How Stars Really feel About J.Okay. Rowling Controversy

Taking a stand. J.Okay. Rowling‘s controversial transphobic remarks have left each Harry Potter‘s followers and solid members feeling conflicted.

The creator first got here beneath fireplace in June 2020, when she shared a number of posts on Twitter that appeared to slam the trans neighborhood. “If intercourse isn’t actual, there’s no same-sex attraction. If intercourse isn’t actual, the lived actuality of ladies globally is erased,” Rowling wrote on the time, arguing that she had researched the subject for meany years earlier than sharing her opinion. “I do know and love trans folks, however erasing the idea of intercourse removes the power of many to meaningfully talk about their lives. It isn’t hate to talk the reality.”

Her posts earned an excessive amount of backlash from social media customers, lots of whom accused Rowling of being a “TERF,” which stands for trans-exclusionary radical feminist. The author, nevertheless, defended her stance in a prolonged essay in June 2020.

“Accusations of TERFery have been ample to intimidate many individuals, establishments and organisations I as soon as admired, who’re cowering earlier than the ways of the playground,” she claimed on the time. “Talking as a organic girl, lots of people in positions of energy actually need to develop a pair (which is likely actually attainable, based on the type of people that argue that clownfish show people aren’t a dimorphic species).”

Because the controversy continued, a number of members of the Harry Potter universe together with Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, appeared to distance themselves from Rowling. “I firmly stand with the trans neighborhood,” Grint mentioned in a press release to Us Weekly in June 2020. “Trans ladies are ladies. Trans males are males. We should always all be entitled to reside with love and with out judgment.”

Whereas most of the franchise’s stars opened disagreed with the producer, others have maintained that they nonetheless respect Rowling and her impression on their careers. Jason Isaacs, for his half, opened up about his “difficult” emotions concerning the Informal Emptiness creator in a January 2022 interview with The Telegraph.

“There’s a bunch of stuff about Jo. , I play difficult folks, I’m excited about difficult folks,” the actor, who portrayed Lucius Malfoy all through the sequence, mentioned on the time. “I don’t wish to get drawn into the trans points, speaking about them, as a result of it’s such a unprecedented minefield. She has her opinions, I’ve mine. They differ in many alternative areas.”

Regardless of their opposing factors of view, Isaacs wished to acknowledge the entire “good” Rowling has accomplished over time by the Harry Potter sequence and her charity work. “One of many issues that folks ought to find out about her too — not as a counter-argument — is that she has poured an infinite quantity of her fortune into making the world a significantly better place, for tons of of 1000’s of susceptible youngsters, by her charity Lumos,” he defined, including that his former costars have volunteered with Lumos and “seen on the bottom the work that they do.”

The philanthropist, nevertheless, has continued to double down on her opinions. Rowling reacted to a report by The Sunday Instances alleging that Scottish police will “report rapes by offenders with male genitalia as being dedicated by a lady if the attacker ‘identifies as a feminine,’” in December 2021. “Battle is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Power. The Penised Particular person Who Raped You Is a Girl,” the screenwriter wrote on Twitter.

Amid all of her controversies, Rowling didn’t participate in HBO’s current Harry Potter twentieth Anniversary reunion particular however was as an alternative featured in archival footage shot in 2019.

Preserve scrolling to see what different Hogwarts alums have mentioned about Rowling over time.