Things could have been so different for J.K. Rowling. The once beloved author seemed to be destined to become an international treasure, mentioned in the same breath as the greatest children’s authors of all time. Now she’s more famous for her cruelty, having devoted her life and wealth to aggressively stripping rights from trans people.
Many Harry Potter stars have expressed their disgust with her, explaining she’s no longer the woman they once respected. Most notably, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint all thoroughly rejected Rowling’s bigotry. Radcliffe by declaring that “trans women are women” in an essay for The Trevor Project, while Watson said trans people “deserve to live their lives without being constantly questioned.”
Now you can toss another name on the ever-growing pile. Comedian, writer, and actor Stephen Fry, who narrated the audiobooks for all seven Harry Potter books, had previously struck a conciliatory tone. In 2022 he tried to sit on the fence, saying “[Rowling’s] a friend of mine, and I have trans friends and intersex friends who are deeply upset by her. That’s a circle I have to square personally. I’m not going to abandon my friends”, before insisting this isn’t a debate “I want to get involved in.”
“I am really angry”
Something has clearly changed over the last three years, because Fry has now given Rowling both barrels. In an interview with The Show People Podcast, he said: “She has been radicalised I fear and it may be she has been radicalised by TERFs, but also by the vitriol that is thrown at her. It is unhelpful and only hardens her and will only continue to harden her, I am afraid. She seems to be a lost cause for us.”
He went on to underline just how disappointed he is in her:
“She started to make these peculiar statements and had very strong difficult views. She seemed to wake up or kick a hornet’s nest of transphobia which has been entirely destructive. I disagree profoundly with her on this subject. I am angry she does not disavow some of the more revolting and truly horrible, violently destructive things that people say. She does not attack those at all.
She says things that are inflammatory and contemptuous, mocking, and add to a terribly distressing time for trans people. She has crowed at the success of legislation in Scotland and elsewhere, declaring things about gender.
So, I am very happy to go on the record to say that I am really angry. My view about all things of [a] sharp and difficult nature is that it is much more important to be effective than to be right.”
So, friendship over with Rowling then? Now that Fry has poked his head over the parapet, he is, all too predictably, instantly a hate figure for TERFS. He’s now being bombarded with hateful slogans and insinuations that he’s a pedophile “obsessed” with feminizing troubled young boys.
But all this is par for the course for Rowling, whose address book is presumably criss-crossed with angry red marker pen as she puts a line through yet another former friend. But don’t worry Jo, you can always rely on the likes of Andrew Tate, Tommy Robinson, and Charlie Kirk to meet up for a coffee.
