Emma joins JK critics in transgender blog storm
FIRST HARRY, THEN NEWT, NOW HERMIONE..
EMMA Watson has become the latest star to speak out in support of transgender people, after Harry Potter author JK Rowling sparked a row by commenting on the issue. The actress, who played Hermione Granger in the Potter film series, joined Daniel Radcliffe and Eddie Redmayne – who plays Newt Scamander in the films based on Rowling’s Fantastic Beasts stories – in publicly disagreeing with Rowling, 54. Watson, 30, addressed her transgender followers in a string of posts on Twitter. She said: “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. “I want my trans followers to know that I and so many other people around the world see you, respect you and love you for who you are.” Watson urged her followers to donate to the Mermaids charity, which helps transgender
BY ALEX GREEN children, and the feminist fund Mama Cash.
Last weekend, Rowling took issue with a headline on an online article discussing “people who menstruate”, saying: “I’m sure there used to be a word for those people.
“Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?”
And in December last year she backed a researcher who was sacked for tweeting that transgender people cannot change their biological sex.
Critics accused her of being transphobic, a claim Rowling strongly denies.
On Wednesday, Rowling shared a post on her website, saying she was moved to speak for five reasons, including her interest in “education and safeguarding” and “freedom of speech”.
Explaining her final reason, she wrote: “I’ve been in the public eye for 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 also feel protective of my daughter from my first marriage. I didn’t want to claim sole ownership of a story that belongs to her, too.
“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’ve been slurred as bigots for having concerns around single-sex spaces.”
In the blog post, Rowling also said she was motivated to address transgender issues because of an increasingly misogynistic society, saying: “Between the backlash against feminism and a porn-saturated online culture, things have got significantly worse for girls.”