J.K. Rowling



every time rowling tweets the first part of her obituary gets shorter and the second part gets longer I would say that some of you have not understood the books. The Death Eaters claimed, 'We have been made to live in secret, and now is our time, and any who stand in our way must be destroyed. If you disagree with us, you must die.' They demonised and dehumanised those who were not like them. I am fighting what I see as a powerful, insidious, misogynistic movement, that has gained huge purchase in very influential areas of society. I do not see this particular movement as either benign or powerless. Joanne Rowling, pen name J(ust) K(idding) Rowling and sometimes known as the male writer Robert Galbraith, is a British author, former billionaire, and prominent TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminist). Since becoming a vocal TERF, she has been known among some fans as "she who must not be named". She went from hailed author of the beloved Harry Potter series to a fallen hero who now spends her time concern trolling and defending transphobia as sacred and untouchable.

Harry Potter series
Harry's world says that drinking dead animal blood gives power, a satanic human sacrifice and Harry's powerful blood brings new life, demon possession is not spiritually dangerous, and that passing through fire, contacting the dead, and conversing with ghosts, others in the spirit world, and more, is normal and acceptable. Harry Potter, a series of seven (or so) fantasy novels by J.K. Rowling, relates the adventures of a teenage boy and his two best friends who attend a school of "witchcraft and wizardry", learning a whole range of magical skills and fighting Dark Magic and evil, and demonstrates how Alan Rickman got snubbed of another Oscar.

The series portrays Good triumphing over Evil. It became a literary and critical success; nevertheless, fundamentalist religious groups condemn it as a harmful work that will seduce children into the occult and witchcraft. In the United States (the so-called "great land of liberty") the books have become the most challenged of the 21st century. Fortunately for Harry Potter fans, magic and witchcraft are only a concern if you're stuck in the 17th century or living in Africa, Indonesia, or Papua New Guinea in the present century.

The response to the books represents an excellent example of modern-day fundamentalism and would-be authoritarianism, with numerous attempts to ban the books.

Commercialisation
The commercialisation of the Harry Potter series by capitalist industries, especially by Hollywood and the media, has been criticised. Scholar Jack Zipes critiqued the mass commercialisation and corporate hegemony behind the Harry Potter franchise, likening such hegemony to a form of cultural imperialism. In his Adornean analysis of Harry Potter's global brand, Zipes wrote, "It must conform to the standards of exception set by the mass media and promoted by the culture industry in general. To be a phenomenon means that a person or commodity must conform to the hegemonic groups that determine what makes up a phenomenon".

Themes
Scholars have subjected the Harry Potter novels to serious social scrutiny, with studies of the series' political intricacies performed by columnists, professors, and doctoral students alike. As of 2007, the catalog of the Library of Congress has recorded 21 volumes of criticism and interpretation, and at least seven master's dissertations and 17 doctoral theses have been devoted to the Harry Potter books. Seriously.

From the concepts of hierarchy and purity found in the relations between pure-blooded and muggle-born wizards to the struggle for House-Elf freedom, equality is a central theme of the books. It portrays dishonest and incompetent government and media and paints war as a great evil in which innocent people die. The school which Harry attends, Hogwarts, is multicultural, multiracial, and (seemingly) secular. Some critics have, however, called the books patronising and conservative, or sexist and neoconservative. This is odd since Rowling herself is a staunch Labour supporter (though was very critical of Jeremy Corbyn).

Rowling also outed Dumbledore, one of the stories' most important characters, saying "I like to think of him as gay." Notably, she did so not in the text of the books, but during a PR event after the release of the final novel. This must rank as one of the greatest achievements in having one's cake and eating it too since Rowling gets credit for standing up for LGBT recognition without damaging her book sales or outraging her readership in a world where gay central characters are still a rarity in mainstream literature and taboo in children's fiction. She later revealed herself to be a supporter of the TERF cause, though.

Unrelated controversies include comparisons to some older book series such as the Howl's Moving Castle and Wizard's Hall (The Worst Witch is the most commented-on), which have resulted in accusations of plagiarism, or (far worse) being derivative. The works feature frumpy and disaster-prone protagonists, a couple of loyal best-friends (one book-smart and rational, one street-smart and slightly problematic), a blond and rich but cowardly and rather inefficient rival, a scary and seemingly unfair potions-teacher with hidden depths, a childish headmaster with a penchant for candy, and a big bad-guy who desires the destruction of the protagonist after their fateful first encounter. Whether this is more than just a re-hashing of tropes is a matter of debate. Some fans, especially older ones, also believe that Rowling's later additions to the franchise are inferior to the original seven novels, with some outright comparing her work to that of George Lucas on the later Star Wars films, though one could hardly throw a rock within geek culture without running into similar complaints regarding one particular franchise or another.

