Author J.K. Rowling says transgender activism harms women

Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling argued that transgender activism is elitist and harms unprivileged women in an essay published on her website Wednesday. That activism has held that if a man says he is a woman, he is entitled to be treated as a woman in all contexts, Rowling wrote. The activist movement supports such a man getting access to women’s dressing rooms, awards, and breastfeeding or sexual assault support groups. If convicted of a crime, a man who claims to be a woman could be locked up with women. Transgenderism has minimized women’s rights and invalidated the purpose of single-sex spaces, Rowling concluded.

"If a man can be a woman, there is no such thing as a woman,” she wrote. “That might not matter to you personally, but it matters to millions of women who don’t have the luxury of pretending that their sex doesn’t matter."

Rowling, an outspoken advocate for biological sex distinctions, first published an essay on her views in 2020.

What was the author’s argument? Transgenderism doesn’t affect wealthy women who can have private security guards stand outside their dressing rooms or who aren’t required to change at work, Rowling said. But many working women don’t want to change in front of men who identify as women, Rowling contended. Women need female-only spaces so they aren’t vulnerable to predatory men, but they’ve been opposed for requesting spaces like this in recent years. The author referenced cases such as that of the British nurses forced to share female-only hospital changing rooms with a man. A group of nurses pushed back, and a court ultimately ruled in their favor and awarded them $250,000 in damages in June.

Rowling added that transgender individuals shouldn’t be discriminated against when it comes to housing, employment, or matters of safety.

Dig deeper: Read Christina Grube’s report about Rowling’s support for a U.S. female athlete who refused to fence a man.