an essay about jk rowling

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Humble beginnings

Harry potter and success, harry on the big screen and on stage, writing for adults, honors and controversy.

What did J.K. Rowling write?

How did j.k. rowling become famous.

• Do adults read children's literature?

J.K. Rowling

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• Official Site of J. K. Rowling
• J.K. Rowling - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11)
• J.K. Rowling - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)
• Table Of Contents

What is J.K. Rowling famous for?

J.K. Rowling is the British author who created the popular and critically acclaimed Harry Potter series (seven books published between 1997 and 2007), about a lonely orphan who discovers that he is actually a wizard and enrolls in the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

In addition to the Harry Potter books, J.K. Rowling wrote such companion volumes as Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them (2001) and cowrote a story on which the play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (2016) was based. Her adult fiction includes The Casual Vacancy (2012) and the Cormoran Strike series (as Robert Galbraith).

J.K. Rowling started writing about Harry Potter after graduating from the University of Exeter. After a brief marriage and the birth of her daughter, Rowling settled in Edinburgh and lived on public assistance between stints as a French teacher and writing. After many rejections, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was published to immediate success.

What is J.K. Rowling’s real name?

J.K. Rowling was born Joanne Rowling. After her publisher recommended she use a gender-neutral pen name, she chose J.K., adding the middle name Kathleen. She published her crime fiction series, which includes The Cuckoo’s Calling , under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.

Recent News

J.K. Rowling (born July 31, 1965, Yate, near Bristol, England) is a British author, creator of the popular and critically acclaimed Harry Potter series, about a young sorcerer in training.

After graduating from the University of Exeter in 1986, Rowling began working for Amnesty International in London , where she started to write the Harry Potter adventures. In the early 1990s she traveled to Portugal to teach English as a foreign language, but, after a brief marriage and the birth of her daughter, she returned to the United Kingdom, settling in Edinburgh . Living on public assistance between stints as a French teacher, she continued to write.

The first book in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (1997; also published as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone ), was released under the name J.K. Rowling. (Her publisher recommended a gender-neutral pen name; born Joanne Rowling, she used J.K., adding the middle name Kathleen.)

The book was an immediate success, appealing to both children, who were its intended audience, and adults. Featuring vivid descriptions and an imaginative story line, it followed the adventures of the unlikely hero Harry Potter, a lonely orphan who discovers that he is actually a wizard and enrolls in the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The book received numerous awards, including the British Book Award. Succeeding volumes— Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (1998), Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (1999), Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2000), Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2003), and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2005)—also were best sellers, available in more than 200 countries and some 60 languages. The seventh and final novel in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows , was released in 2007.

The Harry Potter series sparked great enthusiasm among children and was credited with generating a new interest in reading. Film versions of the books were released in 2001–11 and became some of the top-grossing movies in the world. In addition, Rowling wrote the companion volumes Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them (2001), which was adapted into a film series (2016, 2018) that featured screenplays by Rowling; Quidditch Through the Ages (2001); and The Tales of Beedle the Bard (2008)—all of which originated as books read by Harry Potter and his friends within the fictional world of the series. Proceeds from their sales were donated to charity.

She later cowrote a story that became the basis for the play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child , which premiered in 2016 and was a critical and commercial success, winning an unprecedented nine Olivier Awards, including best new play. In the production, Harry is a husband and father but is still struggling with his past, while his son Albus must contend with his father’s legacy . A book version of the script, which was advertised as the eighth story in the Harry Potter series, was published in 2016. Two years later the play transferred to Broadway, and in 2018 it won six Tony Awards , including best new play.

Rowling made her first foray into adult fiction with The Casual Vacancy (2012; TV miniseries 2015), a contemporary social satire set in a small English town. In 2013 it was revealed that the author had penned the crime novel The Cuckoo’s Calling , using the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. The Silkworm —the second book in the series, which centred on the detective Cormoran Strike, a down-on-his-luck war veteran—was released in 2014. Later installments included Career of Evil (2015), Lethal White (2018), Troubled Blood (2020), and The Ink Black Heart (2022). A television series based on the books premiered in the United Kingdom in 2017 and in the United States the following year. In May 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Rowling began serializing a new children’s book, The Ickabog , for free online; it was published in November. She described the fairy tale , which was unrelated to Harry Potter, as an exploration of “truth and the abuse of power.” She later published The Christmas Pig (2021), about a boy who loses his favourite toy and then embarks on a fantastical quest to find it.

Rowling was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2001. In 2009 she was named a chevalier of the French Legion of Honour .

However, in June 2020, Rowling drew unaccustomed criticism for taking exception on social media to an article that referenced “people who menstruate.” In part, Rowling tweeted “‘People who menstruate .’ I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out.” Rowling’s comments were seen as being unsympathetic to or out of touch with the transgender community . Some of the actors in the Harry Potter series, including Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson publicly opposed the author, while others, including Ralph Fiennes , Helena Bonham Carter , and Robbie Coltrane expressed support.

J.K. Rowling

Who Is J.K. Rowling?

J.K. Rowling, is a British author and screenwriter best known for her seven-book Harry Potter children's book series. The series has sold more than 500 million copies and was adapted into a blockbuster film franchise.

Rowling was born Joanne Rowling on July 31, 1965, in Yate, England. She adopted her pen name, J.K., incorporating her grandmother's name, Kathleen, for the latter initial (Rowling does not have a middle name).

A graduate of the University of Exeter , Rowling moved to Portugal in 1990 to teach English. There, she met and married the Portuguese journalist Jorge Arantes. The couple's daughter, Jessica, was born in 1993. After her marriage ended in divorce, Rowling moved to Edinburgh with her daughter to live near her younger sister, Di.