Rowling is a Christian herself. The final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, contains an epigraph from the Gospels, Harry's parents' gravestones display another Bible quote and Rowling also has a scene where Harry  sacrifices his own life and is resurrected and then proceeds to  save everybody.

Slavery apologism, AIDSwolves of London, and other nasties
One of the most understated parts of the book series is the portrayal of slavery and abolitionism. One of the main characters, Hermione Granger, seeks to abolish slavery and gets mocked for it. The enslaved group, the house elves, are portrayed as comical relief and themselves show hostility to the only slave who sought freedom. Thankfully, this portrayal of slavery is almost completely removed from the films, with only Dobby (who only appears in the adaptation of Chamber of Secrets (where he is freed from the Malfoys) and Deathly Hallows (where he dies)) and Kreacher (where any mentions of Harry owning him are scrapped), likely as a result of the screenwriters noticing "Hey, this part's kinda weird."

Another point of contention is the portrayal of lycanthropy as a possible AIDS metaphor, considering that the character Remus Lupin contracted the disease by being  assaulted by an adult man when he was a child. Rowling attempted to retract this analogy or obfuscate, but the results were mixed.

Antisemitism?
JK Rowling portrays goblins as greedy bankers with long noses, which some critics charged as antisemitic. Jon Stewart has poked fun at it (later denying that he seriously accused her of antisemitism). Antisemitic depictions of bankers/finance is rather routine, however, and it is far from the first time goblins have been portrayed as any of these. Rowling may have simply built upon what she had grown up on rather than anything intentional, but it does help support the broader argument that she is out of touch concerning literary tropes involving cultures that aren't her own.

Fundamentalist response
There have been dozens of legal cases concerning copyright infringement, libel, and breach of contract involving the Potterworld. Flocks of religious leaders (plus Jack Chick) have fulminated against the series.

Note however that many moderate and some evangelical Christians have spoken out in favour of the books. While the Catholic Church has no official position, many Cardinals oppose the books. It seems that once people make the distinction between fiction and real belief in magic, they can see past any objections to demons and witchcraft to realise what the series supports.

Islamic fundamentalists have denounced the series. The Islamic preacher Sheik Feiz Muhammad regarded the books and films as "Satanic" and claimed they were introducing young children to pagan rituals (such as the drinking of goat's blood) which Islam forbids. The esteemed Sheik also criticised Muslim parents who allow their children to watch the films or read the books, claiming they were being irresponsible.

Furthermore, the drinking of dead animal blood, Satanic human sacrifice, demonic possession, etc. described in the quote at the top of the page, are actions practised by the book's Wilhelm-screaming antagonist, Lord Voldemort, the murderer of Harry's parents; the books do not exactly present Voldemort as a morally praiseworthy figure.

As to the claims that the books promote witchcraft by teaching impressionable children to cast spells, well… we hate to break it to you, but the spells described in the books don't work in real life, even if you wave a piece of carved wood in the air.

Satirical news source The Onion, in its inimitable style, once ran a spoof of the fundamentalists' claims, saying that children were converting to Satanism because of the books. As if to prove their idiocy to anyone yet unconvinced, the fundies took the article as proof that they were right.

The mask starts to slip
The first indication of Rowling's developing transphobia was her liking of a tweet promoting a Medium piece positioning single-sex spaces as a issue in October 2017. She would later confirm that she began "reading books, blogs and scientific papers" related to gender around this time. Some have pointed to a scene in her 2014 novel The Cuckoo's Calling as providing an earlier warning. This scene involves the hero Cormoran Strike warning a trans woman that going to prison "won't be fun for you, Pippa [...] not pre-op." This would read as just another terrible joke about prison rape if it weren't for the weird implication that vaginoplasty would make the experience "fun" for Pippa. Which is exactly the kind of thought someone might have if their brain was already half-cooked by believing in autogynephilia.

