Rowling ‘wouldn’t forgive Harry Potter stars’

Harry Potter author JK Rowling has criticised celebrities who “used their platforms to cheer on” the transitioning of children, suggesting she would not forgive the film franchise’s stars even if they apologised.

Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson have both previously spoken out in support of transgender people following comments made by the 58-year-old author.

Her rebuke of the pair came amid a string of posts on X following the Cass Review, which found that a lack of research and evidence on the use of puberty blockers and hormones had let children down.

Scotland-based Rowling responded on Wednesday to a post suggesting Radcliffe and Watson would be “safe in the knowledge” she would forgive them if they offered her a public apology.

But she replied saying: “Not safe, I’m afraid. Celebs who cosied up to a movement intent on eroding women’s hard-won rights and who used their platforms to cheer on the transitioning of minors can save their apologies for traumatised detransitioners and vulnerable women reliant on single-sex spaces.”

Former prime minister Boris Johnson has been among her defenders. He called Rowling a “modern saint” who had been “demonised” at a Conservative conference in Canada on Wednesday – while saying the majority of people agree with her views.

Rowling had previously welcomed the review by Dr Hilary Cass, which said young people had been caught up in a “stormy social discourse” and gender care was an area of “remarkably weak evidence”.

“Even if you don’t feel ashamed of cheerleading for what now looks like severe medical malpractice, even if you don’t want to accept that you might have been wrong, where’s your sense of self-preservation?” Rowling wrote, in posts on Wednesday. “The bandwagon you hopped on so gladly is hurtling towards a cliff.”

She said the report was “not a triumph, it’s the laying bare of a tragedy”.

Since December 2019, Rowling has hit the headlines for her views on transgender issues. She has always strongly denied being transphobic and has been criticised by fans for her social media posts.

In June 2020, Radcliffe, who had played Harry Potter throughout the eight films, put out a statement through the LGBT suicide prevention charity The Trevor Project saying “transgender women are women” and anything to the contrary “erases the identity and dignity” of people.

He said Rowling was “unquestionably responsible for the course my life has taken”but said he felt “compelled to say something”.watson, who played Hermione Granger, and Rupert Grint, known for the role of Ron Weasley, in the Harry Potter films; as well as Eddie Redmayne, who stars in Rowling’s Fantastic Beasts films, also spoke up.

Watson said in Twitter posts in June 2020: “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.”

The bandwagon you hopped on so gladly is hurtling towards a cliff JK Rowling