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I was looking through this sub, and was shocked to find out that no one had done a post explaining JK Rowling's descent into Terfdom, and the insanity it caused. This is a cautionary tale, of fear and lust and pride. And also, how Vladimir Putin claims he is the same as her. Buckle up, it's gonna be a bumpy ride (insert Whomping Willow joke here).

Disclaimer: At some points in this write up, it may seem like I hate JK Rowling. This is because I hate JK Rowling. However, this post more than just a personal vendetta, as I've done my best to provide actual evidence and minimally biased analysis. With that cleared up, let's get started!

### Background

I probably don't need to explain who Jowling Kowling Rowling is, but for those who have been living under a rock, she wrote the Harry Potter books. In doing so, she became fabulously wealthy and successful, and amassed a rabid fandom. She had been an impoverished single mother when writing the first book, so she was celebrated as a feminist icon, as well as a "rags to riches" type story. Her twitter was known for adding some... details to the books (like how wizards would shit themselves), but it was regarded as more of a meme than anything else.

And, if there's one thing the Harry Potter books taught us, it's that a charismatic leader who has some vaguely dark and ominous ideas beneath the surface should always be trusted.

### The early days

Rowling is a bit of a textbook case of "I can't believe... yeah, actually I probably should have seen that one coming". Her books have a lot of issues in retrospect (Jewish caricatures run the bank, Harry is canonically a slave owner, her werewolves are the single worst metaphor for gay people ever). However a lot of that could be brushed off as mistakes, or just the time period. She was writing these in the 90s and early 2000s, people can change.

However, the prelude to this specific drama occurred mainly through her Twitter (although in retrospect, the books have some weird shit going on with gender, especially women). Rowling had a history of dancing close to the edge of transphobia, without making any clear statement. Generally, the response fell under the umbrella of "we can't judge her based off this" or "Twitter is getting upset over nothing again".

Rowling's first really worrying tweet came when she tweeted in support of Maya Forrester. For those who don't know, Maya was fired for being openly transphobic, she then sued the company and lost. JK Rowling spoke out in favor of Maya. Again, pretty obvious what her intention was now, but at the time, the response was mostly some variation of "she has free speech" or "she's just anti-cancel culture". Some people did speak out criticizing her at the time, but it was mostly chalked up to Twitter drama.

Rowling also wrote some detective novels under a man's name (the irony is palpable). Her novels included some extremely transphobic elements, such as a serial killer who targeted women by dressing as a woman and going into bathrooms, and the hero of the books telling a trans woman that she'd be raped. Again, super obvious in retrospect, but at the time, the general response to any concern was "Just because she wrote it doesn't mean she supports it." Nobody really took it that seriously. Rowling couldn't be a transphobe, right?

### Rowling is a definitely a transphobe.

Before I get started, I want to make something clear: JK Rowling is a transphobe. Period. You can post a five paragraph essay in the comments about how "trans women are coming to steal my vagina", or "it's not transphobic to do XYZ transphobic thing". It doesn't change the fact that Rowling is a transphobe. Kindly go shove a knarl up your ass.

Alright, now that that's out of the way, we can move on to the DRAMA, and boy howdy is there a lot of it. This article gives a full dive into the controversy, but we're going to go through it step-by-step here.

### The original tweet

The tweet. In short, it was an article which used the term "people who menstruate" (given that trans men or nonbinary people may still have their periods). Rowling responded with

    ‘People who menstruate.’ I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?

Once again, bad (especially knowing what we know now), but most people originally brushed it off. People make bad jokes all the time, it's not like she actually doubled down on it.

### She doubled down on it.

In a series of tweets, Rowling brought her transphobia out from the cupboard under the stairs. I'll say this for her: she doesn't do anything halfway. You can read the full chain, but the summary is: she argues that trans people are trying to erase the "reality of biological sex" (a common TERF dogwhistle), and adds that she can't be transphobic because she has black trans friends.

#### Side note: What is a TERF?

Since that term is getting used a lot, I figured I should define it. There's plenty of good articles and videos that explain this better than I could, but: a TERF is a Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist, someone who believes feminism should not include trans women, because they're not "really" women. (Because the most feminist thing of all is... defining a woman by her ability to make babies. Alice Paul would be so proud.) Ironically, TERFS adopted the term at first, until it became popular, and now regard it as a slur. TERFS have become an issue worldwide, but are especially prevalent in England. They tend to be far more socially acceptable than other bigots by framing their policies as fighting for women rather than against trans people. Generally speaking, it tends to split more socially progressive people, while more conservative voices gleefully exploit it to bash trans people as the scapegoat of the week.

