JK Rowling calls Emma Watson 'ignorant' as trans-rights row escalates

JK Rowling has issued a rebuttal to Emma Watson after the Harry Potter actress recently discussed their relationship and their public dispute over gender identity

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Harry Potter author JK Rowling has responded to actor Emma Watson’s recent comments about their rift over transgender rights, saying she is “not owed eternal agreement from any actor who once played a character I created”.

 

In a social media post on Monday, Rowling said, "The idea is as ludicrous as me checking with the boss I had when I was twenty-one for what opinions I should hold these days.”

 

“Like other people who've never experienced adult life uncushioned by wealth and fame, Emma has so little experience of real life she's ignorant of how ignorant she is,” she added.

 

What is the Watson-Rowling feud about?

 

Watson, 35, played Hermione Granger in the eight Harry Potter films between 2001 and 2011. Watson, along with co-stars Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint, was among the stars who distanced themselves from Rowling after the author ignited a controversy by speaking out against transgender activism, which Rowling said had eroded the concept of biological sex. The author has faced accusations of transphobia, which she has denied.

 

What triggered JK Rowling's response

 

Rowling’s post came after a podcast featuring Watson where the actor said she still loves Rowling and refuses to "cancel her out" despite their differences on the subject.

 

“I really don’t believe that by having had that experience and holding the love and support and views that I have, mean that I can’t and don’t treasure Jo and the person that I had personal experiences with. I will never believe that one negates the other and that my experience of that person…I don’t get to keep and cherish... to come back to our earlier thing,” Watson said.

 

JK Rowling accuses Watson of fuelling tensions

 

Rowling said her feelings towards Watson had soured after the actor publicly poured “petrol on the flames” of the debate at a time when she faced threats.

 

In her post, Rowling wrote: “Emma Watson and her co-stars have every right to embrace gender identity ideology. Such beliefs are legally protected, and I wouldn’t want to see any of them threatened with loss of work, or violence, or death, because of them.”

 

“However, Emma and Dan [Radcliffe] in particular have both made it clear over the last few years that they think our former professional association gives them a particular right – nay, obligation – to critique me and my views in public,” she added.

 

Rowling said it had been “hard to shake a certain protectiveness” after knowing someone since they were 10.

 

Watson's stance on transgender rights

 

Watson has previously expressed opposition to the author’s gender critical beliefs. She responded to Rowling’s essay about the need for single-sex spaces due to the threat of violence against women by tweeting in 2020: “Trans people are who they say they are and deserve to live their lives without being constantly questioned or told they aren’t who they say they are.”

 

Daniel Radcliffe responded by saying, “Transgender women are women”.

 

Rowling's stance on trans rights

 

Rowling has been branded a trans-exclusionary radical feminist (Terf). Her first public intervention in the debate came in December 2019, when she tweeted support for Maya Forstater, a tax specialist who was dismissed from a think tank after asserting online that transgender women could not change their biological sex. In June 2020, Rowling posted a link to an article headlined 'Creating a more equal post-Covid-19 world for people who menstruate', to which she commented: “‘People who menstruate.’ I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?”