(Observer News) In solidarity with anti-transgender rhetoric, J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series of novels, has been supported by J.K. Rowling) has recently encountered new troubles.
Rowling said on Twitter on the 22nd that her home address was photographed and exposed, and she also received many death threats. She called on people to stop forwarding relevant photos, and also said in a series of 8 tweets that she would not be intimidated and would continue to speak out for "women's gender rights".
In response to the matter, an official spokesman for British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he did not approve of "targeting any individual in this way". Not long ago, Rowling was suspected of being excluded from the Harry Potter film's 20th anniversary special because of her position on transgender issues.
J.K. Rowling has taken a group photo with the protagonists of the "Harry Potter" series of movies, pictured from foreign media
On the 22nd, J.K. Rowling, who had not tweeted for more than a month, suddenly sent 8 tweets in a row, telling about her recent experience of being "searched for human flesh".
According to Rowling, on November 19, three transgender activists exposed her home address on Twitter. They also "meticulously" posed in front of her house to make sure the photos showed her house number. During the photo dissemination process, someone reported the image to Twitter customer service for violating Twitter's terms of service, and police Scotland in the United Kingdom also intervened to help Rowling. "We are aware of this incident and the police are investigating," a Police Scotland spokesman said in response to the investigation.
But the spread was not interrupted, so Rowling implored the person who had forwarded the photo of her home address to remove the retweet.
Three people took photos in front of J.K. Rowling's home, from Twitter
As for the cause of this matter, Rowling believes that it has something to do with the debate over the rights of transgender groups that she has been involved in in recent years.
Over the past few years, Rowling said, she has been shocked to see women activists like Allison Bailey, Raquel Sanchez, Marion Miller, and many women who have not appeared in public but contacted her to tell her about their personal experiences, subjected to a variety of intimidation campaigns — from social media harassment to targeting their employers. Then there are human flesh searches and direct threats of violence, including rape.
"None of these women are as protected as I am. They and their families are plunged into fear and suffering because they refuse to accept uncritically that the socio-political concept of gender identity should replace the concept of gender. ”
Writing this, Rowling once again expressed her support for "women's gender rights" and struck out the 3 people who took photos on her doorstep: "I can only guess that they think that conducting a human flesh search on me will scare me and make me afraid to speak out for women's gender rights." But they should consider that I've received so many death threats now that I can use these paper paste houses, but I haven't stopped speaking out. Or – and I'm just saying this – the best way to prove that your movement is not a threat to women is to stop stalking, harassing, and threatening us. ”
According to NBC, the three people who took and disseminated photos of Rowling's address were British comedian Holly Stars, actress Georgia Frost and cross-dresser Richard Energy.
Among them, Stace once tweeted that they deleted the tweet after being threatened: "Yesterday (19th) we posted a photo taken at J.K. Rowling's house, although we support this photo, but since the release of the photo, we have received a lot of serious, threatening transphobic messages, so we decided to take the photo down." Love our transgender siblings. At present, the Twitter accounts of these 3 people are no longer available.
It should be added that the 20th is the International Transgender Day of Remembrance. Although the 3 people did not clearly indicate the reason why they disclosed Rowling's home address, foreign media such as NBC and the British "Independent" believe that these 3 people want to protest Rowling's position on transgender rights through this move.
In fact, since Rowling publicly endorsed Maya Forstater on Twitter in 2019, she has been embroiled in the UK debate over the rights of transgender groups.
According to the Observer Network, at that time, the United Kingdom planned to adjust a "transgender policy" to simplify the identity authentication process of transgender groups, one of which was that "even if people who have not undergone gender reassignment surgery, as long as they identify themselves as the opposite sex, they can still be identified as transgender." Maya Foster strongly opposes the policy, arguing that it will invade women's gender space, and she can hardly imagine transgender women entering women's toilets and bathrooms. As a result, Foster's remarks were perceived as anti-transgender, and she lost her job as a result. In this regard, Rowling has publicly defended Foster and added a label of "I support Maya" to her tweet.
Twitter screenshots
Rowling's move was seen as a support for anti-transgender remarks and was boycotted by a large number of fans and netizens, coupled with her conversion of Dumbledore to gay in the harry potter book to make the book "free and inclusive", which made the LGBTQ community who once loved her feel betrayed and scolded for a while.
However, unlike other celebrities who have fallen into the scolding because of controversial remarks, Rowling did not "shut up" the matter, but instead exploded in combat, continued to speak out on personal social media, wrote long articles on the website to insist on their views, and also found many papers to study and report materials to support it.
She argues that acknowledging the gender of all transgender people leads to the violation of the rights of "real women." For example, transgender people should not use the same toilet as women, and if a heterosexual man pretends to be a transgender person, it will cause women to be violated. On the other hand, she also believes that the abuse of transgender surgery has led many teenagers to mistakenly perform transgender surgery that has an irreversible impact on the body when they do not have an absolute understanding of their gender. But now many transgender people are not really "transgender", but because of other mental health reasons, led by social errors, and concealment of side effects, they choose to become transgender.
However, many netizens still believe that Rowling's remarks are discriminatory against the transgender group, and she has been labeled "TERF" (a radical feminist who rejects transgender). As a result, the two sides launched a 2-year tug-of-war, the two sides became more and more fierce, quite a sense of death, Rowling was even fired by the two major "Harry Potter" fan sites "Leaky Cauldron" and "Mugglenet" (original book"...
In addition, celebrities such as American actress Sarah Paulson and Irish actress Aisling Bea have also publicly criticized Rowling's remarks. Even including Daniel Radcliffe, who plays Harry Potter, Rupert Grint, who plays Ron Weasley, and Emma Watson, who plays Hermione Granger, many Harry Potter casts have expressed support for transgender women and opposed Rowling's stance.
For example, Redcliffe hit back at Rowling in an article last year, saying that "transgender women are women." He wrote: "Any claim to the contrary obliterates the identity and dignity of transgender people and goes against all the advice given by the Professional Healthcare Association, who have expertise on the subject than Jo (Rowling's nickname) and me." ”
Suspected of this, Rowling was not on the show's invitee list in the Harry Potter 20th anniversary special program "Back to Hogwarts", which is expected to launch HBO Max next year. According to the Forbes website on the 22nd, although the right-wing media accused HBO of "blacklisting", "banning" and "snubbing" her to participate in the 20th anniversary party, Warner Bros. press release did not indicate whether Rowling decided not to attend or was not invited.
It is worth mentioning that in response to the exposure of Rowling's home address, the official spokesman of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: "We believe that no individual should be targeted in this way." We believe that everyone has a right to dignity and respect, and as long as it is done in this way, people can share their views. ”
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