### The blog post

After a serious pushback, Rowling wrote a blog post apologizing for the harm she'd caused, and promising to do better. Kidding, she doubled down again. It's a long post, which you are welcome to read through, but for those who don't want to: the entire thing jumps from dogwhistle to dogwhistle to straight up transphobia. Rowling accuses trans women of being predators and liars, and claims that they're silencing anyone who speaks out against them. She comes this close to saying "literally 1984". She also opened up about a sexual assault she'd gone through, and how she was worried "opening up changing rooms" would cause more assaults, despite all statistical evidence showing that there was no increased risk of sexual assault in areas with trans inclusive bathrooms. Probably the most succint (and damning) part of the blog was this:

    I refuse to bow down to a movement that I believe is doing demonstrable harm in seeking to erode 'woman' as a political and biological class and offering cover to predators like few before it.

She then tweeted, saying only TERF wars.

### The reaction

People were pissed. Rowling had been walking the line for a while, but after the blog, it was irreversible. Before, she could hide behind dogwhistles and legions of fans, but the blog made her transphobia directly and openly stated. Also, she did all this during Pride month.

I wanted to pick some of the funniest/most educational/most famous Twitter responses to her, but... there are so fucking many. I just can't. If you want to see them, just check beneath any of her tweets linked above.

But the backlash wasn't limited to Twitter. This was HUGE. A number of other famous authors spoke up on it; there were dozens of news articles, hot takes, and Op-eds; SNL did a bit; pretty much the entire Internet was up in arms. Generally, people were against her, but unfortunately, whenever a famous person is willing to publicly state views, it makes it a whole lot easier for other people to latch onto it, causing a number of TERFs to come out of the woodwork and defend her. This has also been coupled with the typical Internet response to bigotry: It didn't really happen, and if it did happen, it was blown way out of proportion, and if it was proportionate, then was it really that bad?

### Carrie on my wayward son

Out of all the craziness, there's one especially fun story. A few months before Rowling's tweet went out, she tweeted a message of praise and admiration for Stephen King, calling him one of her favorite writers. Then, later, when a fan asked King if he supported Rowling, he replied "Trans women are women", causing Rowling to immediately block him and delete her tweet praising him. King then joked that Rowling had canceled him.

### The return of the golden trio

But the real kicker of it all came when Rowling's protegees, the actors who had played her most iconic characters all publicly came out against her.

Daniel Radcliffe was the first to respond, via the Trevor Project no less. He politely stated that he still loved and respecting JK before going into a statement condemning her beliefs, and backing it up with actual statistics. Emma Watson then tweeted out a message in support of trans people, suggesting several charities people could donate to. Even Rupert Grint, who rarely makes public statements took the time to speak out against Rowling.

Other HP actors like Bonnie Wright spoke out as well (here's a full list).

Funny enough, the literal only Harry Potter actor who has openly supported Rowling is Ralph Fiennes, aka, Voldemort. The one person who is siding with Rowling is magic Hitler. I can't make this shit up.

### The fans

Rowling's credibility had already been turned into a meme before this, but this event was explosive. Fans who hadn't cared about her in years (or ever), suddenly leapt to attack or defend her. Twitter basically melted down (except more so than usual), and the r/harrypotter sub has officially made Rowling a persona non grata. Their rule 4 states:

    Discussion of JKR's personal opinions is banned, defense of her words and actions will lead to a ban. This includes supporting her right to a platform to spread hate.

We're coming up on the two year anniversary of this, and it still will start a fight whenever it gets brought up.

### What do you do with a problematic fandom?

The majority of fans seem to disagree with Rowling, although there is debate on how to enjoy the Harry Potter world. Most of the cast have urged people to embrace the message of Harry Potter -- welcoming outsiders and misfits -- while ignoring the person who created it (which seems to be the general consensus among fans as well). Rowling has effectively become she-who-must-not-be-named among her own fanbase, to the point where there's a running gag of naming literally anyone but her as the author.

