A timeline of JK Rowling's anti-trans shift
The 'Harry Potter' author's comments about the trans community are ongoing


Theara Coleman, The Week US
J.K. Rowling's name has become synonymous with two things: her legendary "Harry Potter" book series and her penchant for striking out against the transgender community. The acclaimed author has transformed her reputation by making disparaging remarks about transgender people and those she perceives as transgender. The last few years have seen her cast a dark cloud over any Hogwarts-adjacent projects, with many of the film series' actors speaking out against her. Here's everything you need to know.
2018: Rowling 'likes' an anti-trans tweet, says it was an accident
An early instance of Rowling facing allegations of transphobia came in March 2018, when she was slammed for "liking" a tweet that referred to trans women as "men in dresses." But the author's spokesperson told Pink News this was purely an accident. "I'm afraid J.K. Rowling had a clumsy and middle-aged moment and this is not the first time she has favorited by holding her phone incorrectly," the spokesperson said.
Rowling later said she "absent-mindedly" liked the tweet when she meant to screenshot it because she had taken "an interest in gender identity and transgender matters."
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2019: Rowling follows 'self-professed transphobe' on X, then called Twitter
Rowling faced backlash after following YouTuber Magdalen Berns on X, then called Twitter. Berns was a "self-professed transphobe" who made videos with titles like "there is no such thing as a lesbian with a penis," Pink News said, adding that she was also following other anti-trans accounts. Rowling later admitted she followed Berns, an "immensely brave young feminist and lesbian who was dying of an aggressive brain tumour," because she "wanted to contact her directly."
2019: Rowling stands with researcher who lost contract over anti-trans statements
Months later, Rowling came under fire again for coming to the defense of Maya Forstater. At the time, the researcher had been waging an employment discrimination battle, as her contract with a think tank wasn't renewed after she made a series of anti-trans statements. These statements included that people should not be "compelled to play along with literal delusions like 'transwomen are women,'" and she referred to a gender-fluid person as a "man who likes to dress in women's clothes."
In a tweet, Rowling stood with Forstater: "Dress however you please," she said on X. "Live your best life in peace and security. But force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real?"
2020: Rowling likes another controversial tweet
Rowling was again critiqued for reportedly liking another anti-trans tweet, in this case one that misgendered psychotherapist and photographer Alex Drummond and described her as "an adult human male who claims to be a lesbian (yes, he's kept his dangling bits and skipped the hormones)."
2020: Rowling's tweets spark backlash
The controversy escalated significantly in June 2020 after Rowling tweeted about an article with the headline, "Creating a more equal post-COVID-19 world for people who menstruate."
"'People who menstruate.' I'm sure there used to be a word for those people," Rowling said in a tweet. "Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?"
The next month, Rowling landed herself back in the spotlight with a thread defending "liking" a tweet that compared hormone prescriptions and antidepressants. Health professionals are "concerned that young people struggling with their mental health are being shunted towards hormones and surgery when this may not be in their best interests," Rowling said on X in her defense. She compared it to a "new kind of conversion therapy for young gay people," who are "being set on a lifelong path of medicalization that may result in the loss of their fertility and/or full sexual function."
2020: Rowling publishes essay defending her stance as actors speak out
Rowling published an over 3,600-word essay on her website about why she had spoken out on "sex and gender issues." In it, Rowling said she is "worried about the new trans activism" and "the huge explosion in young women wishing to transition and also about the increasing numbers who seem to be detransitioning."
She went on to slam those who said that "women must accept and admit that there is no material difference between trans women and themselves." Rowling revealed she is a survivor of domestic abuse and sexual assault and said this led her to sympathize with women who had "concerns around single-sex spaces." She argued against throwing "open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he's a woman."
Actors from the "Harry Potter" film franchise began to speak out against Rowling. In a post on the Trevor Project's website, "Harry Potter" star Daniel Radcliffe condemned Rowling's tweets. "Transgender women are women," he said. 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 said he was "deeply sorry" to those who "feel that their experience of the books has been tarnished or diminished" because of Rowling's statements.
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," said Hermione actor Emma Watson.
"Fantastic Beasts" star Eddie Redmayne also told Variety he disagrees with Rowling's comments. "Trans women are women, trans men are men and non-binary identities are valid," he said.
2020: Rowling returns award after being condemned for her statements
After Rowling received the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Ripple of Hope Award in 2019, the human rights group's president released a statement the following year expressing "profound disappointment" that the author "has chosen to use her remarkable gifts to create a narrative that diminishes the identity of trans and nonbinary people."
As a result, Rowling announced in August that she would return the award. The group's statement "incorrectly implied that I was transphobic, and that I am responsible for harm to trans people," Rowling said. As a donor to LGBT charities and a "supporter of trans people's right to live free of persecution, I absolutely refute the accusation that I hate trans people or wish them ill."
2020: Critics suggest Rowling's new novel is anti-trans
Rowling published a new novel titled "Troubled Blood" under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. The book, which revolved around a male serial killer who dresses like a woman, was accused of being anti-trans.
It was disappointing that Rowling was propagating a "long-standing and hurtful presentation of trans women as a threat," a spokesperson for Mermaids, a charity that supports trans children, said to CNN. Rowling, meanwhile, said the book "was loosely based" on real killers.
2021: Rowling criticizes police for letting rape suspects identify as women
In another controversial tweet, Rowling shared a Times of London piece about the "'absurdity' of police logging rapists as women," which said police in Scotland would "record rapes by offenders with male genitalia as being committed by a woman if the attacker 'identifies as a female.'"
Rowling evoked "1984" by tweeting, "War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. The Penised Individual Who Raped You Is a Woman."
