JK Rowling’s new book features a cross-dressing serial killer, according to an early review.
Troubled Blood will be published on 15 September under Rowling’s known pseudonym, Robert Galbraith.
In a review for The Telegraph, critic Jake Kerridge described the “meat of the book” as focusing on “the disappearance of GP Margot Bamborough in 1974”.
Bamborough has been thought in the book to have been a victim of Dennis Creed, whom Kerridge referred to as a “transvestite serial killer” in the review.
Reports of the cross-dressing murderer storyline come as Rowling has been accused of transphobia since June, when she mocked a headline that included the inclusive phrasing “people who menstruate”.
She has since spoken out on the topic of transgender rights several times, and has faced renewed accusations of fostering transphobia.
Many on social media have voiced renewed concerns in the wake of Kerridge’s review, expressing fears that the book’s plot would foster harmful and unfounded tropes.
“LGBTQ organizations have offered numerous times to meet with JK Rowling in a private setting to respectfully discuss trans identities and the overwhelming medical and scientific consensus behind them, and she's refused each time. Remember that,” writer Charlotte Clymer tweeted.
“JK Rowling's new book's about a ‘transvestite serial killer’. Meanwhile over in the real world the number of trans people killed in Brazil has risen by 70 per cent this past year, young trans women are left to burn in cars and men who kill us (for being trans) are pardoned and sent home,” writer Paris Lees shared.
Representatives for Rowling had no comment when contacted by The Independent.
