JK Rowling: Why I might have tried to transition
AUTHOR JK Rowling has said she might have transitioned her sexuality if she had been born decades later than she was.
The Harry Potter writer, who has been accused of transphobia, said she would have felt tempted to “escape womanhood”.
It came as she hit back at criticism over her stance on transgender people – and revealed she had been a victim of sexual assault and domestic abuse.
Ms Rowling, 54, said: “If I’d been born 30 years later I too might have tried to transition.The allure of escaping womanhood would have been huge. I struggled with severe OCD as a teenager.
Sympathy
“If I’d found community and sympathy online that I couldn’t find in my immediate environment, I believe I could have been persuaded to turn myself into the son my father had openly said he’d have preferred.”
The writer was criticised after making a controversial comment last weekend about menstruation, two years after she also liked a tweet which referred to transgender people as “men in dresses”.
She sparked fury among the trans community and social media users as she reacted to an article entitled “Opinion: Creating a more equal post Covid-19 world for people who menstruate.” The award-winning writer told her 14.5million followers: “People who menstruate?
“I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out.Wumben?Wimpund? Woomud?”
But after being accused of transphobia – including criticism by Harry Potter film star Daniel Radcliffe – the author yesterday again took to her blog to defend her position.
She wrote: “I’ve been in the public eye now for over 20 years and have never talked publicly about being a domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor. This isn’t because I’m ashamed those things happened to me, but because they’re traumatic to revisit.
“I’m mentioning these things now not in an attempt to garner sympathy, but out of solidarity with the huge numbers of women who have histories like mine, who have been slurred as bigots for havingconcerns around singlesex spaces.”
The author did not reveal who was responsible for the abuse.
The writer denied claims of transphobia, adding she “respects every trans person’s right to live any way that feels authentic”.