In March 2018, Rowling liked a tweet by @racybearhold that declared, "Men in dresses get brocialist solidarity I never had. That's misogyny!" Rowling's representative issued an apologetic statement claiming that she had suffered a "clumsy and middle-aged moment" and accidentally liked the tweet by "holding her phone incorrectly." However, a few months later in September 2018, Rowling liked a tweet by Janice Turner promoting her Times op-ed on trans prisoners. This tweet carried the tagline "No fox has a right to live in a henhouse, even if he identifies as a hen." Trans author Owl Fisher sarcastically replied, "Did you have another 'middle-aged' moment and accidentally like a clearly transphobic article, @jk_rowling?" Rowling ignored Fisher but liked a subsequent tweet by Turner rebuking "the thought police [who] patrol a woman author's every 'like' for wrongthink."

In June 2019 — Pride month, no less — Rowling was revealed to be following nearly a dozen transphobic Twitter accounts. Twitter user @Persenche looked through the nearly 670 people Rowling was following at the time and concluded that 11 of them were anti-trans activists (including Julie Bindel and the notoriously vicious ). Rowling's representative told PinkNews that "J.K. Rowling won't be commenting" and that she "follows a wide range of people she finds interesting or thought-provoking."

On December 19, 2019, Rowling officially came out as a TERF with a tweet supporting Maya Forstater, an anti-trans activist who had recently launched a wrongful dismissal suit against her former employer. Rowling characterised Forstater's case as an example of a woman being forced out of her job simply for "stating that sex is real." The reality is that Forstater was working on a contract that her employer did not renew when it expired. Forstater's co-workers also went to management because they found that her frequent espousal of anti-trans views (at one point she blasted out 150 transphobic tweets in a single week) was creating a hostile work environment.

Rowling's full-throated support of Forstater drew stronger backlash than any of her previous slip-ups. It is commonly thought of as the moment that she officially came out as a TERF. Nonetheless, some held out hope at the time that Rowling was simply misinformed, and sought to educate her rather than condemn her. GLAAD offered to "facilitate an off-the-record discussion" between Rowling and "members of the trans community" but she refused.

Crowning as queen of the TERFs
She then doubled down in June 2020, when she affirmed biological determinism, claiming "If sex isn't real, there's no same-sex attraction. If sex isn't real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isn't hate to speak the truth." But trans activists are not trying to erase the concept of sex or stop people talking about "women", they are just saying the concept of "woman" includes trans women. Her views were condemned by some of the actors of her film series and some of her fans. Emma Watson, who portrayed character Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter films, tweeted: "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."

The author also engaged in petty antics such as deleting a tweet praising Stephen King after he supported trans women and participating in an open letter whinging about cancel culture with James Bennet, who resigned as opinion editor of The New York Times after printing an op-ed by Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton which called for Black Lives Matter protesters to be suppressed by the military.

Rowling promoted a TERF e-store called "Wild Womyn Workshop" where they sell merchandise for "♀️women♀️" that help whoever's still supporting JK Rowling to proclaim how much of a cunt they are. The products are "great, original designed products, carefully hand-crafted with care and love" featuring careless slogans carelessly mass-produced with carelessness and seething incomprehensible hatred like "Sorry about your dick bro" on a trans flag, "trans men are my sisters" on a trans flag, "f*ck your pronouns", and, unfortunately, more.

Rowling claimed to have been "doxxed" after three protestors shared a photo of themselves holding signs with trans-rights slogans outside the gate of her Edinburgh mansion in November 2021. However, this property was already known to the public as a listed building featured on tourist sites, and has been featured on Harry Potter-themed fan tours of Edinburgh without comment from Rowling. The mansion also ends up in the news whenever Rowling pisses off her neighbours. In 2012, she earned their ire by building two 40-foot-high, "Hogwarts-style" treehouses in her garden. She created "traffic chaos" by closing down the road multiple times between 2015 to 2022 to allow her 30-foot-tall hedges to be trimmed. The Edinburgh Council warned her that the overgrown hedges were blocking streetlights in 2019. Rowling also owns a country estate called, a centuries-old castle with its own Wikipedia article. She seems to expect total privacy and anonymity despite buying and living in famous landmarks.

She has opposed reform of gender recognition legislation in Scotland that aimed to make the process "less traumatic and inhumane for trans people" (according to Scotland's First Minister), because it would remove some of the obstacles to trans women being recognised as women. She also tweeted that politically correct zealots would rename International Women's Day: "Apparently, under a Labour government, today will become We Who Must Not Be Named Day".

