Harry Potter Author, J.K.Rowling, came under fire recently for certain tweets commenting on transgender women.
In response to the numerous accusations, the British author wrote a lengthy 3595-word essay on her website titled ‘J.K. Rowling Writes about Her Reasons for Speaking out on Sex and Gender Issues.’ She started, “This isn’t an easy piece to write, for reasons that will shortly become clear, but I know it’s time to explain myself on an issue surrounded by toxicity. I write this without any desire to add to that toxicity.”
With explanations in multiple paragraphs she goes forward to set out her “five reasons for being worried about the new trans activism.” Her final and fifth reason came as a shock revealing information before unknown.
“I’ve been in the public eye now for over twenty years and have never talked publicly about being a domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor,” she said. “This isn’t because I’m ashamed those things happened to me, but because they’re traumatic to revisit and remember. 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. However, a short while ago, I asked her how she’d feel if I were publicly honest about that part of my life, and she encouraged me to go ahead.”
To make clear her intentions for disclosing this previously buried part of her past, she says, “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.”
Linking her survival story to the importance of the protection of trans women, Rowling wrote, “So I want trans women to be safe. At the same time, I do not want to make … girls and women less safe.” After proceeding to further expatiate on her reasons, she concluded by writing, “All I’m asking – all I want – is for similar empathy, similar understanding, to be extended to the many millions of women whose sole crime is wanting their concerns to be heard without receiving threats and abuse.”
Rowling’s essay has been followed with a mixed reaction.
