Over the past five years, J.K. Rowling has used each and every major global event as an opportunity to express just how transphobic she really is. Some of the many people she’s touched with her work over the years have chosen to be quiet and look the other way. Pedro Pascal, however, chose to look at her directly and call her out.
It’s not entirely possible to pin down Rowling’s transphobic crusade to one event — all that’s agreed upon is that it started the way most vile things do: Twitter likes. She initially denied it, chalking up her liking of a tweet about “men in dresses” back in 2018 to an accidental slip of the finger. But soon after, she began championing a U.K. Supreme Court case that aimed to define gender strictly on the basis of biological sex. The ruling eventually came out, and it ruled in favor of gender being solely based on biological sex.
Harry Potter has touched so many people from all walks of life, across generations. And with that, Rowling carries a huge responsibility on her shoulders — though it also comes with immense power and wealth, so there’s really not much to complain about. One would expect that even if she found the ruling favorable, she would at least respond to it with some class. Instead, she posted cringe posts celebrating the outcome. That content made its way to Instagram — and Pedro Pascal caught wind of it and commented that it was, plainly, heinous loser behavior.
It’s a Pedro Pascal summer by all intents and purposes — Materialists has the entire TL arguing, the mysterious Fantastic Four: The First Steps is expected to save the MCU, and The Last of Us just wrapped its second season. But when Pascal called possibly the most influential author in literature a “heinous loser,” he wasn’t there yet. So it was understandable to worry that he may have just kneecapped his own career.
But this was personal for Pascal. In 2021, Lux Pascal — his sister — came out as transgender. But per People, this went even beyond that. Pascal said, “Listen, I want to protect the people I love, but it goes beyond that. Bullies make me f—— sick.” His other sister, Javiera Balmaceda Pascal, also weighed in, echoing the sentiment and agreeing: J.K. Rowling’s behavior fits the bill. Pedro Pascal gave his full perspective on how much attention his comment got, saying:
“The one thing that I would say I agonized over a little bit was just, ‘Am I helping? Am I f——helping?’ It’s a situation that deserves the utmost elegance so that something can actually happen, and people will actually be protected.”
Pascal later shared that he didn’t expect the attention his comment ultimately got. In the interview, he said the whole ordeal reminded him of his childhood in Texas — specifically the times he’d get sent to the principal’s office for his own behavioral issues. Well, since it clearly worked here, maybe Pascal should connect J.K. Rowling with his old principal — since Hogwarts doesn’t seem to have a department that deals with the adverse effects of prejudice.
Rowling is unlikely to read this and have a change of heart. That’s probably not even what Pedro Pascal was trying to do — not this time and not the first time either. But it’s still worth saying. Because even in the halls where she holds all the power, it’s good for her to hear that people won’t just let her words and behavior go unchallenged. Since then, more celebrities have been standing up to J.K. Rowling.
