Munroe Bergdorf: ‘Cancelling’ JK Rowling won’t fix transphobia

Model and activist Munroe Bergdorf rejoined L’oréal Paris on 9 June as a consultant on its UK Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Board. This after she was dropped by the brand in 2017 for posting about racism. As well as rehiring her, the beauty brand announced it will make donations of €25,000 (£22,000) to Mermaids, a charity supporting gendervariant and transgender youth in the UK, and to UK Black Pride, and has expressed regret for how the situation was handled.

The reconciliation is the latest example of how the Black Lives Matter protests are forcing companies to reassess their policies. But in the same week as it felt like huge progress had been made in communities coming together in solidarity, a tweet from Harry Potter author JK Rowling was criticised as being transphobic, sparking calls for her books to be boycotted. Here, Munroe explains how she thinks we move forward…

I’M NOT SOMEBODY who holds grudges. If I can find a solution, I will. Honestly, though, I never thought L’oréal and I would see eye to eye because the situation had been so volatile. At the same time, I never thought we’d be in a position today where more and more white people are getting to grips with the realities of modern-day racism like they are, so it’s safe to say I’m pleasantly surprised all round.

Kudos to L’oréal for asking me to join its board, because it takes strength of character to hold your hands up and say, ‘I got this wrong.’ I really hope other brands take this opportunity to get their house in order. I get asked by brands all the time what they can do to be more inclusive and it really is as simple as hiring a diverse team.

I’m excited to be back at L’oréal, being a voice for Black, trans and queer people, because my community is the most important thing to me. To be able to bring our concerns to the table feels refreshing when it has so rarely been the case before, which is how mistakes happen.

I’m looking forward to seeing diversity being celebrated and bringing in the perspectives of marginalised people, since it is glaringly obvious there are huge disparities between the experiences of different races. I’m just glad people are listening now.

However, it has been rather an intense few days, as JK Rowling also chose last week to tweet comments that many trans people have found offensive. Sharing an article, she questioned the phrase ‘people who menstruate’. ‘I’m sure there used to be a word for those people,’ she tweeted to her 14.5 million followers. ‘Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?’ she wrote.

It felt like she was insulting the lived experience of trans people. Rowling wrote about a magical world that celebrated children who were different, but these comments feel as though she is denying trans people the right to feel real. It’s such a shame because she touched so many people with her stories. My first thoughts when I read her tweet were to worry for trans children.

Trans people are already marginalised and these words can cause serious harm. It’s dangerous when we consider how more than one in four (27%) trans young people have attempted to take their own lives and almost nine in 10 (89%) have thought about it. Black trans women in particular are dying at an alarming rate; we’ve got so many marginalised aspects to our identities that this reduces our life expectancy and impacts our mental health, access to employment and access to healthcare.

Being Black and trans means people like me face double the stigma, so for Rowling to tweet this in the midst of the protests and Pride month is spectacularly insensitive timing. Saying that, I don’t think she – or anyone else – should be ‘cancelled’. If you cancel someone, where do they go? You risk them going on to become radicalised.

Instead, we need to move into a period of accountability, but it can’t always be up to marginalised people to call these things out. Thankfully, Eddie Redmayne, Emma Watson and Daniel Radcliffe, who starred in the Fantastic Beasts and Harry Potter films, posted their unease with her comments on social media.

Everything happening right now is linked; it’s challenging the marginalisation of oppressed and vulnerable people. In the same way white people are pledging to become better allies and are realising racism is a problem with white society, cis-allies are joining us in fighting for trans rights.

We stand a far better chance of dismantling racism and transphobia when we come together as a society. Recent events have proved we can do that. Now, I hope more brands will follow L’oréal’s lead in trying to become more inclusive.