisfaction about it. A 2015 survey from the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) found that only 3% of respondents had de-transitioned; some of them did so in response to transphobia.

Daniel Radcliffe, the British actor who played the titular boy wizard in the Harry Potter series, condemned Rowling’s attacks on trans women in June 2020.

“While Jo is unquestionably responsible for the course my life has taken,” Radcliffe wrote, “… Transgender women are women. Any statement to the contrary erases the identity and dignity of transgender people and goes against all advice given by professional health care associations who have far more expertise on this subject matter than either Jo or I.”

Radcliffe also expressed regret for the pain Rowling’s comments have caused fans of her massively popular children’s fantasy series.

That same year, Emma Watson, who plays the overachieving wizarding student Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter film series, stood up for transgender equality in a 2020 Vogue interview, saying that transphobia denies the humanity of trans people.

“Trans people are who they say they are and deserve to live their lives without being constantly questioned or told they aren’t who they say they are,” she wrote in a June 2020 tweet. “I want my trans followers to know that I and so many other people around the world see you, respect you and love you for who you are.”

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