

I do not believe it’s hateful to say so.” At the same time, my life has been shaped by being female. I’d march with you if you were discriminated against on the basis of being trans. However, one of the most significant such statements made by Rowling occurred in 2020 when Rowling tweeted a criticism of a article that used the phrase “people who menstruate.” Despite immediate public backlash, Rowling continued to defend her statements, though she did respond to certain accusations regarding the harmful nature of her views with a tweet that read “I respect every trans person’s right to live any way that feels authentic and comfortable to them. As there was no doubt that Rowling intended to send that tweet, concerns regarding her beliefs, and the ways she expressed them, began to spread further at that time. In 2018, Rowling liked a tweet that referred to transgender women as “men in dresses.” Not long after, Rowling’s representatives claimed she liked the tweet accidentally as the result of a “clumsy and middle-aged moment.” In 2019, though, Rowling tweeted her support of Maya Forstater, a Centre for Global Development researcher who lost her job after tweeting that she believed a person could not change their biological sex.
