The “Harry Potter” author slammed a newly enacted hate-crime law in Scotland in a series of posts on X in which she referred to transgender women as men.
J.K. Rowling shared a social media thread on Monday, the day a new Scottish hate-crime law took effect, that misgendered several transgender women and appeared to imply trans women have a penchant for sexual predation. On Tuesday, Scottish police announced they would not be investigating the “Harry Potter” author’s remarks as a crime, as some of Rowling’s critics had called for.
“We have received complaints in relation to the social media post,” a spokesperson for Police Scotland said in a statement. “The comments are not assessed to be criminal and no further action will be taken.”
Scotland’s new Hate Crime and Public Order Act criminalizes “stirring up hatred” against people based on their race, religion, disability, sexuality or gender identity.
You can speak for yourself in that regard. I work with, hangout with, donate to, and live with trans people. The issue is a very deep and real one to me because transphobia affects every aspect of my loved ones lives. On top of that: defending tranphobes actively helps and emboldens the right.
The right want nothing more than the ability to say and do whatever they want with impunity. I will call out bigoted acts every time because that’s part of combatting them. Not placating these ideas as if they’re kids that don’t know better.
Again, JK Rowling has never engaged with the trans community in good faith. She deserves literally nothing; and unless she has a gargantuan reversal of thoughts and actions then she can fuck off forever.
And you are definitely doing more than almost all of us, but I think my point still stands: consuming media that let’s us rage at bigots in Scotland probably has no positive impact on people within our own communities.
This woman was already canceled. The people who canceled her don’t get to keep making her a topic of discussion. The rest of us are trying to follow through on the banishment. Continuing to engage with her is hurting only you.
But that’s exactly my point: She wasn’t cancelled. She continues to make hand over fist in cash while maintaining her status as a billionaire and prolific writer. All while using her money and reputation to ruin trans people’s lives while crying as the victim.
If you’re tired of hearing about JK Rowling that’s valid. If I never heard of her again I’d be more than happy. But the point is that she continues to gain coverage/attention in her fight against trans rights with startlingly effective results. So long as trans people are being persecuted then in my opinion we can’t leave these things be. Because silence will only embolden those with these ways of thinking.
I apologize if I’ve been short with you. The last OP kept acting like they knew me or have any context for why I feel the way that I do. I’m very opinionated on the subject; but the people I love are affected by issues like this so I have to be.
Is she that prolific?
She just had a film series canceled for not being profitable, and I guess writes noir fiction under a pen name, where the hero is a trans detective? Has anybody ever read this book series?
Even the video game was largely only as successful as it was because they leveraged the backlash before release.
It feels like it has been a decade now since she has been relevant to anybody. The only media I see about her is her continued bigotry, which isn’t “new” s.
She’s a narcissist getting a kick out of getting every stupid thought she has going viral. We need to stop making it go viral.
Harry Potter is a big enough IP for her to ride that fame and money for the rest of her life. A lot of people will only ever know her through that and continue to hold reverence for her. That’s more what I was referring to in terms of prolific.
And ultimately her drivel will go viral regardless of if we want it to or not. Some billionaires have a habit of soaking up as much attention as possible. In my opinion it’s better to speak against it and hope she eventually disappears permanently. The alternative is say nothing and let her words fester and possibly infect more minds.
But she never will disappear completely, none of these people ever will.
At the end of the day, the bigot cruising the nearest strip to find a queer to kill was never set on that path by listening to the opinions of a woman long after she stopped writing the 1 thing she was good at.
I just wonder if she might be a lightning rod that steers our attention away from the forces that to send men down that path.
I think at this point we may be in general agreement with disagreements on specifics. I don’t want to make a billion posts and be overly semantic; so I’ll say I can generally agree with that.