In April 2022, she attended a lunch with a number of other prominent TERFs at the River Cafe in Hammersmith, London. Other guests included Rosie Duffield, Helen Joyce, Julie Bindel, Kathleen Stock, Maya Forstater, and LGB Alliance co-founders. Joyce, author of Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality, has referred to trans people as "damaged", saying "every one of those people is someone who needs special accommodation in a sane world where we re-acknowledge the truth of sex"; she has also called for immediate action "reducing or keeping down the number of people who transition". Duffield has repeatedly called trans women "male-bodied people". Duffield also called for trans people to be banned from "refuges, women’s prisons, single-sex wards and school toilets".

On May 29, 2022, she expressed support for Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull (also known as Posie Parker) and implied that she would financially support her. Posie Parker gained notoriety for organizing an anti-transgender event that attracted the support of neo-nazis. Parker is also known to have openly wished death upon innocent transgender people, and has admitted to lying about being a lesbian to dishonestly bolster her political argument against a gay man. Rowling has also taken it upon herself to speak for lesbians and gay people in general despite not being a lesbian.

On June 16, 2023, she expressed support for a member of the Three Percenters movement, a far right militia that are considered a terrorist group in Canada.

Anti-trans personality cult
A bizarre personality cult has emerged in TERFdom since Rowling joined its ranks. The phrase "I Love J. K. Rowling" has become one of the most recognisable transphobic dog whistles. Far-right anti-trans activist Kellie-Jaye Keen-Minshull has famously plastered the slogan on billboards and merchandise. Rowling has claimed that 90% of her fans agree with her transphobia but are "afraid to speak up" due to "fear for their jobs and even for their personal safety."

One prominent example of this cult of personality is the mythical status that Rowling's 2019 #IStandWithMaya tweet has attained within so-called gender-critical circles. Disgraced screenwriter turned professional transphobe Graham Linehan proclaimed the tweet's anniversary of December 19 to be "Gender Critical Coming Out Day" in 2021. By 2022, the hateful holiday had come to be known as "TERFmas," and Rowling personally wished a follower "Merry Terfmas." In 2020, transphobes began circulating a conspiracy theory that Twitter was stealing likes from the hallowed tweet, supposedly as part of a sinister trans-activist plot to artificially lower the like count. The conspiracy theory originated in Twitter failing to display a red heart on older tweets as a result of a glitch or deliberate process. Allison Bailey warned Jack Dorsey in November 2020 that he would inevitably need to "defend twitter against accusations of rampant manipulation of data" due to the supposed missing likes. declared in March 2021 that she was "putting my 'like' on record as it won't stick despite originally liking ages ago - sinister much...?" At one point there was even a Twitter account (@RelikeReminder) that posted daily reminders to relike Rowling's tweet.

TERFs in the UK began holding so-called #JKRLadiesLunchs in 2022. These events were inspired by Rowling inviting nearly every prominent TERF in the UK to a "boozy" lunch at a posh London restaurant that April. The luncheon took place as thousands marched on Downing Street against a plan to exclude trans people from a proposed ban on conversion therapy. TERFs predictably decided that critics were merely upset over women gathering and having fun rather than at a rich transphobe throwing a party celebrating transphobia while trans people were literally fighting for their rights. On April 16, 2022, a Welsh TERF group shared a photo of their lunch date, commenting, "Only fair we had drinks & lunch! Oops do women need permission for that @jk_rowling?" Rowling replied, "It's ok, I'll get your permit postdated for you. I've got a contact in the Women's Lunch Permissions Office."

This isn't the only time that Rowling has directly encouraged the obsessive fawning of transphobic fans. In April 2022, an anonymous Scottish TERF claimed she had quit a book club after its members "roundly attacked and smeared" Rowling, tweeting that she'd founded her own club called JKR's Barmy Book Army. Rowling caught wind of this and vowed to personally attend a meeting of the club. She made good on her promise in June.