While struggling to support her daughter Jessica and herself on welfare, Rowling worked on her first book in the Harry Potter series. The idea for the book reportedly occurred to her while she was traveling on a train from Manchester to London in 1990.

READ MORE: J.K. Rowling's Incredible Rags to Riches Story

'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone'

After a number of rejections, Rowling finally sold her first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, for the equivalent of about $4,000; it hit shelves in June 1997. The word "Philosopher" in the book’s original title was changed to "Sorcerer" for its publication in America.

The book was the start of a seven-book series chronicling the life of the young wizard Harry Potter and his motley band of cohorts at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

'Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets'

The second book in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets , came out in July 1998.

'Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban'

The third book in Rowling's series, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban , hit shelves in July 1999. By the following summer, the first three Harry Potter books had earned approximately $480 million in three years, with over 35 million copies in print in 35 languages.

'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire'

The phenomenal response to Rowling's books culminated in July 2000, when the fourth volume in the series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire , became the fastest-selling book in 24 hours ever. The book saw a first printing of 5.3 million copies and advance orders of over 1.8 million.

'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix'

After a postponed release date, the fifth installment, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix , hit bookstores in June 2003.

'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince'

The sixth installment, released in July 2005, sold 6.9 million copies in the United States in its first 24 hours. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was the biggest opening in publishing history.

'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows'

Prior to its July 2007 release, the seventh and final installment in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows , was the largest ever pre-ordered book at Barnes & Noble and Borders bookstores and at Amazon.com. Rowling does not plan to write any more books in the series, although she has not entirely ruled out the possibility.

READ MORE: Harry Potter : The Real-Life Inspirations Behind J.K. Rowling's Characters

'The Tales of Beedle the Bard'

This collection of five fables mentioned in the Harry Potter book series, The Tales of Beedle the Bard , was released on December 4, 2008, at a tea party for 200 schoolchildren at the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh.

Rowling donated all royalties from the book to the Children's High Level Group (which has been renamed Lumos ), a charity that she co-founded to support institutionalized children in Eastern Europe.

'The Casual Vacancy'

Rowling's first book aimed at adults, The Casual Vacancy , was published in September 2012. The novel, a dark comedy about a local election in the small English town of Pagford, received mixed reviews.

A book review in The New York Times called the novel "disappointing" and "dull." A review in The Telegraph , however, gave the book three out of five stars, stating that “Jane Austen herself would admire the way [Rowling] shows the news of Barry’s death spreading like a virus round Pagford."

'Cuckoo Calling,' 'The Silkworm,' 'Career of Evil,' and 'Lethal White'

In April 2013, Rowling broke into a new genre, crime fiction, with a novel she published under the pen name Robert Galbraith. In the first few months following the release of Cuckoo Calling , the novel had modest sales and received positive reviews. Sales for the work skyrocketed in July when its author's identity was discovered.

According to Bloomberg News, Rowling said that "I had hoped to keep this secret a little longer, because being Robert Galbraith has been such a liberating experience. It has been wonderful to publish without hype or expectation, and pure pleasure to get feedback under a different name."

Rowling published three more books under the pen name Robert Galbraith: The Silkworm in June 2014 and Career of Evil , released in October 2015, followed by Lethal White in September 2018.

'Very Good Lives' (Rowling’s Harvard commencement speech)

In April 2015, Rowling’s 2008 Harvard commencement speech was published in book form as Very Good Lives: The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination .

The self-improvement guide offers personal anecdotes and advice on how to embrace failure and use your imagination to succeed. Proceeds from the book benefit Lumos, Rowling’s non-profit children’s organization.

‘Harry Potter: A History of Magic’

In 2017, Rowling announced on her website that she would publish two new books for an exhibition at the British Library that celebrates the 20th anniversary of the publication of her first novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone .

The books, Harry Potter: A History of Magic (described as the adult version) and Harry Potter: A Journey Through a History of Magic (the kid-friendly version), were released on October 20th and feature manuscripts, original illustrations and an exploration of the Harry Potter characters and magic.

In May 2019, it was reported that Rowling would be publishing four more Harry Potter stories. However, the author cleared up the confusion on her website, explaining that the “bite-sized e-reads” contain no new material. The A Journey Through… e-books were adapted from a companion audiobook to History of Magic narrated by Natalie Dormer.

DOWNLOAD BIOGRAPHY'S J.K. ROWLING'S FACT CARD

'Harry Potter' Movies

A film version of Rowling’s first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone , was released in November 2001 and was directed by Chris Columbus and starred Daniel Radcliffe , Emma Watson and Rupert Grint .

In its opening weekend in the U.S., the film debuted on a record 8,200 screens and smashed the previous box-office record, earning an estimated $93.5 million ($20 million more than the previous record-holder, 1999's The Lost World: Jurassic Park ). It ended the year as the top-grossing movie of 2001.

The second and third films in the series — Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), directed by Columbus, and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), directed by Alfonso Cuarón — each enjoyed similar record-breaking box-office success. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire , directed by Mike Newell, was released in 2005.

The fifth movie, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix , directed by David Yates, was released in 2007. The film featured a script by screenwriter Michael Goldenberg, who replaced Steve Kloves, scriptwriter of the first four films.

The film version of the sixth installment, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, directed by Yates, was released in July 2009. The final film for the seventh book in the series was released in two installments: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 (2010) and Part 2 (2011), both directed by Yates .

'Fantastic Beasts' Film Series

In 2013, Rowling announced a new film series with Warner Bros. According to Entertainment Weekly , Rowling explained that the movies, based on her 2001 Hogwarts textbook Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, would draw from "the worldwide community of witches and wizards where I was so happy for 17 years," but "is neither a prequel nor a sequel to the 'Harry Potter' series, but an extension of the wizarding world."

