Rowling hits back at hard-Left MP as trans row rages on
I don’t deserve shaming for speaking out, she says
J K Rowling last night rounded on a hard-Left Labour frontbencher who accused her of using her sexual abuse as a justification for discriminating against transgender people.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle sparked an outcry after he claimed the author’s disclosure was part of a ‘divide and rule’ tactic to undermine efforts to secure trans rights.
Yesterday, the Labour environment spokesman apologised ‘unreservedly’ for suggesting she was not acting in good faith when going public over her experience of domestic abuse.
But the Harry Potter writer accused the MP of siding with men’s rights activists who believe female trauma is ‘invented’ and ‘white noise’, and said the comments illustrated why so many people were ‘deeply concerned about Labour’s position on women’s rights’.
She said she had received thousands of emails thanking her for voicing her concerns about transgender issues.
Earlier this month, Miss Rowling revealed herself as an abuse victim when she voiced concerns over giving biological men self- identifying as women access to single-sex spaces. Her comments saw her hounded online.
She said her concerns were driven in part by abuse by her first husband, writing: ‘The scars left by violence and sexual assault don’t disappear... I pray my daughters never have the same reasons I do for hating sudden loud noises, or finding people behind me when I haven’t heard them approaching.’
But, writing in Tribune magazine in protest at reported Government plans to ditch reforms of the Gender Recognition
Act to allow self-identification, Mr Russell-Moyle said Miss Rowling’s comments were part of an effort by critics ‘cynically to undermine the rights of others’. The Brighton Kemptown MP wrote: ‘Trans people are no more likely to be rapists...
‘That’s why, despite J K Rowling’s hate towards them, hundreds of trans people wrote to complain to The Sun when it trivialised her domestic abuse on a recent front page.’
Mr Russell-Moyle apologised on Twitter and asked for his comments about Miss Rowling to be removed from the online version of his article.
Miss Rowling wrote on the social media site last night: ‘Today I discovered that I was accused of hate by Lloyd Russell-Moyle... He claimed I was “using” my experiences of sexual assault and domestic violence to “discriminate” against trans people.
‘When so-called leftists like Mr Russell-Moyle demand that we give up our hard won sex-based rights, they align themselves squarely with men’s rights activists. To both groups, female trauma is white noise, an irrelevance, or else exaggerated or invented.’ She added: ‘It isn’t hateful for women speak about their own experiences, nor do they deserve shaming for doing so.’