J. K. Rowling Is Officially Too Toxic to Defend
Elon Musk, Jonathan Chait, and Debbie Hayton are among the diverse figures distancing themselves from Rowling’s increasingly open hostility to trans women.
Opinion, by Evan Urquhart
Something fascinating has been happening with J. K. Rowling’s public profile!
One week ago Elon Musk tactfully suggested to Rowling that, although he agreed with her transphobia, she ought to consider tweeting about topics other than trans people some of the time. This interaction made headlines, but what’s even more interesting is the way it was followed by similar interactions with others. Jonathan Chait, a New York Magazine columnist who has taken some poorly-informed skeptical stances towards transgender healthcare, called Rowling out for her lack of “basic decency.” Even Debbie Hayton, a trans woman who has made a career of undermining activism on behalf of trans rights (and is one of the only trans people to be regularly published in the UK) chimed in with a column for the Spectator that was mildly disapproving of Rowling’s recent excesses.
At apparent issue aren’t Rowling’s political positions (that transgender people should be denied healthcare, barred from public restrooms and other sex-segregated spaces, and looked on with great skepticism and hostility), but the way she has recently been expressing them. For example, in the above tweet, Rowling called trans women men “caricaturing” women. Rowling’s trajectory from a mildly trans-hostile skeptic to an obsessive anti-trans crank seems to have accelerated in recent months, and people who fall loosely on her side of the debate have taken notice.
What’s going on here? Rowling seems to have strayed outside the mainstream consensus that says opposition to trans rights is perfectly acceptable (no one objected to Rowling lobbying for trans women to be banned from women’s bathrooms), but only if cloaked in a guise of reasonable concerns and polite-seeming language. When hostility, anger, and hate is expressed openly, it transgresses this boundary. This gives those in the mainstream consensus an opportunity to show how moderate they are in comparison.
In other words, it’s a bit of a con job. Rowling’s open transphobia is ripe for criticism because it is purely about the words she’s using and the lack of delicacy she’s showing. It does not require the critic stand up for trans rights in any way, for instance by opposing the policies Rowling prefers or by combatting widespread misinformation surrounding trans healthcare. It’s purely performative. It allows Musk to present himself as a committed transphobe who nevertheless has other interests, Chait to present himself as the sort of person who uses respectful language, and Hayton to distance herself from the extremes of the hate movement she has courted and coddled.
This is particularly ironic when you remember that the trans rights side has often stood accused of favoring empty performative language over substance. This was always a red herring. Instead it’s the mainstream that loves to engage in symbolic debates as an excuse to avoid grappling with any question of substance. In the past Rowling has expressed sympathy for far-right extremism and suggested men should physically confront trans women to prevent them from using women’s bathrooms. There was no outcry over any of that; a clear implication was that violence should be used against trans women, but because it was stated indirectly the mainstream was fine with it. But misgendering? Goodness gracious. The mainstream is aflutter at the rudeness!
When it comes to trans rights, moderates want to be seen as good people without standing up for trans people’s rights or dignity. Rowling’s comments have provided them with the perfect opportunity to make a hollow show of distancing themselves from outright trans hatred in a way that means nothing and is not intended to help or protect trans people from the gathering storm of reactionary hatred that increasingly threatens them.
Evan Urquhart is the founder of Assigned Media and an incoming member of the 2024-2025 Knight Science Journalism fellowship class at MIT.