Heinous Loser and Anti-Trans Bigot J.K. Rowling Can Choke on Her Cigar
My son’s high school is doing some kind of Harry Potter production for their spring play and I really wish they had chosen something else. I was trying to rationalize it in my brain, thinking maybe they let the kids choose the play and most kids probably don’t know that J.K. Rowling is a truly terrible person who has made harming transgender people her personal crusade. But even if that is true, this decision didn’t happen without adults.
It’s hard to believe that there is anyone on earth who doesn’t know about Rowling’s bigotry. But it is not hard to believe that there are people on earth who do know and do not care.
And while someone like Rowling most definitely deserves to be cancelled, things are, unfortunately, mostly going her way lately.
Case in point: on April 16, Rowling posted a photo of herself on social media smoking a cigar and holding a glass of wine with the caption, “I love it when a plan comes together. #SupremeCourt #WomensRights.”
And what might that plan be?
As Katelyn Burns explains on MSNBC, “The ‘plan’ Rowling was referencing was a U.K. Supreme Court judgment that ruled trans women should not be considered women, essentially wiping out decades of civil rights advances for British transgender people.”
The Court’s ruling claims that sex is “binary,” and that “a person is either a woman or a man.” This is not only socially harmful, but it’s not even true scientifically.
Yet here is the author of some of the world’s most beloved children’s books literally celebrating a viciously anti-trans Supreme Court ruling. That she would be pleased with this ruling is not a surprise. She’s been publicly anti-trans since at least 2018.
But this time she’s taken things up a notch. She donated over $94,000 to For Women Scotland, the anti-trans group that filed the lawsuit.
Cool way for her to spend money. No doubt some of that money came from trans and nonbinary kids who bought her books and watched her movies because they identified so strongly with her work.
Unsurprisingly, there has been public backlash against Rowling since the ruling.
Actor David Tennant, who played Bartemius Crouch Jr. in the fourth Harry Potter movie, was asked in a recent interview why he supports trans rights. He compared what’s happening to trans people now to laws that used to ban “the promotion of homosexuality” in the U.K. under Margaret Thatcher.
“We look back on that now as a medieval, absurd thing to try and say,” Tennant said, “and I think the way the trans community is being demonised and othered is exactly the same.”
This is not his first time calling out transphobes. Last year he called them “a tiny bunch of little whinging fuckers who are on the wrong side of history.”
Actor Pedro Pascal called Rowling’s celebration of the ruling “awful disgusting shit” and “heinous loser behavior.”
Truly cannot think of a more perfect use for the word “heinous,” especially when paired with “loser.”
“I can’t think of anything more vile and small and pathetic than terrorizing the smallest, most vulnerable community of people who want nothing from you, except the right to exist,” Pascal posted on Instagram.
Pascal is a long-time outspoken ally of trans people. He has a trans sister, Lux Pascal.
But guess what? You don’t have to have a trans sister, or even know a single trans person, to recognize that trans rights are literally human rights. It honestly isn’t that hard.
I have never read any of the Harry Potter books nor have I seen the movies. It has never interested me. But come on, there are so many other books to read besides Harry Potter. I hate that the very creator of this series has poisoned it for the millions of people who love it so much.
But guess what? You can live a full and happy life without Harry Potter. Trans people cannot live a full and happy life stripped of human rights.
“This ruling may have been a significant setback, but there is still nothing that can stop us from simply existing as trans people,” writes Burns. “The world has always had trans people, and always will. The J.K. Rowlings of the world come and go, but trans people are eternal, and that feels like a very comforting thought here in the eye of the storm in 2025.”
Transgender people deserve much more comfort than that, but Burns is right. Hate cannot and will not erase transgender people.
Oh, and one more thing: Katelyn Burns is a trans journalist doing very important work. Support her on Patreon.
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