Developed from a script by Rowling — her screenwriting debut — and starring Eddie Redmayne , Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was released in November 2016. Following in the footsteps of Rowling's previous creations that made it to the big screen, Fantastic Beasts dazzled audiences with its depictions of sorcery and grossed more than $800 million worldwide.

The film's sequel generated controversy ahead of its planned November 2018 release date for the decision to include Johnny Depp in the cast. During a time when influential Hollywood actors and executives were coming under fire for past indiscretions, fans were troubled by the allegations of domestic abuse that contributed to Depp's divorce from Amber Heard.

However, in late 2017, both Rowling and Warner Bros. issued statements in support of Depp. “The filmmakers and I are not only comfortable sticking with our original casting, but genuinely happy to have Johnny playing a major character in the movies,” said Rowling.

In 2014, Rowling published a short story about grown-up Harry Potter and a Hogwarts school reunion on her website Pottermore . Since the site launched, she’s added more stories and information about all things Harry Potter.

‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’ Play

In June 2016, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child , a two-part play written by Jack Thorne and based on an original idea by Thorne, Rowling and director John Tiffany, debuted on the London stage to a sold-out audience.

Although she had originally stated Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows would be the final book in the series, the play features an adult Harry Potter and has been officially touted as the eighth installment of the series.

The play’s cast differs from that of the original films. The next month, as with her previous books, fans lined up at bookstores pending the midnight release of Jack Thorne’s script for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child .

Husband and Children

On December 26, 2001, Rowling married anesthetist Dr. Neil Murray at the couple's home in Scotland. They have two children together, David (born in 2003) and Mackenzie (born in 2005). Rowling has one child, Jessica (born 1993), from her previous marriage.

QUICK FACTS

• Name: J.K. Rowling
• Birth Year: 1965
• Birth date: July 31, 1965
• Birth City: Yate, England
• Birth Country: United Kingdom
• Gender: Female
• Best Known For: J.K. Rowling is the creator of the 'Harry Potter' fantasy series, one of the most popular book and film franchises in history.
• Fiction and Poetry
• Astrological Sign: Leo
• University of Exeter
• St Michael's Primary School in Winterbourne
• Wyedean School and College
• Interesting Facts
• Before J.K. Rowling published her 'Harry Potter' series, she was a single mom on welfare.
• As of 2017, Rowling's net worth is about $850 million dollars.

We strive for accuracy and fairness.If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us !

CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: J.K. Rowling Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/authors-writers/jk-rowling
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: March 29, 2021
• Original Published Date: April 3, 2014
• I was set free because my greatest fear had been realized and I still had a daughter that I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became a solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.
• Why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential.
• Hopefully, after 'Harry,' I'll still be publishing. That's what I want.
• For a few years, I did feel I was on a psychic treadmill, trying to keep up with where I was. Everything changed so rapidly, so strangely. I knew no one who'd ever been in the public eye. I didn't know anyone—anyone—to whom I could turn and say, 'What do you do?' So it was incredibly disorienting.
• The worst that could happen is that everyone says, 'That's shockingly bad.'
• You don't expect the kind of problems wealth brings with it. You don't expect the pressure.
• Anything is possible if you've got enough nerve.
• To the well organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.
• Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure.

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J.K. Rowling acknowledges applause following the awarding of her honorary degree.

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Text of J.K. Rowling’s speech

J.K. Rowling

Copyright J.K. Rowling

‘The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination’

Text as delivered.

President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates.

The first thing I would like to say is ‘thank you.’ Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honour, but the weeks of fear and nausea I have endured at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight. A win-win situation! Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners and convince myself that I am at the world’s largest Gryffindor reunion.

Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can’t remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, the law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.

You see? If all you remember in years to come is the ‘gay wizard’ joke, I’ve come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals: the first step to self improvement.

Actually, I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today. I have asked myself what I wish I had known at my own graduation, and what important lessons I have learned in the 21 years that have expired between that day and this.

I have come up with two answers. On this wonderful day when we are gathered together to celebrate your academic success, I have decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure. And as you stand on the threshold of what is sometimes called ‘real life’, I want to extol the crucial importance of imagination.

These may seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but please bear with me.

Looking back at the 21-year-old that I was at graduation, is a slightly uncomfortable experience for the 42-year-old that she has become. Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance between the ambition I had for myself, and what those closest to me expected of me.

I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was to write novels. However, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that would never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension. I know that the irony strikes with the force of a cartoon anvil, now.

So they hoped that I would take a vocational degree; I wanted to study English Literature. A compromise was reached that in retrospect satisfied nobody, and I went up to study Modern Languages. Hardly had my parents’ car rounded the corner at the end of the road than I ditched German and scuttled off down the Classics corridor.

I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics; they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day. Of all the subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom.

I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What is more, I cannot criticise my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor, and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.

What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.

At your age, in spite of a distinct lack of motivation at university, where I had spent far too long in the coffee bar writing stories, and far too little time at lectures, I had a knack for passing examinations, and that, for years, had been the measure of success in my life and that of my peers.

I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and well-educated, you have never known hardship or heartbreak. Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the Fates, and I do not for a moment suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of unruffled privilege and contentment.

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The sacred in Harry Potter

However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure. You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success. Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far from the average person’s idea of success, so high have you already flown.

Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears that my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.

Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. I had no idea then how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.

Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above the price of rubies.

The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more than any qualification I ever earned.

So given a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.

Now you might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination, because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so. Though I personally will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense. Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.

One of the greatest formative experiences of my life preceded Harry Potter, though it informed much of what I subsequently wrote in those books. This revelation came in the form of one of my earliest day jobs. Though I was sloping off to write stories during my lunch hours, I paid the rent in my early 20s by working at the African research department at Amnesty International’s headquarters in London.

