JK calls in police as trans activists leak her address
Harry Potter writer hits back over ‘intimidation’
HARRY Potter author JK Rowling called in police after her address was leaked by trans activists who turned up outside her home and shared a photo of it online.
Miss Rowling, 56, revealed that she has received so many death threats over her views on transgender issues that she ‘could paper the house with them’.
She believes she has been targeted due to her views on gender and her support for other women who have faced criticism from the trans community for similar views.
Last year, she penned a lengthy blog post explaining her views in which she expressed concern over allowing trans people to use single-sex spaces.
Yesterday, on social media, Miss Rowling said: ‘Last Friday, my family’s address was posted on Twitter by three activist actors who took pictures of themselves in front of our house, carefully positioning themselves
‘Campaigns of intimidation’
to ensure that our address was visible.’ She added that she has ‘watched, appalled’ at the treatment of women including Nationalist MP Joanna Cherry, feminist writer Julie Bindel and philosopher Kathleen Stock by trans activists over the past few years.
Miss Rowling said they ‘have been subject to campaigns of intimidation which range from being hounded on social media, the targeting of their employers, all the way up to doxing and direct threats of violence, including rape’.
Doxing is an act of seeking out private and personal information about people and maliciously publishing it online. She said: ‘None of these women are protected in the way I am. They and their families have been put into a state of fear and distress for no other reason than that they refuse to uncritically accept that the sociopolitical concept of gender identity should replace that of sex.’
Regarding the incident last week, Miss Rowling, who has denied she is transphobic, added: ‘I have to assume [they] thought doxing me would intimidate me out of speaking up for women’s sex-based rights.
‘They should have reflected on the fact that I’ve now received so many death threats I could paper the house with them and I haven’t stopped speaking out.’
It is understood no criminality has been established at this stage. A Police Scotland spokesman said: ‘We are aware of this incident and police inquiries are ongoing.’
Miss Rowling last night declined to make any further comment.
But the three activists who posed for the photograph outside her home said that they had removed the post after receiving abuse online.
Holly Stars, Georgia Frost and Richard Energy, who were identified by the author, deleted their Twitter accounts in the aftermath. In a statement on Miss Stars’s social media, the three said: ‘While we stand by the photo, since posting it we have received an overwhelming amount of serious and threatening transphobic messages so have decided to take the photo down.’
Miss Stars is a drag queen with her own Amazon Prime series. Energy is a drag king and comedian while Miss Frost is an actress who has appeared in BBC productions including Casualty.
Downing Street yesterday criticised the targeting of Miss Rowling. The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: ‘I don’t think any individual should be targeted in that way.’