With a number of social media posts, J.K. Rowling reignited the author’s hostile perspectives toward her.
On Tuesday, the English National Health Service (NHS) announced that it would no longer provide medicines to gender dysphoria patients. In a scheme release posted on its web, the NHS stated: “There is not enough data” to support its therapeutic use. But, it will continue to provide the treatment to non-transgender children and adults.
Rowling posted an article on the topic to X, previously Online, along with a 2019 quotation from Professor Carl Heneghan, chairman of the Centre of Proof-Based Medication in Oxford, England.
“Given lack of information, the off-tag use of drugs […] in gender dysphoria therapy largely means an unregulated live test on children,” the comment read, with Rowling’s article sparking uproar.
The British author has previously faced ban requests for her remarks about transgender people, and this is not the first time she has faced pushback for her comments.
Rowling even reshared an X article by India Willoughby, England’s earliest trans newsreader.
“My counsel to families of transgender kids is to look for private sources of puberty blockers, which are completely safe and approved by many legitimate health bodies,” Willoughby said. “If safe for cis children, they’re safe for transgender kids”.
Alongside a picture of the article, Rowling wrote: “Willoughby is propagating harmful lies. Women who were put on Lupron [a sort of hormone-ignoring treatment] to postpone puberty have suffered long-term harm”.
She also began taking screenshots of the comments and posting the images in public as a way to address the criticism of her posts.
“Your lack of empathy is showing, bigot,” one poster said.
“Transphobe, stop spreading hate. You are untalented, nobody reads your books, and you were lucky to have a career. Shame on you,” wrote another.
However, the public outcry didn’t seem to affect Rowling.
The 58-year-old retorted claims that puberty blockers “lock primarily gay/autistic youth into a treatment pathway that renders them infertile, and has adverse effects on IQ and bone density,” citing “the evidence has been out there for years, for all who were prepared to open their eyes.”
Users also accused Rowling of “Holocaust denial” after she reposted an article from the online magazine Unherd claiming the “NHS puberty blocker ruling will save lives.”
According to Rowling, “Experiments have been conducted on the bodies of children due to the political cowardice of adults,” the post’s title read, quoting the article.
In response to this, Rowling appeared to compare treating gender dysphoria in minors to Nazi experiments carried out during World War II, prompting a debate over medical consent.
“Medics continued to operate and prescribe even though they realized children weren’t capable of giving informed consent.” In keeping with the recent WPATH (World Professional Association for Transgender Health) leak, she wrote, “Prison terms for doctors experimenting on troubled minors are more than acceptable with me.”
The organization claims to provide “professional consensus” on the treatment of gender dysphoria but came under fire on Thursday due to some of its member’s practices.
In response, one person asked Rowling: “The Nazis burnt books on trans healthcare and research, why are you so desperate to uphold their ideology around gender”?
“How did you type this out and press send without thinking,” the author replied, suggesting the commenter check their sources.
According to Scientific American, the Nazis did destroy transgender health care books and research, effectively destroying Berlin’s groundbreaking Institute for Sexual Research in 1933.
Rowling first caused controversy with her views on transgender people in 2018, when she “accidentally” liked a tweet that called transwomen “men in dresses”.
In 2019, Rowling received further backlash for supporting Maya Forstater, a British researcher who was fired after making anti-trans statements.
“Dress however you please. Call yourself however you please. Sleep with any consenting adult who will have you. Live your best life in peace and security. But force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real?” Rowling said at the time on social media.
After the author shared more posts hitting out at transgender people, Harry Potter actors Daniel Radcliffe, Bonnie Wright, and Emma Watson—who played Harry, Ginny, and Hermione in the movies—denounced Rowling, with the writer not included in the 2022 Harry Potter Reunion Special.
Rowling continues to be well-known among Millennials who grew up with her books despite her remarks that have reduced her profits from the franchise. However, several fan sites have distanced themselves from the creator, as have many transgender fans and allies.
The author told host Megan Phelps-Roper in the podcast The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling that she is not concerned about how the controversy has affected her reputation.
“I do not walk around my house thinking about my legacy,” Rowling said. “What will my legacy be? Whatever, I’ll be dead.”