There in my little office I read hastily scribbled letters smuggled out of totalitarian regimes by men and women who were risking imprisonment to inform the outside world of what was happening to them. I saw photographs of those who had disappeared without trace, sent to Amnesty by their desperate families and friends. I read the testimony of torture victims and saw pictures of their injuries. I opened handwritten, eye-witness accounts of summary trials and executions, of kidnappings and rapes.

Many of my co-workers were ex-political prisoners, people who had been displaced from their homes, or fled into exile, because they had the temerity to speak against their governments. Visitors to our offices included those who had come to give information, or to try and find out what had happened to those they had left behind.

I shall never forget the African torture victim, a young man no older than I was at the time, who had become mentally ill after all he had endured in his homeland. He trembled uncontrollably as he spoke into a video camera about the brutality inflicted upon him. He was a foot taller than I was, and seemed as fragile as a child. I was given the job of escorting him back to the Underground Station afterwards, and this man whose life had been shattered by cruelty took my hand with exquisite courtesy, and wished me future happiness.

And as long as I live I shall remember walking along an empty corridor and suddenly hearing, from behind a closed door, a scream of pain and horror such as I have never heard since. The door opened, and the researcher poked out her head and told me to run and make a hot drink for the young man sitting with her. She had just had to give him the news that in retaliation for his own outspokenness against his country’s regime, his mother had been seized and executed.

Every day of my working week in my early 20s I was reminded how incredibly fortunate I was, to live in a country with a democratically elected government, where legal representation and a public trial were the rights of everyone.

Every day, I saw more evidence about the evils humankind will inflict on their fellow humans, to gain or maintain power. I began to have nightmares, literal nightmares, about some of the things I saw, heard, and read.

And yet I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had ever known before.

Amnesty mobilises thousands of people who have never been tortured or imprisoned for their beliefs to act on behalf of those who have. The power of human empathy, leading to collective action, saves lives, and frees prisoners. Ordinary people, whose personal well-being and security are assured, join together in huge numbers to save people they do not know, and will never meet. My small participation in that process was one of the most humbling and inspiring experiences of my life.

Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people’s places.

Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathise.

And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.

I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces leads to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.

What is more, those who choose not to empathise enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.

One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.

That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people’s lives simply by existing.

But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people’s lives? Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique status, and unique responsibilities. Even your nationality sets you apart. The great majority of you belong to the world’s only remaining superpower. The way you vote, the way you live, the way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government, has an impact way beyond your borders. That is your privilege, and your burden.

If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped change. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.

I am nearly finished. I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21. The friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life. They are my children’s godparents, the people to whom I’ve been able to turn in times of trouble, people who have been kind enough not to sue me when I took their names for Death Eaters. At our graduation we were bound by enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never come again, and, of course, by the knowledge that we held certain photographic evidence that would be exceptionally valuable if any of us ran for Prime Minister.

So today, I wish you nothing better than similar friendships. And tomorrow, I hope that even if you remember not a single word of mine, you remember those of Seneca, another of those old Romans I met when I fled down the Classics corridor, in retreat from career ladders, in search of ancient wisdom: As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters. I wish you all very good lives. Thank-you very much.

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J.K. Rowling writes essay for new book on campaign to protect women rights

A new essay collection titled “The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht,” set for publication on May 30th, will feature a contribution from author J.K. Rowling , explaining her decision to lend her global voice to the campaign for protecting women’s sex-based rights in Scotland. The book, co-edited by The Scotsman columnist Susan Dalgety and author Lucy Hunter Blackburn, chronicles a five-year grassroots movement by women in Scotland who fought to safeguard the rights of women amidst proposed legislation aimed at simplifying the process for individuals to legally change their gender without a medical diagnosis.

In her essay, Rowling, the Harry Potter author, will shed light on her motivations for using her influential platform to “stand up for women” during this heated debate, which raised concerns about potential threats to women’s rights.

The collection, published by Constable, an imprint of the Little, Brown Book Group, will feature over 30 essays from various contributors, including MP Joanna Cherry, MSP Ash Regan, and former prison governor Rhona Hotchkiss. Constable publishing director Andreas Campomar emphasized the significance of Rowling’s involvement, stating, “These women risked their jobs and reputations, not to say their friendships and family ties, to speak out. The contributors in this book show how a climate was created, one in which true political change could occur. These are the women who wouldn’t wheesht.” The publishers describe the book as “the story of women who risked their job, reputation, even the bonds of family and friendship, to make their voices heard, and ended up – unexpectedly – contributing to the downfall of Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first woman first minister.”

Rowling’s decision to contribute an essay to “The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht” underscores her commitment to advocating for women’s rights amidst the ongoing debate surrounding gender recognition and its implications for women in Scotland.

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J.K. Rowling Defends Trans Statements In Lengthy Essay, Reveals She’s A Sexual Assault Survivor & Says “Trans People Need And Deserve Protection”

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In a 3,600-word long essay posted to her website this morning,  Harry Potter   author J.K. Rowling sought to clarify and expound upon the statements she made about the trans community on Saturday over Twitter, which caused an uproar in recent days drawing rebukes from GLAAD and Wizarding World actors Daniel Radcliffe and Eddie Redmayne.

“I forgot the first rule of Twitter – never, ever expect a nuanced conversation – and reacted to what I felt was degrading language about women. I spoke up about the importance of sex and have been paying the price ever since,” writes Rowling (you can read her essay here).

“This isn’t an easy piece to write, for reasons that will shortly become clear, but I know it’s time to explain myself on an issue surrounded by toxicity. I write this without any desire to add to that toxicity,” the Fantastic Beasts   screenwriter continued. Rowling explains that her interest in trans issues is “professional, because I’m writing a crime series, set in the present day, and my fictional female detective is of an age to be interested in, and affected by, these issues herself, but on another, it’s intensely personal.” Those are the Cormoran Strike crime novels, which Rowling writes under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.

