Rowling reported to police after ‘misgendering’ trans presenter

JK ROWLING has been reported to the police by trans broadcaster India Willoughby over “misgendering”.

The Harry Potter author became embroiled in an online row with India Willoughby, in which she referred to the transgender newsreader, Loose Women host and former Big Brother contestant as a “man” and with “he” pronouns.

Willoughby, who was born male and underwent gender reassignment surgery in 2015, made a complaint to police over Rowling’s posts on X, formerly Twitter, claiming she had “definitely committed a crime”.

The broadcaster, who holds a gender recognition certificate, claimed to be “legally a woman”, although Rowling pointed out there was no law which compelled her to “pretend” that Willoughby was a woman.

Northumbria Police confirmed that it had received a complaint and said it was waiting to speak to Willoughby further.

Downing Street declined to comment on the specifics of the dispute, but pointed to comments from the Prime Minister in which he said “definitions of men and women should not be controversial”. And in October, Rishi Sunak insisted it was “common sense” to say that “a man is a man and a woman is a woman”.

Rowling, who has regularly spoken out on the issue of gender identity, said that should she be approached by police, she would explain that “in my view, India is a classic example of the male narcissist who lives in a state of perpetual rage that he can’t compel women to take him at his own valuation”.

She said: “Some time ago, lawyers advised me that not only did I have a clearly winnable case against India Willoughby for defamation, but that India’s obsessive targeting of me over the past few years may meet the legal threshold for harassment. I ignored this advice because I couldn’t be bothered giving India the publicity he so clearly craves.

“No law compels anyone to pretend to believe that India is a woman.”

Willoughby claimed to have been targeted by other accounts with “some of the worst abuse I’ve ever seen on social media” as a result of Rowling’s “trigger”.

The 58-year-old claimed to have “contacted Northumbria Constabulary” and said: “I don’t know if it’s going to be treated as a hate crime, malicious communications, but it’s a cut-and-dry offence as far as I’m concerned.” A spokesman for Northumbria Police said: “On March 4, we received a complaint about a post on social media. We are currently awaiting to speak to the complainant further.”

A Number 10 spokesman declined to comment on “individuals or cases” and said it would be up to police how to respond.

He added: “More generally, the Prime Minister has spoken about definitions, that those should not be controversial.”