History of the Controversy

In December 2019, J. K. Rowling shared her support of Maya Forstater. Forstater worked as a tax expert at a think tank called the Center for Global Development. In 2019, she was in the news for her following Tweets:

(1) She claimed that one cannot change their biological sex. Specifically, she said that she believes trans women holding certificates that acknowledge their transgender identity cannot describe themselves as women.

(2) She posted a series of Tweets that questioned the UK government’s plans to allow people to declare their own gender

(3) She claimed that trans women who use single-sex spaces are the same as a man being in women’s spaces. She deemed this to be illiberal and a violation of women’s rights to privacy. Additionally, she likens this to forcing Jewish people to eat pork.

In light of these tweets, her employer chose not to renew her contract because the employer thought that her views might violate the dignity of trans customers or might create “an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment.”

J. K. Rowling claimed that Forstater’s dismissal was an instance of trans activism “forcing women out of their jobs.” 6 months after the Forstater incident, JKR took to Twitter again to mock the term “people who menstruate.” In an opinion piece on Devex, there was a discussion of how COVID-19 had affected global menstrual health and hygiene for people who menstruated. JKR Tweeted in response by saying: “‘People who menstruate.’ I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?” (To learn more about why there is an attempt to de-gender menstruation, click here and/or here.) After these events, people started to question whether J.K. Rowling was transphobic.

Forstater considers herself to be a feminist campaigner. Some feminists adopt an exclusionary feminist view, in which their feminism excludes specific groups of women. An ableist feminist would exclude disabled women from their considerations. A white feminist, which is a historically predominant form, only considers the well-being of white women. Forstater is considered to be a trans-exclusionary (or gender-critical) feminist, which excludes trans women from consideration. It is often the case that these feminists find the existence of someone who is assigned-male-at-birth in single-gendered spaces to be threatening. For these feminists, trans rights are a win for men. This is also the view JKR adopts to defend herself against transphobic comments in her essay. After her Tweets supporting Forstater and mocking inclusive terms, she was accused of being a trans-exclusionary radical feminist (TERF). To defend herself, she wrote a full essay, which focused on the sentiment that ‘she was trying to protect women from men’.  These types of so-called feminists look at cases where cismen have entered these spaces to assault women. Since they see trans women as men, they fear that a similar threat might be present when trans women are in these single-sex spaces. They fear trans people and assume that their trans identity makes them predatory criminals. In 2023, JKR tweeted the following: "Deeply amused by those telling me I've lost their admiration due to the disrespect I show violent,
duplicitous rapists. I shall file your lost admiration
carefully in the box where I keep my missing f****s."

In light of this, it is interesting to consider this study that concluded that there was four times more likelihood of violent attacks against trans people than cisgender people. 

In 2018, Scotland passed a bill called Gender Representation on Public Boards Act, which required public boards to have at least 50% women in non-executive member positions. However, their use of the term ‘women’ to be trans-inclusive: any trans woman who has a Gender Recognition Certificate would be included in the 50% women required in the public boards. In 2024, it was reported that JKR donated £70,000 to an anti-trans group, which fights for having the legal definition of ‘women’ to be trans-exclusionary and limited to ciswomen. The claim behind this is that having a trans-inclusive legal definition would impact women’s rights and endanger (cis)women in single-sex spaces.

In 2019-2020, Alison Bailey sued Stonewall Equality Ltd. (the largest LGBT rights organization in Europe) , because she alleged that they were in breach of the Equality Act. She claimed that they are  “trying to silence and vilify women like me who have genuine concerns about how its approach to trans inclusivity conflicts with the protections, safety and dignity of women, girls, children and LGB people.” She raised around £560,000 for the case. JKR proudly admitted on Twitter to have donated to this case.

In December 2022, Scotland passed the Gender Recognition Act. The goal of GRA reform is “to simplify and demedicalise the process by which transgender people can change the gender marker recorded on their birth certificate, a right that trans people already have.” This bill was introduced by Nicola Sturgeon. Before the bill passed, JKR proudly wore a t-shirt that said “Nicola Sturgeon: destroyer of women’s rights.”

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There are more cases of JKR's trans-exclusionary stances. The best place to look is her Twitter page. Outside of her monetary donations, there are other cases in which her views on trans people influenced others. For instance, a GOP senator quoted J.K. Rowling while blocking a vote on LGBTQ bill. This bill was to add “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to the lists of protected classes under the Equality Act. Other cases are public attacks on trans people, in places like restaurants, by self-proclaimed TERFs (most of these can be found on TikTok, as few make the news).