Rowling has become the center figure in pretty much any "death of the author" conversation. In short, (very simplified) it's a growing idea that the creator holds no true power over something after it's released. What's explicitly stated in the book/movie/game is canon, but any and all subjective interpretations can be seen as true. Since the Harry Potter fandom was already very, very well known for its Alexandrian Library worth of fanfiction, with a fanbase that had long disregarded Rowling, it wasn't a huge jump for people to cut her out of the picture entirely. Rowling may have written some words, but now those words belonged to the world, to the people, to the hearts and minds of dreamers, and most importantly, the smut writers.

In a way, Rowling's past actions backfired on her. She wrote the books with the (supposed) purpose of celebrating silenced voices, giving people who were outcasts a place to call home. She pushed relatively progressive social views (again, 90s and early 2000s), and publicly continued to speak on issues like feminism, inequality, racism, etc. In doing so, she created a fandom that tends far more towards the progressive side of things. Harry Potter fans can be shitty, rabid, toxic, and a general Chernobyl of hormones and shipping, but at the fandom's heart, it's a group of people who tend to be open and welcoming to a wide variety of marginalized groups, and very petty when needs be.

### Aftermath

I mean... *gestures at the rest of the post*. But in more detail:

Fans still hate/ignore Rowling. Meanwhile, she's gone full mask-off transphobia. I honestly can't link all the different tweets, headlines, videos, and meetings that she's put out (it's about three or four per week at this point). Seriously, if you want more examples, just scroll through her twitter feed. Some highlights include:

    Holding a boozy TERF brunch at the same time time as a major trans protest, despite claiming she would "stand by them".

    Fighting for multiple anti-trans bills in England (shocker)

    Accidentally praising a very pro-trans Eurovision group

    Holding multiple "JK Rowling Lunch" picnics simultaneously across England. I shit you not.

Rowling has also taken a serious financial hit, due to a general boycott against her (as well as just bad PR). The last Fantastic Beasts movie tanked (although it's hard to tell if it was because of a boycott, or because it was a Fantastic Beasts movie). Warner Bros has put the series on hold, and is reportedly questioning their continued dealings with Rowling. Frankly, at this point, Rowling has become sort of like Uranium enriched tea: tolerable in the moment, but slowly killing anything she touched (that joke will make sense in a minute). WB is reevaluating how much money new Harry Potter content can really bring in, especially with Rowling tainting it.

When they filmed the "Return to Hogwarts" special, Rowling was very pointedly omitted, despite nearly every other cast member, director, etc. getting an invitation to come for a reunion. The unstated message was clear: Rowling was out. They'll never publicly say anything, because they're a spineless corporation, and she still wields some serious influence, but they are keeping the franchise as far away from her as possible. She's also been almost entirely sidelined from the new Harry Potter video game, Hogwarts Legacy (which, ironically enough, allows you to play as a trans character).

### Putin

Hey, you remember that weird thing I mentioned about Putin at the start? Yeah, Vladimir Putin literally said he stood with JK Rowling. Let me be clear: this wasn't in 2020. This was a few fucking weeks ago. He compared his invasion of Ukraine to JK Rowling, and talked about his support of her (her ideas actually match up with his policies for LGBTQ people disturbingly closely).

So... satire is dead. Nobody could make anything weirder than that.

Edit: The TERFs are in the comments, and it's a par-tay! (Sorry in advance mods).

Edit 2: Since a lot of people have been going "oH bUt ShE's UnDeR aTtAcK":

    She was never doxxed. She publicly bought a literal fucking castle (if this were a movie, people'd complain it was unrealistic), and made her address known. You can no more doxx her than you can doxx Joe Biden by saying "he lives in the White House".

    People sent her shitty and horrible things online. Are those people bad? Yes. Are most of them just taking a chance to be shitty regardless of cause? Also yes. Trans people get harassed constantly (often by Rowling and her followers), and have actual violent crimes committed against them, so it's hard for me to feel much sympathy for Rowling.

    Someone tweeted "I wish you a happy pipe bomb in your mailbox". Investigation showed no actual possession of a pipe bomb, and no attempt to make or use one, it was an attempt at a meme. Again: shitty to wish death on someone? Yes. Given that Rowling is actively bringing death to other people by denying aid to rape victims, I find it hard to care that she got a mean tweet.