A new podcast, "The Witch Trials of JK Rowling," was launched on Tuesday.
Credit: Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images/File
(CNN) --
For years, JK Rowling -- one of the best-selling authors of all time -- has made inflammatory comments about transgender people, especially trans women, using dehumanizing language and baselessly accusing them of harming women. cisgender
Her words have disappointed legions of "Harry Potter" fans and even the stars who brought Rowling's books to life.
Now, a podcast called "The Witch Trials of JK Rowling" indicates that she will discuss the reaction to those anti-trans comments and her journey as an author with host Megan Phelps-Roper, a former senior member of the anti-trans Westboro Baptist Church. the LGBTQ community.
Even before its publication, the podcast was criticized by LGBTQ advocates for seemingly siding with Rowling based solely on the title.
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Here's what to know about the new podcast, the first two episodes of which dropped on Tuesday, as well as Rowling's history of damaging comments.
Rowling's anti-transgender comments are not mentioned in most early episodes.
Rowling announced her participation in the podcast on Valentine's Day, the same day an audio trailer was released with the author saying she had been "misconstrued".
Prior to the podcast's launch, host Phelps-Roper told The Times of London that the series was not intended to "vindicate" Rowling.
For most of the podcast's first two episodes, Phelps-Roper and Rowling did not directly address the author's anti-trans comments.
Rowling's comment about being "misunderstood" appeared in full.
However, it was more in the context of her legacy and what critics of hers have said about how she could have held herself in good esteem had she not made certain comments on social media.
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"I couldn't have been more profoundly misunderstood," Rowling said on the first episode of the podcast.
"I don't walk around my house thinking about my legacy."
"What a pompous way to live your life, to walk around thinking 'what will my legacy be? It doesn't matter, I'll be dead. I care about now."
Over the course of the episode, Rowling told Phelps-Roper that she had miscarried shortly before she married her first husband.
She also said that her first husband abused her and showed up at a house where she and her daughter lived after she left him.
The second episode recounted how many groups, particularly those made up of conservative Christians, accused the "Harry Potter" series of promoting witchcraft and fought to have it banned.
Phelps-Roper mentioned that many of the most frequently banned books today are LGBTQ stories.
The episode ends with comments from Rowling's critics who condemned her anti-trans comments, which neither Rowling nor Phelps-Roper mentioned directly.
A representative for Rowling told CNN that the author would not comment further on her participation in the podcast.
CNN has also reached out to Phelps-Roper and The Free Press, the company that publishes the podcast, for comment.
Rowling's views on transgender people first came to light in 2018
In March 2018, Rowling "liked" a tweet that mislabeled trans women, calling them "men in clothes", a spokesperson for the author said it was a "middle-aged moment" and an accident. .
After Rowling's "like" surfaced, journalist Katelyn Burns outlined other moments that seemed to indicate Rowling supported anti-trans views.
In an article for Them, Burns wrote that Rowling had previously liked a tweet of an anti-trans essay on Medium.
She also said that in the book "The Silkworm," written under the pen name Robert Galbraith, Rowling used an "insulting trope" to describe a character who was a trans woman, depicting her as aggressive and emphasizing her anatomy.
In December 2019, Rowling publicly supported Maya Forstater, a former UK think tank employee who lost her job after criticizing the UK government's plans to allow residents to self-select their gender on identification documents.
Forstater said that she believes that transgender women who have undergone gender reassignment surgery are men, regardless of their identification documents.
Forstater filed a lawsuit against her company, accusing it of discrimination.
She lost in a first labor lawsuit.
(Another court ruled in her favor in 2022.)
JK Rowling explains what she thinks about gender identity after criticism
Shortly after the details of the first trial became known, Rowling tweeted: "Dress what you want. Call yourself what you want. Sleep with any willing adult. Live your best life in peace and safety. But forcing women to quit their jobs for claim that sex is real? #IStandWithMaya #ThisIsNotADrill".
Rowling's endorsement of a woman who made anti-trans comments disappointed fans.
Credit: Jeff Spicer/Getty Images for Warner Bros.
Many of Rowling's supporters thought the comments disparaged the personality of trans people.
The "Harry Potter" books are some of the most beloved novels in children's literature and one of the most popular books ever.
Many LGBTQ readers found solace in the series' themes of choosing a family.
"As a homosexual who found safety at Hogwarts my entire childhood, knowing that transgender people won't be able to have that safety (because of Rowling's tweets) breaks my heart," activist Shahmir Sanni tweeted.
This incident was one of the first to earn Rowling the label "Terf," or trans-exclusionary radical feminist.
The term is used to describe outspoken feminists who attempt to police the boundaries of femininity by excluding trans women from the category.
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June 2020 marked a turning point
Rowling tweeted that the "lived reality of women everywhere is erased" if sex "isn't real," a simplification of the idea shared by many LGBTQ advocates that a person's sex doesn't always dictate their gender. .