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In the essay, Rowling outlines “five reasons for being worried about the new trans activism” regarding her “need to speak up,” chief among these being the author’s revelation that she’s a survivor of sexual assault and domestic abuse.

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“I’m mentioning these things now not in an attempt to garner sympathy, but out of solidarity with the huge numbers of women who have histories like mine, who’ve been slurred as bigots for having concerns around single-sex spaces,” defended Rowling.

“If you could come inside my head and understand what I feel when I read about a trans woman dying at the hands of a violent man, you’d find solidarity and kinship. I have a visceral sense of the terror in which those trans women will have spent their last seconds on earth, because I too have known moments of blind fear when I realised that the only thing keeping me alive was the shaky self-restraint of my attacker.”

“I believe the majority of trans-identified people not only pose zero threat to others, but are vulnerable for all the reasons I’ve outlined. Trans people need and deserve protection. Like women, they’re most likely to be killed by sexual partners. Trans women who work in the sex industry, particularly trans women of colour, are at particular risk. Like every other domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor I know, I feel nothing but empathy and solidarity with trans women who’ve been abused by men,” Rowling continued.

“So I want trans women to be safe. At the same time, I do not want to make natal girls and women less safe. When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman – and, as I’ve said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones – then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside. That is the simple truth,” said the author.

Rowling said she was triggered to tweet her thoughts on Saturday after reading that the Scottish government was proceeding with gender recognition plans which she believed were “controversial” and “which will in effect mean that all a man needs to ‘become a woman’ is to say he’s one. To use a very contemporary word, I was ‘triggered’.”

“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. I stand alongside the brave women and men, gay, straight and trans, who’re standing up for freedom of speech and thought, and for the rights and safety of some of the most vulnerable in our society: young gay kids, fragile teenagers, and women who’re reliant on and wish to retain their single sex spaces,” explains Rowling.

After trans activists turned against Rowling on social media Saturday, the author said she spent much of the day “in a very dark place inside my head, as memories of a serious sexual assault I suffered in my twenties recurred on a loop.”

“That assault happened at a time and in a space where I was vulnerable, and a man capitalised on an opportunity.  I couldn’t shut out those memories and I was finding it hard to contain my anger and disappointment about the way I believe my government is playing fast and loose with womens’ and girls’ safety,” wrote Rowling.

Another reason why Rowling says she tweeted stemmed from her concern about “the huge explosion in young women wishing to transition and also about the increasing numbers who seem to be detransitioning (returning to their original sex), because they regret taking steps that have, in some cases, altered their bodies irrevocably, and taken away their fertility. Some say they decided to transition after realising they were same-sex attracted, and that transitioning was partly driven by homophobia, either in society or in their families.”

“The more of their accounts of gender dysphoria I’ve read, with their insightful descriptions of anxiety, dissociation, eating disorders, self-harm and self-hatred, the more I’ve wondered whether, if I’d been born 30 years later, I too might have tried to transition. The allure of escaping womanhood would have been huge. I struggled with severe OCD as a teenager. If I’d found community and sympathy online that I couldn’t find in my immediate environment, I believe I could have been persuaded to turn myself into the son my father had openly said he’d have preferred.”

She continued, “I want to be very clear here: I know transition will be a solution for some gender dysphoric people, although I’m also aware through extensive research that studies have consistently shown that between 60-90% of gender dysphoric teens will grow out of their dysphoria…The current explosion of trans activism is urging a removal of almost all the robust systems through which candidates for sex reassignment were once required to pass. A man who intends to have no surgery and take no hormones may now secure himself a Gender Recognition Certificate and be a woman in the sight of the law. Many people aren’t aware of this.”

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I’m a Nonbinary Writer of Youth Literature. J.K. Rowling’s Comments on Gender Identity Reinforced My Commitment to Better Representation

I knew something was off before I’d fully woken up. I shut off my phone alarm and then noticed triple the number of my usual overnight notifications. One name kept appearing: J.K. Rowling.

I didn’t know exactly what she’d said, but a quick trip to Twitter confirmed what I’d already suspected: Rowling had doubled down on her claim that transgender people are confused or misguided about their gender. First, it was a series of tweets. Then, an essay on her website.

Rowling’s views are not new to me. There have been discussions online about her transphobia for quite some time, both public and private. I’ve also seen the breakdown of her concerning portrayal of a transgender woman in the mystery series she writes under the pen name Robert Galbraith—the name she shares with an anti-LGBTQ psychiatrist who practiced conversion therapy.

Problematic? Yes. And personally hurtful, considering her Harry Potter series was a source of comfort to me during the stresses of graduate school. It inspired me to write as a creative outlet, and her novels held a coveted spot in my home—an entire bookshelf dedicated to my original book copies and the foreign-language versions I made it my mission to find each time I traveled abroad.

As an adult, I can objectively look at her comments and reject them as untrue, however painful. But Rowling’s fanbase almost certainly includes transgender and nonbinary youth. And given how quickly online news can spread, these kids are surely aware of what’s being said about their identities.

Publishing has come a long way since I was a child, unable to find stories about transgender and nonbinary kids on the bookshelf. George by Alex Gino, largely acknowledged as the first traditionally published novel geared toward 8- to 12-year-olds written by a trans-identified author, was released in 2015 to wide praise . It was the first time I had read an authentic, sensitive portrayal of a transgender girl, and it opened the door for transgender and nonbinary middle-grade authors, allowing us to tell our stories through the eyes of characters who share our identities.