Less comical is how transphobes have taken aim at former Harry Potter cast members for speaking out in support of trans rights. Helen Joyce tweeted in 2020 that it "must hurt being insulted and betrayed by two young people [Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson] whose careers she made." In late 2021 Piers Morgan lambasted the stars as "ungrateful little twerps" more interested in "pathetic virtue-signalling" than defending the right of the "woman who made them all rich and famous" to her views. Judith Woods branded Radcliffe "the world's most ungrateful man" in the Telegraph after he reaffirmed his support of LGBT rights in a November 2022 interview. Woods accused Radcliffe of being a "33-year-old man child" (but also a "petulant pup") seeking to "once again [...] cancel his creator." Graham Linehan labelled Radcliffe an "ungrateful, traitorous, talentless misogynist" in an April 2023 tweet. Watson set off a wave of abusive online comments by making a mildly trans-supportive quip at the BAFTAs in early 2022. Trolls variously accused her of being an "ungrateful woke brat" and of "biting the hand that feeds [her]." The framing of the actors' denunciation of Rowling's transphobia as "betrayal" and "ungratefulness" has drawn sharp criticism. Cartoonist Barry Deutsch wondered how playing Rowling's characters could possibly mean "ow[ing] her undying fealty to the extent of never disagreeing with her in public." LibDem councillor Matt Severn similarly observed that a "contract signed by an 11 year old" does not impose a "legal duty of lifelong fealty and/or silence." Twitter user @HimeOnion opined that transphobes were "literally pulling the 'I made you!' bullcrap abusive parents do."

Gay rights and homophobia
In 2007, at a fan event a few months after the release of the last Harry Potter book, Rowling revealed that she had "always thought of Dumbledore as gay." The revelation drew praise from fans and the LGBT community at the time, but predictably angered the religious right. Since then, many fans have taken a critical view of Rowling's outing of Dumbledore, calling out her apparent refusal to make him explicitly gay in the text. The Fantastic Beasts prequels in particular have drawn fire for portraying Dumbledore's relationship with Grindelwald as ambiguous.

On March 12, 2022, Rowling tweeted "Big love to you xxx" to Caroline Farrow, an anti-gay and anti-trans CitizenGo activist who once harassed a trans woman so intensely that a High Court judge granted an injunction against her, ordering her to stop the harassment. Farrow once expressed outrage over "deviant" gay penguins, and accused Disneyland of engaging in "LGBT indoctrination" of children. It is not known whether Rowling was aware of this history of homophobia by Farrow, but she has never retracted her support or apologized after Farrow's views were widely reported. Farrow is also a Kiwi Farms user; police had received a complaint of her alleged activity on the site in 2022.

On March 18, 2022, South Wales Police’s LGBT+ Network established a kiosk with information about their efforts to combat anti-LGBT crimes and attitudes. The kiosk was set up near Bute Park where Doctor Gary Jenkins, who was bisexual, was beaten, robbed, subjected to homophobic abuse, and then murdered. Prosecutor Dafydd Enoch said that the crime was motivated by "greed, homophobia, and a straightforward liking for violence", and that it was "torture, pure and simple". When anti-LGBT Twitter users began to mock the kiosk as "virtue signalling", the South Wales Police Twitter account responded by saying "Good evening, supporting our communities is not virtual signalling and we make no apologies for doing so." On March 21, 2022, Rowling added to the pile-on by tweeting "Virtual signalling. Like virtue signalling, but for people who aren’t really arsed. #VirtualSignalling".

On November 21, 2022, the day after five people were murdered in a mass shooting at a gay bar in Colorado, Rowling liked a tweet by far-right personality Libs of TikTok, which mocked another Twitter user for criticizing Kanye West amidst his anti-semitism and white supremacy controversy. Libs of TikTok's well-known, relentless anti-LGBT fearmongering has been credited with setting off a wave of violent threats against children's hospitals and drag events.

Forgetting that fans used to like her
In the third episode of The Witch Trials of JK Rowling, a "fair and balanced" podcast produced in early 2023 by ex-Westboro Baptist Church member for, Rowling recounted an incident circa 2000 (she stated she was still writing Goblet of Fire at the time) when she visited a fan-run chatroom using a "random name." As retold by Rowling in the podcast, she expressed a "very bland" Potter-related opinion in the chat and was "clearly an idiot who [didn't] know anything," but nonetheless "got rounded on by users who told me in no uncertain terms to get out."

Rowling claimed this was an example of cyberbullying and "authoritarian behaviour":

This account of her first bumbling encounter with the online fandom of her books differs starkly from ones given in the past. In March 2004, she posted an update to her official site announcing that "a few weeks ago I did something I've never done before and took a stroll into a Harry Potter chat room: specifically, MuggleNet's chat room." She jokingly lamented that "nobody was remotely interested in my theories about what's going to happen in book seven," and that, after failing to "impart any gems of wisdom," she moved on to a discussion of . This spawned a rumour that she had used the handle Squidward in the MuggleNet chatroom, causing fans on the site to adopt this username in jest for some time afterward.

