One man replied to Rowling’s thread, saying, “Only waiting for Dan and Emma to give you a very public apology … safe in the knowledge that you will accept them.”
“No thank you, I’m scared. Celebrities who cozied up to a movement that aims to diminish women’s hard-won rights and who used their platforms to support the transition of minors can preserve their apologies for traumatized detransitioners and vulnerable women who rely on single-sex spaces,” Rowling said.
Although Radcliffe and Watson have avoided speaking out publicly against Rowling about the matter, they both made strong statements in support of transgender individuals and rights in 2019 and 2020.
In a Vogue discussion in 2019, Watson endorsed transgender rights, though she did not mention Rowling.
In an essay, Radcliffe insisted he wasn’t trying to fight with Rowling and didn’t want to make it about that, in support of transgender people. He praised trans people and condemned bigotry against them. To trans “Harry Potter” fans who might be offended by Rowling’s opinions, he said, “I really hope you don’t completely lose what was valuable in these stories to you.”
Under legislation signed this week by the state’s Republican governor, Idaho schools will soon no longer need staff and students to use a transgender person’s name and pronouns.
Idaho House Bill 538, which was passed by the state’s Republican-dominated Legislature last month, prohibits K-12 educators and university professors from “knowingly and willfully” addressing a small by a label or word that does not align with their sexual assigned at birth without their parents’ written consent.
Additionally, the bill protects school staff from “discriminatory employment action” for declining to handle a student using a name other than the student’s constitutional name, a generic thereof, or by a chosen pronoun. State employees are exempt from addressing a trans person’s name or word if it does not match their gender at birth.
Little signed the legislation into law on Monday, and it will become effective on July 1.
In this year’s legislative program, GOP state legislators argued that “unlawful compelled speech” must be protected by these rules.
“This is a battle line we have to draw,” the bill’s sponsor, Idaho Rep. Ted Hill (R), said while arguing in favor of the proposal in March. “It’s a First Amendment right, and that’s the whole matter here.”
State Democrats argued that the estimate was not intended to let employees work unfairly or discriminate against people at work, citing the First Amendment, which protects the right to free speech.
Little also signed legislation this week that makes Idaho the fifth state to change the definition of gender as being associated with sex. In addition to redefining sex in a way that Gay advocates have warned may make transgender and gender non-conforming people discriminable, executive orders signed last year in Nebraska and Oklahoma even reinvent sex.
“In mortal people, there are two, and only two, sexes: female and female,” according to Idaho’s House Bill 461, which will also take effect July 1. “In no circumstance is an adult’s sexual determined by requirement or self-identification.”
Little has signed at least half a dozen legislation aimed at trans people, including the first one that prohibits trans athletes since being elected governor in 2019.
Little signed legislation in March that prohibits the use of public money, including Medicaid, and government-owned services for gender-affirming treatment for transgender adolescents and adults.
A law signed by Little last year makes it illegal for doctors to administer hormones, surgeries, and puberty blockers to transgender minors, despite the district court’s current orders already preventing the law’s enforcement. Raul Labrador (R), the attorney general of Idaho, requested in February that the Supreme Court take urgent action to allow the state to carry out its ban.
Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, altered, or redistributed.
