Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

Lifestyle

Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling reveals death threats over transgender row, Arts News & Top Stories

Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling reveals death threats over transgender row, Arts News & Top Stories

LONDON (AFP) – Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling said on Monday (Nov 22) she had received a flood of death threats, as she slammed three transgender rights activists who posted her home address on Twitter.

Rowling thanked police in Scotland for their support after the activists tweeted a photograph of them standing outside Rowling’s home in Edinburgh, with the address visible, on Friday.

Rowling said that she and other women who have spoken out on gender issues had faced “campaigns of intimidation”, stalking and harassment, but vowed she would not be silenced.

The 56-year-old writer said she had received “so many death threats I could paper the house with them”, and that “families have been put into a state of fear and distress” by transgender activists.

“Perhaps… the best way to prove your movement isn’t a threat to women, is to stop stalking, harassing and threatening us.”

A Police Scotland spokesman said the force was “aware of this incident” and that enquiries were “ongoing”.

All three activists had shut down their Twitter accounts by Monday.

Rowling has been involved in a simmering row with the transgender community over her belief that women’s sex-based rights should be protected.

The dispute began around two years ago when the author tweeted against use of the phrase “people who menstruate”, rather than only women.

The message caused a rift with some of the stars of the Harry Potter movies (2001 to 2011), including lead actor Daniel Radcliffe, who tweeted an apology on her behalf.

“Transgender women are women,” Radcliffe wrote in a post.

In her posts on Monday, Rowling said she had been “appalled” to hear from various women who had spoken out on transgender issues, including those with no public profile, and suffered abuse including threats of rape.

“None of these women are protected in the way I am,” she said, attacking the “socio-political concept of gender identity” as opposed to biological sex.

You May Also Like

World

France, which has opened its borders to Canadian tourists, is eager to see Canada reopen to the French. The Canadian border remains closed...

Health

Kashechewan First Nation in northern Ontario is experiencing a “deepening state of emergency” as a result of surging COVID-19 cases in the community...

World

The virus that causes COVID-19 could have started spreading in China as early as October 2019, two months before the first case was identified in the central city of Wuhan, a new study...

World

April Ross and Alix Klineman won the first Olympic gold medal for the United States in women’s beach volleyball since 2012 on Friday,...