J.K. Rowling Accused Activists of Publicizing Her Address Online
- J.K. Rowling said “activist actors” posted a photo with her family’s home address visible.
- The alleged doxxing attempt appears connected to ongoing backlash over transphobic comments.
- “I’ve now received so many death threats I could paper the house with them,” she wrote on Twitter.
J.K. Rowling has accused “three activist actors” of sharing a photo online while standing outside her family’s home in Edinburgh, Scotland “carefully” positioned to “ensure that our address was visible.”
The “Harry Potter” author thanked fans who reported the image to Twitter. She also “implored” those who reshared the image without concealing her address, “even if they did so in condemnation of these people’s actions,” to delete it.
—J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) November 22, 2021
The original image has apparently been removed, though screenshots have been circulated online. It shows three demonstrators holding signs, bearing slogans like “trans liberation now” and “trans rights are human rights.”
Rowling tagged three people in her thread of eight tweets on Monday, accusing them of
in order to “intimidate” her in retaliation for “speaking up for women’s sex-based rights.” (All three accounts have been deleted.)
The term “women’s sex-based rights” is a euphemism for trans-exclusionary radical feminism, an anti-trans movement that’s been widely condemned by intersectional feminists and the LGBTQ community.
The term “doxxing” refers to a form of online harassment where a user targets a specific person or group, finds personal information, and publishes it.
“They should have reflected on the fact that I’ve now received so many death threats I could paper the house with them, and I haven’t stopped speaking out,” Rowling wrote in part. “Perhaps — and I’m just throwing this out there — the best way to prove your movement isn’t a threat to women, is to stop stalking, harassing and threatening us.”
Rowling previously said she’s been targeted by “hundreds of trans activists” online and shared screenshots of death threats she’s been sent on Twitter.
On Monday, Rowling named several women who have also aligned themselves with TERF ideology, saying they’ve been subjected to “campaigns of intimidation” for years, “which range from being hounded on social media, the targeting of their employers, all the way up to doxxing and direct threats of violence, including rape.”
“None of these women are protected in the way I am. They and their families have been put into a state of fear and distress for no other reason than that they refuse to uncritically accept that the socio-political concept of gender identity should replace that of sex,” she wrote.
Rowling has been widely criticized by LGBTQ people and allies since 2020 when she tweeted about her belief that trans activism hurts women and lesbians.
“If sex isn’t real, there’s no same-sex attraction. If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased,” she wrote. “It isn’t hate to speak the truth.”
“I’d march with you if you were discriminated against on the basis of being trans,” Rowling added.
As Insider’s Madison Hall and Canela López previously reported, 2020 was the deadliest year on record for transgender people in the US — but 2021 is on track to be even deadlier, with concern especially dire for Black trans women.
“When I see [Rowling] tweeting about how trans people think sex isn’t real, and they’re erasing same-sex attraction, and they’re silencing women, alarm bells are ringing. Because I recognize these as familiar transphobic talking points,” YouTuber Natalie Wynn, aka ContraPoints, said in a popular video essay published in January.
“Trans people are a population of people, who have a right to equality and to freedom from discrimination. We are not an ‘ideology’ that’s up for debate,” Wynn explained. “But that’s how J.K. Rowling frames ‘the trans question’ — not as a struggle for equality that she opposes, but as an ideology that she disagrees with.”
Rowling doubled down with a lengthy post on her website, published in June 2020, which detailed “her reasons for speaking out on sex and gender issues.”
In the post, Rowling denied she “hates trans people” and called her interest in trans issues “intensely personal.” She advocated for “robust systems” of medical gatekeeping to prevent methods of transitioning, like hormones and gender affirmation surgery.
She also perpetuated several myths about trans people that can prevent them from receiving life-saving care, such as her claim that there’s been an “explosion” of young women transitioning and de-transitioning. There’s no evidence that’s true.
Rowling’s anti-trans stance has received support from other celebrities, such as Dave Chappelle and John Cleese, but received ongoing backlash from “Harry Potter” fans and actors, including Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson.
In response to Rowling’s newest Twitter thread, Wynn said “her thinking is still totally wrong” but condemned the “doxxing/harassment” she faces.
—Natalie Wynn (@ContraPoints) November 22, 2021
“No one’s trying to ‘replace the concept of sex’ — rather to acknowledge that binary sex categories are inadequate to describe trans experience & sociopolitical situation,” Wynn wrote. “But the doxxing/harassment of this woman is an utter disgrace to all of us.”
She added: “And no, most trans people are not to blame, but I am sick of seeing endless apologetics for this kind of behavior.”
