“Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling is again under fire for comments about the transgender community six months after defending Maya Forstater.
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J.K. Rowling has decided to return the Ripple of Hope award, a Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights organization honor, she was given in 2019.
The “Harry Potter” author said she decided to give back the award after Kerry Kennedy, president of the organization and Robert F. Kennedy’s daughter, wrote a statement to the organization’s website criticizing Rowling’s views on gender and sex as “deeply troubling transphobic tweets and statements.”
“Trans rights are human rights. J.K. Rowling’s attacks upon the transgender community are inconsistent with the fundamental beliefs and values of RFK Human Rights and represent a repudiation of my father’s vision,” Kennedy wrote. “Women’s rights are not degraded by the recognition of trans rights. On the contrary: A commitment to human rights demands a commitment to combat discrimination in all its forms.”
In a statement posted to her website Thursday, Rowling responded to Kennedy’s criticisms saying that she “incorrectly implied that I was transphobic, and that I am responsible for harm to trans people.”
Rowling added that she’s long been a donor to LGBTQ charities and she, along with “thousands of women” who’ve reached out to Rowling, disagree with Kennedy’s claims that “there is no conflict between the current radical trans rights movement and the rights of women.”
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“In solidarity with those who have contacted me but who are struggling to make their voices heard, and because of the very serious conflict of views between myself and RFKHR, I feel I have no option but to return the Ripple of Hope Award bestowed upon me last year,” Rowling wrote. “I am deeply saddened that RFKHR has felt compelled to adopt this stance, but no award or honour, no matter my admiration for the person for whom it was named, means so much to me that I would forfeit the right to follow the dictates of my own conscience.”
Kennedy’s comments come after Rowling made headlines earlier this summer with multiple posts online voicing opinions on the trans community that conflated biological sex with gender.
Less than six months after the writer was slammed for showing support for Maya Forstater, a researcher who lost her job at a think tank for stating that people cannot change their biological sex, Rowling made a similar stir in criticizing a headline on the website devex.com. The op-ed piece included the phrase “people who menstruate” in an effort to be more inclusive.
“I’m sure there used to be a word for those people,” Rowling tweeted in June. “Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?”
Rowling continued to double down even after the posts were widely perceived as transphobic, misinformative and hurtful.
Contributing: Hannah Yasharoff
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