Another day, another J.K. Rowling social media rant. This time, the controversial Harry Potter author has addressed some of the backlash her anti-trans views have received from the stars of the movie adaptations in the past.
Rowling's posts were in response to the release of an independent review of gender identity services for children and young people delivered by Britain’s National Health Service. The report notes that health care providers and patients “have no good evidence on the long-term outcomes of interventions to manage gender-related distress.”
The writer was not happy with the amount of backlash to these findings, which she has taken as vindication of her views.
"If I sound angry, it's because I'm bloody angry," she said in one of her posts. "I read Cass this morning and my anger's been mounting all day. Kids have been irreversibly harmed, and thousands are complicit, not just medics, but the celebrity mouthpieces, unquestioning media and cynical corporations."
Those "celebrity mouthpieces" include Harry Potter stars Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson, who have made their positions on the transgender debate very clear in the past.
“Just waiting for Dan and Emma to give you a very public apology … safe in the knowledge that you will forgive them,” one of Rowling's followers wrote in the replies. “Not safe, I’m afraid," she responded. "Celebs who cosied 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 traumatised detransitioners and vulnerable women reliant on single sex spaces.”
It's probably safe to say that any relationship that may have existed between Rowling and the Potter stars has been irrevocably damaged at this point. You can check out Rowling's full thread along with a link to the review below.
Last year, Warner Bros. Discovery officially announced that a new Harry Potter series is currently being developed for the HBO Max streaming service. The show will fully reboot the popular movies with an entirely new cast, and the plan is to re-adapt the source novels with each season dedicated to one of the seven books.
The news received a somewhat mixed response, and not just because so many fans feel that the films adapted the story perfectly well. The fact that Rowling is involved has come in for a lot of backlash, but HBO Chairman Casey Bloys dismissed concerns as a "very online conversation" at the time.