According to author Ray Stoeve’s The YA/MG Trans & Nonbinary Voices Masterlist , in 2017 one middle-grade book was published that featured a transgender or nonbinary character, written by a transgender- or nonbinary-identified author. There were two in 2019, and four books have been released or are about to be released in 2020 (including my own novel). The number of books with transgender representation rises if you factor in novels written by cisgender authors.

So why do Rowling’s comments about transgender identities matter? They highlight the continued stigma in portraying these characters in children’s literature and come at a time when stories about transgender and nonbinary characters still receive pushback. George is one of the most challenged children’s books in America, and middle schools around the country are censoring LGBTQ novels .

There’s no one right way to be transgender or nonbinary, and the path kids take to discover their identity varies widely. I thought I was a transgender man before realizing that I am nonbinary. I don’t know if I would’ve discovered my identity sooner if books featuring transgender or nonbinary characters had existed when I was a kid, but I can easily imagine the damage Rowling’s words would have caused me while I was still exploring my identity as a child. They’re just as harmful to transgender and nonbinary kids now.

Publishing is steadily taking notice that young readers benefit from sensitive, nuanced portrayals of transgender characters. This representation can serve as a mirror that reflects a child’s own experience. It can provide much-needed comfort. And when famous authors share hurtful opinions about transgender people, stories now exist that can challenge these harmful stereotypes. As support continues to grow for authentic character portrayals, it’s my hope that my phone will ping with fewer problematic opinions and instead be filled with kid-lit recommendations reflecting the diversity that already exists in its readership.

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J.K. Rowling writes essay on trans-activism and her fears about gender recognition laws

"I want trans women to be safe. At the same time, I do not want to make natal girls and women less safe"

J.K. Rowling has written an essay to defend comments that led to her being accused of transphobia , and to explain why she felt the need to voice her opinions.

Last weekend the Harry Potter author criticised an article shared on Twitter for its use of the term “people who menstruate” instead of women.

Many claimed she was being transphobic because her comments suggested that you can only be classed as a woman if you menstruate. Rowling then proceeded to write a string of tweets claiming the push for trans rights would erase the concept of sex and, subsequently, the lived experience of women.

• READ MORE: 20 ways Harry Potter changed the world

In a new essay (read in full here ) the novelist has listed her reasons for supporting the concept of sex while also throwing her support behind trans people. She explained that she has done extensive research into gender identity over the past few years by meeting trans people and speaking to psychologists, doctors and social workers.

As someone who “struggled with severe OCD as a teenager” and to whom “the allure of escaping womanhood would have been huge”, Rowling revealed in the article that she may have considered transitioning to a male if the science had more accessible 30 years ago.

She noted: “The writings of young trans men reveal a group of notably sensitive and clever people. The more of their accounts of gender dysphoria I’ve read, with their insightful descriptions of anxiety, dissociation, eating disorders, self-harm and self-hatred, the more I’ve wondered whether, if I’d been born 30 years later, I too might have tried to transition.”

Rowling added: “I want to be very clear here: I know transition will be a solution for some gender dysphoric people, although I’m also aware through extensive research that studies have consistently shown that between 60-90 per cent of gender dysphoric teens will grow out of their dysphoria.”

Later, Rowling highlighted a proposed law that had “triggered” her, citing the Scottish government’s consideration of introducing gender recognition legislation. “On Saturday morning, I read that the Scottish government is proceeding with its controversial gender recognition plans, which will in effect mean that all a man needs to ‘become a woman’ is to say he’s one.

“To use a very contemporary word, I was ‘triggered’. Ground down by the relentless attacks from trans activists on social media, when I was only there to give children feedback about pictures they’d drawn for my book under lockdown, I spent much of Saturday in a very dark place inside my head, as memories of a serious sexual assault I suffered in my twenties recurred on a loop.”

Elsewhere in the essay, Rowling explained her feelings on what she claims is the “erosion” of sex, saying that she finds counter-arguments to be “deeply misogynistic and regressive”.

“I’ve read all the arguments about femaleness not residing in the sexed body, and the assertions that biological women don’t have common experiences, and I find them, too, deeply misogynistic and regressive. It’s also clear that one of the objectives of denying the importance of sex is to erode what some seem to see as the cruelly segregationist idea of women having their own biological realities or – just as threatening – unifying realities that make them a cohesive political class.

She continued: “The hundreds of emails I’ve received in the last few days prove this erosion concerns many others just as much. It isn’t enough for women to be trans allies. Women must accept and admit that there is no material difference between trans women and themselves.”

Rowling’s essay comes after Daniel Radcliffe , Eddie Redmayne and King Princess denounced her comments made last weekend.

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J.K. Rowling Triples Down on Transphobia

J.K. Rowling, as you may have heard, has some Opinions about trans identity, some of which she aired on Twitter in early June . Sharing an article on period poverty, the author took aim at the phrase “people who menstruate.” As became clear from her subsequent explanation, Rowling believes that womanhood somehow hangs on this biological function, logic that excludes trans women and gender-nonconforming people. Many read her comments as transphobic, and with criticism growing, Rowling published a 3,690-word response on June 10. In this essay, entitled “TERF Wars,” she both broadly declares her support for trans people, while doubling down on her original suggestion that trans women do not actually qualify as women.

And now, weeks after publishing her controversial essay, Rowling has reiterated those beliefs at length , while also implicating people who take mental health medications. It is, as you may have intuited, a lot to unpack.

Rowling’s June essay sparked outrage for its reliance on anti-trans talking points.

In the June 10 post, Rowling named five core reasons for her position. The two that animate the essay, however, are a suspicion that young people who decide to transition (particularly adolescent girls heavily influenced by their peers, an idea that has been thoroughly debunked ) often “grow out of their dysphoria” and come to regret their decisions; and Rowling’s fear, as a survivor of sexual assault and domestic abuse, that opening the doors of a women’s restroom to “any man who believes or feels he’s a woman” means “open[ing] the door to any and all men who wish to come inside,” jeopardizing female safety.

