JK Rowling: 'I regret not speaking up sooner on trans rights'

JK Rowling says she regrets not speaking out “far sooner” on trans rights.

The Harry Potter author said she had spoken up on transgender issues because she believed she was witnessing “the greatest assault of my lifetime” on women’s rights, and would have ”felt ashamed for the rest of my days if I hadn’t”.

This comes as she pens an essay on her beliefs on protecting women’s sex-based rights for a new book called ‘The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht’. 

JK Rowling has previously been heavily criticised for her views on gender identity, but denies any accusations that she is transphobic.

In her essay, she said: “I’d come to believe that the socio-political movement insisting ‘trans women are women’ was neither kind nor tolerant, but in fact profoundly misogynistic, regressive, dangerous in some of its objectives and nakedly authoritarian in its tactics.

“I believed that what is being done to troubled young people in the name of gender identity ideology is, indeed, a terrible medical scandal. I believe we’re witnessing the greatest assault of my lifetime on the rights our foremothers thought they’d guarantee for all women.

“Ultimately, I spoke up because I’d have felt ashamed for the rest of my days if I hadn’t. If I feel any regret at all, it’s that I didn’t speak far sooner.”

The author said she had watched the debate from the sidelines because “people around me, including some I love, were begging me not to speak”, but said the guilt caused her “chronic pain”.

For the past few years JK Rowling has hit the headlines for her views on trans issues, describing the backlash against Maya Forstater for saying trans people cannot change their biological sex as “vicious”. 

She said: “Nobody who’s been through an online monstering or a tsunami of death and rape threats will claim it’s fun, and I’m not going to pretend it’s anything other than disturbing and frightening.”

In her essay, Rowling also refers to actors who have starred in film adaptations of her books.

Harry Potter stars Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, and Fantastic Beasts star Eddie Redmayne, have all spoken out in support of trans rights in the past few years.

Rowling said: “People who’d worked with me rushed to distance themselves from me or to add their public condemnation of my blasphemous views (though I should add that many former and current colleagues have been staunchly supportive).

“The thing is, those appalled by my position often fail to grasp how truly despicable I find theirs.”

‘The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht’ is a collection of 30 essays, which includes contributions from Joanna Cherry KC MP and former prison governor Rhona Hotchkiss, and is edited by Scotsman columnist Susan Dalgety and Lucy Hunter Blackburn.