Rowling similarly spoke of this incident as a funny story in a 2005 interview with Melissa Anelli and Emerson Spartz of the fansite The Leaky Cauldron:

Cross-sex blood transfusions
On March 27, 2023, Rowling tweeted the false claim that it was "recently discovered" that "transfusions of blood from the opposite sex had poorer outcomes, including fatalities." Scientists pointed out that the single study cited by Rowling (Alshalani et al. 2022) had a small sample size and only found increased mortality in transfusions from AFAB patients to AMAB patients. It has also been noted that the study's conclusions fail to account for the confounding factor of male-assigned people generally having poorer ICU outcomes than female-assigned ones. The two largest studies have both found no link between donor sex and recipient survival. However, another large study showed a small increase of mortality in transfusions to AMAB patients from AFAB donors with a history of pregnancy, but none in transfusions to AMAB patients from never-pregnant AFAB donors. It has been posited that this may be due to antibodies created through adverse autoimmune responses sometimes triggered by pregnancy. The NHS disallows whole-blood transfusions from those who have been pregnant to newborn babies.

In short: most evidence suggests that AFAB blood recipients aren't put at greater risk by receiving blood from AMAB donors, but mother-of-three Rowling's blood could kill a trans woman recipient according to one study. As a resident of the "mad cow"-stricken UK between 1980 and 1996, she would be deferred as a blood donor in Canada and several European countries, and would've been deferred in Australia, Israel, and the United States until recently. This isn't to say that British mums-of-three shouldn't donate blood (it saves lives!). It's just that cognitive biases tend to heighten the perception of risk related to Others while diminishing the perception of risk concerning oneself.

Rowling's fearmongering over cross-sex transfusions is reminiscent of past moral panics related to blood transfusions. In 1960, the white supremacist publication The American Nationalist raged over the "thousands of critically ill [white] patients" supposedly "made sicker, or even killed" by "tainted Negro blood transfusions," an "evil practice" it said was tolerated in the "sweet name of racial 'equality' and 'democracy'." At the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis and ensuing in the 1980s, newspapers in the UK regularly carried lurid stories about the "Gay Plague", "Gay Menace, and "Gay Killer Bug." Rowling's alarmist claims about "trans blood" are unsurprising in light of her widely-criticised use of lycanthropy as a AIDS metaphor in the Potter series.

Link between autism and gender variance
In her 2020 TERF manifesto, Rowing claimed that there as been a "huge explosion in young women wishing to transition", and that "autistic girls are hugely overrepresented in their numbers." Research has shown an increase in transmasculine people seeking gender-affirming care since the early 2000s. Studies have also found that trans and gender-variant people are more likely to autistic The problem is that Rowling has taken evidence-supported claims and twisted them to fit the preconceived conclusion that vulnerable "girls" are being hoodwinked into thinking they're boys by social pressure or Big Gender.

Evan Urquhart of Salon has linked the upward trend in transmasculine transitions to increased public awareness, as the few media reports of "successfully transitioned trans people" in past decades were "almost universally trans women, not trans men." He has also pointed to the early history of gender-related therapy primarily seeking to "cure homosexuality and effeminacy in boys" due to to the greater social stigma attached to gender non-conformity in male-assigned children. Meanwhile, various explanations have been proposed for the increased prevalence of gender variance in autistics, including prenatal hormone exposure, fixation on special interests, and rejection of social norms. Bryony White of The Atlantic has cautioned against conflating correlation with causation by presuming that the "need to transition is a result of [autistic trans youth's] autism." Autistic self-advocates have further highlighted how objections to autistic youth transitioning are rooted in ablelist attitudes and ideas. A writer for disability-rights blog Cripple Media cited it as an example of autistics being "talked over, gaslit, and denied [their] right to self-determine," a product of the belief that they are "children who need to be looked after at all times, not adults and adolescences [sic] who get to make choices about [their] own lives." Rowling implicitly endorsed such thinking by approvingly tweeting an an anonymous TERF's fear that defining gender by "an internal sense of identity" would make it impossible to ascertain in people with "certain mental handicaps or learning disabilities" or those "unable to develop language skills or [...] communicate at all". She did it more explicitly with a April 2022 praising David Bell for his "deep concern at high numbers of autistic children [...] presenting at gender clinics."