Naturally, the existing online criticism of Rowling’s position did not cool with the publication of this rebuttal. One reader summed it up as a “TERF bingo card,” and indeed the term TERF — which stands for trans-exclusionary radical feminist and in its current usage, often describes a liberal woman whose brand of feminism excludes transgender women from its push for equal rights — is one that Rowling heard many times between hitting send the tweet that kicked off the controversy, and the birth of this essay.

Jen Richards, a transgender writer, actress, and producer, summarized Rowling’s argument as “garden variety anti-trans bigotry” that distracted from the Black Lives Matter movement “at the very moment” it “has taken the global center stage.”

Others took issue with Rowling’s disclosure of past trauma as a justification for a fear of trans women. “Like JK Rowling, I am also a survivor of domestic abuse and sexual assault, both of which occurred in my teens,” one user wrote. “These awful experiences don’t justify bigoted and trans-exclusionary views and I find it pretty disgusting that she’s using them as a shield to deflect criticism.”

In a lengthy thread that provides a point-by-point fact-check of Rowling’s essay, Andrew James Carter, co-founder of a user-moderated social network called Podium, underscored that “there are no end of checks required before trans people receive [gender affirmation] surgery,” if they decide to do so. And indeed, the process is long and very costly ; it’s not something that can be undertaken on a whim, particularly not by the minors Rowling seems so concerned about. As for restroom-based perils, Carter notes, “The danger to women (trans and cis) comes from cis men. By campaigning for trans women to be excluded from women’s spaces, transphobes are actively calling for trans women to be subjected to the very danger from which they (wrongly) claim to be protecting themselves.”

And indeed, the available numbers suggest that very few people (0.4 percent of 27,715 respondents, in one U.S. survey ) detransition because of a belated change of heart, and there simply is no evidence to suggest that trans women are attacking people in bathrooms. On the contrary, allowing people to use the bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity appears to promote safety and wellbeing. Because, as Rowling seems almost to acknowledge, we are not lacking for examples of cis men exercising fatal violence against transgender women.

There is, of course, a lot more in the essay, which you can read in full here , if you feel so inclined.

Now, Rowling has followed that up with a Twitter rant conflating conversion therapy and hormone therapy.

Since all of this started, Harry Potter cast members and a number of other celebrities have publicly condemned Rowling’s views . Multiple fan sites have disavowed the author . But the sustained backlash has not deterred her. On Sunday, Rowling fired off 11 tweets in response to a Twitter user who noticed that she had liked a tweet arguing that “hormone prescriptions are the new anti depressants.”

“Yes they are sometimes necessary and lifesaving, but they should be a last resort,” the tweet said . “Pure laziness for those who would rather medicate than put in the time and effort to heal people’s minds.”

This parallel did not sit well with people who take daily medications to manage their mental health, nor did it land with people who have been prescribed hormones. Rowling apologized to no one. In her response , she instead wrote that, while she has “ignored porn tweeted at children on a thread about their art” along with “death and rape threats,” she is “not going to ignore this.” Which is to say, people retweeting a screenshot of a tweet she liked.

“I’ve written and spoken about my own mental health challenges, which include OCD, depression and anxiety,” Rowling wrote . “I did so recently in my essay ‘TERF Wars’. I’ve taken anti-depressants in the past and they helped me.” And then, she pivoted quickly back to another of the points made in that essay.

“Many health professionals are concerned that young people struggling with their mental health are being shunted towards hormones and surgery when this may not be in their best interests,” she argued on Sunday . “Many, myself included, believe we are watching a new kind of conversion therapy for young gay people, who are being set on a lifelong path of medicalization that may result in the loss of their fertility and/or full sexual function.”

Conversion therapy encompasses tactics ranging from emotional shaming to the use of electric shock and induced vomiting, all in an effort to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. In the opinion of the American Association of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry , “‘conversion therapies’ … lack scientific credibility and clinical utility,” and run a high risk actively harming subjects. Therefore, the AACAP believes, they “should not be part of any behavioral health treatment of children and adolescents.”

Hormone therapy, meanwhile, is a medical treatment eligible patients can pursue only after extensive consultations with a doctor. So again, the logic gets pretty tangled here. Forcing gay people to transition as a means of eliminating same-sex attraction would be a convoluted and counterintuitive means to an end, to say the least.

Meanwhile, as model and transgender activist Munroe Bergdorf notes , “Not supporting a trans kids transition doesn’t stop them from being trans. If anything forcing them to live as a gender they don’t identity as, is conversion therapy.”

“If you want to know what is best for trans people, listen to trans people,” she added . “Listen to supportive parents who have watched their children flourish after being listened to.”

This article has been updated.

• transgender rights
• j.k. rowling
• transphobia

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J.K. Rowling and the Echo Chamber of TERFs

The once-visionary author has lost her way in a demented forest of misinformation and fear—particularly of the autonomy of trans men..

This post is part of  Outward , Slate’s home for coverage of LGBTQ life, thought, and culture.  Read more here .

On Wednesday, youth novelist J.K. Rowling released an essay detailing her  beliefs about transgender people and her criticisms of the trans rights movement. These opinions will come as no surprise to anyone aware of Rowling’s tweeted support for Maya Forstater (a British woman who claimed that the right to misgender trans people was so absolute that an employer could not take it into account when deciding whether to renew a yearly contract and ultimately lost her case in court). However, the essay provides an illuminating account of the author’s fears and misconceptions about trans people, as well as a partial and self-serving history of her radicalization in this area. For those who wonder why Rowling would traipse down this path at all rather than stay quiet and count her Harry Potter money, her story provides a window into the creeping progress of hateful, transphobic sentiments that have become mainstream in the U.K . over the past few years.

