I never set out to upset anyone: JK Rowling speaks out against anti-trans comments backlash

Washington [US], February 15 (ANI): Almost two years after igniting a firestorm over her comments which were widely perceived as denigrating transgender women, British author JK Rowling has spoken up about the controversy.

According to Variety, an American media company, Rowling spoke about it in the forthcoming podcast, ‘The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling’. In it, she said, “What has interested me in recent years, particularly on social media [is when fans say], ‘You’ve ruined your legacy. Oh, you could have been beloved forever, but you chose to say this.’ And I think: ‘You could not have misunderstood me more profoundly.'”

“I never set out to upset anyone. However, I was not uncomfortable with getting off my pedestal,” Rowling said in the podcast’s trailer.
‘The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling’, hosted by Megan Phelps-Roper, is set to premiere on February 21. The series also features interviews with Rowling’s supporters and critics, as well as journalists, historians, “clinicians and more,” reported Variety.

Rowling, author of the Harry Potter best-selling fantasy book series, alienated and angered many fans with a series of tweets in June 2020 about transgender people.

In one of the tweets, Rowling wrote, “If sex isn’t real, there’s no same-sex attraction. If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased… I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isn’t hate to speak the truth.”

In the wake of those comments and subsequent ones, actors who have appeared in movies based on her books, including Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint and Eddie Redmayne, have spoken out against Rowling, as per Variety.