Ableism and transphobia don't just contribute to social stigma, but can adversely impact health, freedom, and equality. Autistic trans people have reported having their access to gender-affirming care blocked or delayed by clinicians. Several U.S. states restricted or banned gender-affirming care for people with autism, ADHD, and other psychological conditions in 2023. A man in the UK sued the NHS to try to prevent his 21-year-old autistic daughter from undergoing gender-confirmation surgery in June 2023.

On June 22, 2023, Rowling shared a tweet by far-right activist Christopher F. Rufo making the pseudoscientific claim that puberty blockers "shut down a child's hypothalamus." The tweet linked to Rufo's interview of an anonymous doctor in the Manhattan Institute quarterly City Journal, who claimed that this imaginary side effect means "shut[ting] down what makes us human" since the hypothalamus contains a "divine spark," and is the "system" that allows people to "stand in awe of the beauty of a sunset" and be moved by music. Rowling uncritically tweeted this metaphysical horseshit despite railing against gender identity as an "unfalsifiable concept" involving "unprovable essences" on June 21.

Stigmatisation of disability and mental health
In July 2020, Rowling liked a tweet by the transmedicalist @Manaxium characterising hormone replacement therapy as "the new antidepressants", something @Manaxium saw as emblematic of the "pure laziness" of people who "would rather medicate than put in the time and effort to heal people's mind. [sic]"  This prompted another Twitter user to wonder if anyone had foreseen Rowling one day "pivoting to supporting those who call people who take mental health medication 'lazy'." Rowling quoted-tweeted this user with an 11-part response accusing them of "[lying] about what I believe about mental health medication" and "misrepresent[ing] the views of a trans woman for whom I feel nothing but admiration and solidarity." Rowling underscored her own "mental health challenges, which include OCD, depression and anxiety," stating that she had "taken anti-depressants in the past" and found them helpful. She claimed that, like the "many health professionals" she couldn't name, she was merely concerned that struggling youngsters were "being shunted towards hormones and surgery" by Big Trans.

On March 6, 2022, genderqueer trans-inclusive feminist writer posted a Twitter thread revealing they had suffered a breakdown after "twelve years of relentless trolling." In this thread, Penny mentioned that they had been diagnosed with CPTSD and highlighted nasty reviews of their recent book by The Times, The Observer, and The Critic. The following day, Julie Bindel, author of the Critic piece, put out a tweet claiming that Penny was alleging the reviews "caused her complex PTSD." Shortly thereafter, Bindel mockingly tweeted that she had "diagnosed [herself] with Complex PTSD" after a man "opened a packet of Cheesy Wotsits" on the train, prompting a reply of "thoughts and prayers, Julie" from Rowling. In response, Penny reminded Bindel that she knew "full well that these reviews didn't *cause* the CPTSD [they] experience," as they had personally disclosed the sources of their trauma to Bindel "back when [the pair] were trying to build bridges." Penny's reply to Rowling was gentler, pointing out that it was their "mental health history" Bindel was mocking in the tweet "along with everyone else who has experienced CPTSD," and hoping that the author didn't think it was acceptable to "shame" people in this manner.

Rowling came under fire for her portrayal of chronic illness and the disabled community in her 2022 Cormoran Strike novel The Ink Black Heart. The book features a description of the Tumblr bio of "disabled artist" character Kea Niven: "CF – fibromyalgia - POTs – allodynia – I need more ." A Spiral Dance, a disability-focused blog, held that Rowling "couldn't even get the details of chronic illnesses correct," citing her incorrect rendering of "" and use of the non-standard acronym "CF" to mean chronic fatigue syndrome. Author Gretchen Felker-Martin wrote that Rowling is "deeply mean-spirited when it comes to anyone non-normative, especially the fat and the disabled," finding The Ink Black Heart to be "particularly savage" in its "bottomless contempt for 'spoonies' and other disabled communities." She contrasted the sympathetic portrayal of "brusque, manly Strike, whose disability is the result of a war wound" with the portrayal of chronically-ill characters as "malingerers, abusers, and emotional manipulators." Kristina Lucien of the blog The Once and Future Cripple echoed this view, commenting that it is "made clear to the readers that [Kea] is the wrong kind of disabled" as "she claims her identity openly," in comparison to amputee Strike trying to minimise his disability by declining to use a cane despite his pain. Psychologist Alicia Hendley declared the book to be "threaded throughout" with "dismissal and lazy stereotyping" of people with invisible illnesses. In Hendley's view, Rowling distinguishes "people who have valid, visible, 'real' illness/disabilities" and want to to "'get on with it', to live their lives 'despite' their difficulties, to even excel" from the spoonie who "not only wallows, but defines themselves by (and perhaps even revels in) being ill."