Much of the essay is taken up with complaints about trans activists calling Rowling names online. One of these names is “TERF,” or trans-exclusionary radical feminist. Rowling, in the first of many inaccurate claims, says that the term was coined by trans activists. (In fact, it was coined by a cisgender radical feminist to be a neutral descriptor). Rowling goes on to claim that “[TERFs] aren’t even trans-exclusionary—they include trans men in their feminism, because they were born women.”

It’s worth pausing to linger on this. Rowling isn’t claiming to be a TERF or to speak for TERFs; but she finds this defense—that trans men are included in TERF feminism by virtue of being misgendered and disbelieved—persuasive enough to be worth passing on to her readers. Where could she have gotten this from? Certainly not from trans men, who by definition aren’t interested in being included by a group of women who refuse to see them as they are. On the contrary, it’s the kind of thing that only a person who has spent a whole lot of time around people who talk about trans people while excluding trans voices from the discussion could find persuasive. These would have to be some sort of trans-excluding people who also consider themselves to be standing up for women’s rights …

OK, fine, I’ll say it: Rowling must be spending her time in a TERF echo chamber for TERFs. That’s the only reason I can imagine for something as absurd as trans men aren’t being excluded because they’re women too to make it into an essay she thinks will help explain herself to the broader public. While Rowling may not wish to be thought of as a TERF, at this point, we are obliged to know her by the company she keeps.

As the essay continues, Rowling briefly, and vaguely, speaks of trans activism having an effect on women and children’s charities by “pushing to erode the legal definition of sex and replace it with gender.” She does not detail what these effects will be, or even explicitly say they will be negative—there’s innuendo and hand-waving, but no substance. Even more briefly, she suggests that her writing this has something to do with freedom of speech. Then, she begins to write about trans men. And boy, does she ever write a lot about trans men.

To say that J. K. Rowling is obsessed with trans men may sound like an overstatement, but consider that she spends more time on fears about women mistakenly transitioning and becoming trans men than any other single topic in her essay. She begins this section on trans men by saying that this is where things begin to get truly personal for her, and later, somewhat plaintively, tells us: “I didn’t have a realistic possibility of becoming a man back in the 1980s.” In total, she devotes more than 1,200 words—about a third of the essay—to these fears she has about trans men.

Rowling believes that women are erroneously transitioning because being a woman is hard. She does not offer any evidence that being a trans man is easier than being a woman, or that people are regretting transiting to men in large numbers, though she does speculate that she might have transitioned if she’d been born 30 years later. She also mentions that the number of trans masculine youth being seen at gender clinics has expanded dramatically (this is true, and there are many reasons why it might be so ) and claims a huge percentage of gender dysphoric teens grow out of their dysphoria. This last one is, flatly, false. Although Rowling gives no citations, the closest thing she could be referring to are a handful of dated desistance studies , where the majority of cases seen were young gender-nonconforming boys who matured into gay men (ironically, those studies showed that the minority of female-assigned children seen were far less likely to desist). The diagnostic criteria for gender dysphoria have been updated since that time, and clinics have improved and are still improving in their ability to distinguish gender nonconformity from transgender identity .

We know that Rowling’s ideas about trans men are not based in a careful examination of the research, because the research we have, though spotty and admittedly insufficient, tends to lead toward the conclusion that desistance rates are reducing, and female-assigned youth are less likely to desist than male-assigned youth are. So where does this fear that young women are falsely identifying as trans men in large numbers and will one day be filled with regret come from? Simply put: It comes from the sexist beliefs reverberating in the TERF echo chambers that Rowling seems to have immersed herself in.

TERFs believe that trans men are women, that they are victims of trans ideology, and that any day now a cleansing wave of detransitioning trans men will sweep through the population. Rather than giving women the agency or the ability to know their own minds, they explain trans men by relying on a narrative of victimhood that resonates with the victimhood they feel all women experience at the hands of men and trans women. Not only are women not safe in sharing bathrooms with trans women, they can’t even be safe from trans women’s influence over their own minds.

The idea that young female-assigned people are uniquely vulnerable, easily led, and unable to know or speak for themselves is, of course, classically sexist. Rowling has internalized this sexist lens to the point where she even believes that she, herself, might have mistakenly pursued transition if she’d been born a few decades later.

It is unacceptable for us to be painted as victims led astray by trans ideology in this way. Trans men are autonomous individuals who make choices and decisions. Trans men can speak for ourselves, and we’re telling you: We are men. We are not women. We don’t need people who hate and demean us to tell us what’s good for us because they think we’re women and women can’t think for themselves. If Rowling’s picture of trans men was allowed to become the dominant understanding, it would not only remove trans men’s ability to speak for ourselves but erode the rights of women and girls to determine their own destinies—the very rights that Rowling believes she’s fighting for. If women can be trusted to think and make decisions for themselves, then they’re simply not at widespread risk of mistakenly becoming trans men—and anyone who makes such a mistake has done so honestly and of their own accord. To believe otherwise is incompatible not only with trans rights but with feminism, advocacy for women, and women’s rights as well.

• In My Own Words
• Younger Readers

J.K. Rowling talks in depth for the first time about her writing

J.K. Rowling is often asked questions by fans and budding writers about her writing process: where she writes, how she writes, her inspiration and her research, how a book comes about, from the germ of an idea to the editing process and eventual publication.

For the first time, J.K. Rowling has responded to those questions, discussing openly and in depth about her writing including Harry Potter, her other children’s books The Ickabog and The Christmas Pig, as well as writing as Robert Galbraith, the Cormoran Strike crime fiction series.

The On Writing series will consist of three episodes, watch the first one here.

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