She also scoffed at an op-ed that used the phrase "people who menstruate," a term that includes trans people who have their period but may not be women.
Nor is it a common argument among advocates of trans equality that sex is not "real," as Rowling claimed -- sex and gender are distinct and fluid, and neither has clear criteria -- and the impact cannot be denied. that both have on the lives of cisgender and transgender people.
That same month, Rowling posted a lengthy essay defending her views on her website.
In it, Ella Rowling explained why she had been "concerned by the new trans activism".
She cited the oft-cited but little-researched claim that many people who seek health care to confirm her gender end up regretting her decision and want to reverse it, known as "detransition."
It is rare for a trans person to reverse the process, and there is little data to support Rowling's claims.
When it occurs, it is often understood to be the product of transphobia and discrimination in their lives.
She also wrote that she did not want to make cisgender women or girls "less safe," referring to the unfounded and harmful belief that allowing trans people to use bathrooms that match their gender identity could compromise the safety of others.
Restricting access to bathrooms can actually hurt trans people: Trans teens who are not allowed to use gender-matching bathrooms are at higher risk of sexual assault, according to the 2019 Study on LGBTQ Teens.
"Harry Potter" stars Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint issued statements in support of trans people after Rowling's series of anti-trans comments in June 2020, though only Radcliffe directly referred to Rowling in his remarks.
Trans people face a dangerous and difficult reality
Rowling's views do not reflect the reality facing trans people: They are more than four times more likely than cisgender people to be victims of violent crime, according to the Williams Institute, UCLA Law's LGBTQ policy think tank.
The year 2021 became the deadliest on record for trans and non-binary people, according to the Human Rights Campaign, with at least 45 people killed.
Trans women of color, especially black women, suffer disproportionately from violence against them.
When Rowling compared gender-affirming healthcare to "a new kind of conversion therapy" in July 2020, "Boy Erased" author and Kennesaw State assistant professor Garrard Conley discussed his own experiences with gender-affirming therapy. gay conversion and how gender-affirming healthcare can save lives.
"Research shows that trans people, especially those exposed to this type of thinking at a young age, are also more likely to attempt suicide," he wrote for CNN Opinion.
Conley cited data from the Trevor Project showing that trans and non-binary youth are about twice as likely to seriously consider suicide and experience symptoms of depression compared to cisgender LGBTQ youth, who are already at elevated risk of suicidal ideation.
"Since Rowling is so concerned with protecting trans youth from irreparable harm, she should already be aware of this risk," she wrote.
2021: the 'deadliest year on record' for transgender and non-binary people
Rowling's views continue to cause damage
Rowling has continued to make anti-transgender comments and promote stories on her Twitter account that discredit the case for trans inclusion.
Some of her novels have also been denounced for perpetuating negative stereotypes.
"Troubled Blood," written under the pseudonym Galbraith, was criticized for its offensive portrayal of a character posing as another gender to carry out murder.
"As a children's charity, we are witnessing the real pain felt by young people who once viewed Ms Rowling's fiction as a place of solace, friendship and escape," said a spokesperson for Mermaids, a non-profit organization. from the UK who supports trans youth and their families, in a statement to CNN at the time.
Rowling's 2022 book "The Ink Black Heart" included a plot that seemed to mirror her own life, in which a creative was criticized for making transphobic comments and other offensive statements.
That same year, she did not appear in the HBO Max special for the 20th anniversary of the "Harry Potter" films, which featured much of the main cast and crew;
she said that she had decided not to be a part of it.
He also claimed to have received death threats for his comments against transgender people.
Some Harry Potter fans have distanced themselves from Rowling.
Last year, the major Quidditch leagues said they would change the name of the sport, inspired by the one played in the books, to "quadball", attributing it in part to Rowling's continued anti-trans rhetoric.
Players were hesitant to play "Hogwarts Legacy" because of Rowling's anti-transgender comments.
Credit: WB Games
Some gamers debated whether or not they should play the recently released "Hogwarts Legacy," a massive video game based on Rowling's Wizarding World, and some ultimately chose not to buy it.
(Notably, the game seems to include the series' first trans character, though this detail hasn't been explicitly confirmed.)
The game has broken pre-sale records despite controversy over some of Rowling's statements.
(CNN and HBO Max parent company Warner Bros. Discovery, which is behind the "Harry Potter" film franchise and owns "Hogwarts Legacy," said Rowling is not involved in the game.)
The "Harry Potter" franchise casts a trans character in the video game "Hogwarts Legacy"
The second episode of "The Witch Trials of JK Rowling" simply ends with the voices of her critics censoring her anti-trans comments.
It seems that Rowling's response to them will not arrive at least until the premiere of the next episode, next Tuesday.
JK Rowling