Cormoran Strike
Since finishing the Harry Potter series, Rowling has focused on a new series, adult detective novels featuring ex-military policeman Cormoran Strike and his female assistant Robin Ellacott. These are published under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. Some have also been adapted for television by the BBC and HBO.

Initially the books seemed unexceptional genre works, but that changed when Rowling started to inject her increasingly strange beliefs about trans people and other issues. At first it was subtle; book 2, The Silk Worm features two trans characters who are portrayed in a relatively sympathetic fashion although Shrike is rude to them and threatens one with rape. Book 3, Career of Evil, is about an online community of people who wish to be disabled and have limbs amputated to meet their desire. is a real condition, but to some people it felt like Rowling was using these people who wished to be disabled as a way to attack or mock trans people, whom she viewed as similarly deluded.

Controversy increased with book 5: Troubled Blood (2020) features a killer who disguises himself as a woman. Naturally, this was read in the light of Rowling's hostility to trans people and belief that trans women are all men dressing as women to attack cis women. It also contains a lot of criticism of 21st century feminism for being sex-positive, pro-porn, holding SlutWalks to oppose slut shaming, etc.

This was followed by book 6, Ink Black Heart, which is about a cartoonist who is murdered after antagonising woke online trolls with remarks about a hermaphrodite worm that are considered transphobic. Rowling insists any resemblance to her life is coincidental; most people don't believe her.

There is also a curious coincidence that the pseudonym Robert Galbraith is very similar to the name of Robert Galbraith Heath, a controversial psychiatrist who was very hostile to LGBT people and pioneered conversion therapy for gay men, including the use of electric shocks. Rowling said she was unaware of the existence of Heath when she chose the pseudonym and she had long been fond of the name "Galbraith"; she chose the name in 2013, while the psychiatrist first came to public attention in 2016, so this at least is almost certainly a coincidence.

Political views
Because bigotry is probably the thing I detest most. All forms of intolerance, the whole idea of “that which is different from me is necessary evil.” I really like to explore the idea that difference is equal and good. But there's another idea that I like to explore, too. Oppressed groups are not, generally speaking, people who stand firmly together – no, sadly, they kind of subdivide among themselves and fight like hell. That's human nature, so that's what you see here. This world of wizards and witches, they're already ostracized, and then within themselves, they've formed a loathsome pecking order.

Though she has been seen as conservative in hiding due to her association with outdated gender norms and reactionary opposition to transgender rights, she has not always been as such.

In a 2000 interview, she described herself as left-wing. As early as 2002, Rowling claimed that one of her biggest writing influences had been, whom she described as a "self-taught socialist" (Mitford had also been a member of the Communist Party of the United States until 1958). She also donated to Labour and was openly supportive of the British welfare state in the late 2000s. In April 2010, she wrote a Single Mother's Manifesto criticising Tory austerity and David Cameron.

However, she was very critical of Jeremy Corbyn, a remnant of Labour's Old Left, and mocked his (honestly mediocre and half-assed) stance on Brexit. This was driven by fear that it would lead to a repeat of, which resulted in the Tories, under Margaret Thatcher, winning re-election in 1983 and control over national politics until 1997.

Rowling expressed her opposition to Scottish independence at the time of the 2014 independence referendum, donating to the anti-independence group Better Together. This didn't endear her to some Scottish Nationalists, and she received online abuse, which caused her to double down in her opposition to independence, accusing Scottish nationalists of bigotry; she also called out the "blood and soil" ethnonationalists Siol nan Gaidheal, who are certainly bigots but whose membership is so small they can hardly be considered representative of anything.

Rowling told off Vladimir Putin when he had the gall to compare Western sanctions against Russia to Rowling being "canceled" for her TERF views. In apparent response to her stance, a group of Russian trolls pranked her, convincing her that she was in a video conference with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Roughly fifteen minutes of strange nonsense ensued, with Rowling agreeing to "look into" changing Harry Potter's scar due to its similarity to the Russian.