2022: Rowling criticizes bill that would make legally changing gender easier
Rowling condemned a bill in Scotland that would make it easier for a trans person to legally change their gender, Variety said. It would remove the requirement that applicants must be "medically diagnosed as having gender dysphoria" and "go through a minimum two year process and be aged over 18," lowering the age to 16, The Times said. On X, Rowling said the bill would "harm the most vulnerable women in society: those seeking help after male violence/rape and incarcerated women."
2022: Quidditch distances itself from Rowling
Quidditch, the actual sport inspired by the fictional sport within the "Harry Potter" universe, announced it was changing its name to Quadball. There were a number of reasons for this, but one was that Rowling had "increasingly come under scrutiny for her anti-trans positions," the International Quidditch Association said.
2022: Rowling publishes a book about a character being accused of transphobia
Rowling released another book in 2022 that drew scrutiny in light of her anti-trans controversies. Again published under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, the book, "The Ink Black Heart," follows the creator of a YouTube cartoon, Edie Ledwell, who is accused of being transphobic. "The book takes a clear aim at 'social justice warriors' and suggests that Ledwell was a victim of a masterfully plotted, politically fueled hate campaign against her," Rolling Stone said.
2022: Rowling responds to calls to boycott 'Hogwarts Legacy'
After trans YouTuber Jessie Earl tweeted that supporting "Hogwarts Legacy" would be "harmful to trans people," Rowling responded, comparing this stance to book burning. "Deeply disappointed @jessiegender doesn't realise purethink is incompatible with owning ANYTHING connected with me, in ANY form," Rowling said. "The truly righteous wouldn't just burn their books and movies but the local library, anything with an owl on it and their own pet dogs." Two days later, Earl said she was bombarded with comments that included "calls for my death, insinuations that I'm a pedophile, dehumanizing comments about my supposed masculine features."
After "Hogwarts Legacy" debuted in 2023, reviewers from major outlets wrestled with the implications of purchasing a game that would financially benefit Rowling. Reviews, however, were largely positive.
2024: Rowling targets Scotland's new hate crime law
When Scotland's new Hate Crime and Public Order Act went into effect in April, Rowling tried to bait them into arresting her with posts online. The law criminalizes "stirring up hatred" against people based on their race, religion, disability, sexuality or gender identity. By passing the law, Scotland "placed higher value on the feelings of men performing their idea of femaleness, however misogynistically or opportunistically, than on the rights and freedoms of actual women and girls," Rowling said in the thread on X. If anything she wrote qualified as an offense under the new law, "I look forward to being arrested when I return to the birthplace of the Scottish Enlightenment," Rowling said.
2024: Rowling named in cyberbullying lawsuit
Shortly after winning the gold at the Olympics, Algerian boxer Imane Khelif filed a criminal complaint with French authorities alleging "acts of aggravated cyber harassment" that named Rowling and other high-profile figures, like tech billionaire Elon Musk, said a Variety exclusive. Khelif was targeted online for harassment over false claims about her gender after her opponent, Italian boxer Angela Carini, dropped out of their bout seconds into the match, declaring she "never felt a punch like this."
Rowling posted a photo from the fight, accusing Khelif of being a man who was "enjoying the distress of a woman he's just punched in the head."
2024: Rowling responds to Donald Trump's win
In response to comments on X accusing her of being far-right and of celebrating President-elect Donald Trump's recent win, Rowling referred back to an earlier post where she said the U.K. left had "f**ked up monumentally on gender identity ideology." Women like her "aren't and never have been far-right," she said in the post. "We simply want the left to wake the hell up because we're watching it do its utmost to alienate people it used to represent." She clarified that she was not saying that "Trump's win was down to the gender stuff," as she is "not an American voter, so can't judge." However, she pointed out that the Labour Party won the last U.K. election, and they have "embraced gender identity ideology whole-heartedly."
2024: Rowling attacks another athlete
Rowling joined a chorus of naysayers attacking Barbra Banda, a cisgender woman, after she was selected for the BBC's Women's Footballer of the Year. "Presumably, the BBC decided this was more time efficient than going door to door to spit directly in women's faces," the author said in a retweet of an article about Banda winning the award.
2024: Rowling insists trans kids do not exist
The author's latest public tiff was in response to an online critic who called out her "hateful focus" on trans kids as "hurtful and unnecessary." Rowling clapped back, saying there "are no trans kids" and that no child is "born in the wrong body," in a post on X. She went on to call out the adults around the kids, including parents, teachers and surgeons, that encouraged what she deemed harmful rhetoric about gender identity. These adults are "prepared to sacrifice the health of minors to bolster your belief in an ideology that will end up wreaking more harm than lobotomies and false memory syndrome combined," she said.
2025: Rowling celebrates U.K. Supreme Court ruling
In April, the United Kingdom's Supreme Court unanimously passed a ruling that limited the definition of a woman to be based on "biological sex" under Britain's Equality Act, excluding trans women from being protected from discrimination. In response to the ruling, Rowling gloated in several X posts celebrating "terfs" and referring to the ruling as "TERF VE Day," a "play on V-E Day, the formal end of World War II and Nazi occupation in Europe," said USA Today. She capped off the thread with a photo of herself drinking a cocktail and smoking a cigar, captioned "I love it when a plan comes together."
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Brendan worked as a culture writer at The Week from 2018 to 2023, covering the entertainment industry, including film reviews, television recaps, awards season, the box office, major movie franchises and Hollywood gossip. He has written about film and television for outlets including Bloody Disgusting, Showbiz Cheat Sheet, Heavy and The Celebrity Cafe.
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