JK Rowling and the audacity of a random queer person on Twitter
By: Gemma Stone
Tags: United Kingdom, Feminism, Transgender, Equality, LGBTQ

JK Rowling and the audacity of a random queer person on Twitter

Alternative titles to this article included “Did JK Rowling really ignore porn tweeted at children? Lawyers say; you can’t say she did.” Gemma Stone Follow Sep 10 · 4 min read

A photo of pure evil, JK its Rowling.

So this one’s going to need a bit of background explaining before we get into what’s actually happened recently on the “JK Rowling’s transphobia” front. The short story is that it appears JK Rowling has got her lawyers involved to target a random Twitter account with less than 2,000 followers for having posted some words JK Rowling said, but out of context and entirely as a joke.

The user, who will not be identified in this article, posted what is very clearly a meme image. It has a green background with a photo of JK Rowling on the left and the quote “I have ignored porn tweeted at children” to the right. The quote is specifically attributed to JK Rowling. These are indeed her exact words, she tweeted them from her own account. The tweet accompanying it read: “What is your favourite Scottish literary quote. I’ll start”

The tweet as described in the above paragraph. Except this image includes JK Rowling’s response which reads: “I’ll give you a moment to think hard about leaving that up. I reported every bit of porn so-called trans allies tweeted into Twitter threads where children were sending me artwork for The Ickabog. I didn’t respond or retweet it because I didn’t want more kids to see it. 1/3”

If this were being presented as a serious way to defame JK Rowling and not a blatant shitpost making fun of her for being an asshole, I’d say the lawyers were probably right. In fact, multiple times on Twitter I have said that presenting that quote out of context as a serious attack on JK Rowling’s character is not a good thing to do. But I’ve since seen the actual tweet JK was pissed at (above) and yeah… It was a blatant joke. So nah. There’s no way JK Rowling should’ve been able to win this if it went to court. Taking people’s words out of context to make it sound like they said something bad as a joke is by no means uncommon in comedy.

To me, this reads as a vanity case. JK Rowling got her feelings hurt that people outside of the transphobic echo chamber weren’t so receptive to her downward spiral into open bigotry. She actually has a fairly long list of using legal action to silence anyone commenting on her bigotry. The first one I personally saw was someone saying JK Rowling “can no longer be trusted around children”. A sentiment I echoed at the time and still do. The original poster deleted because of the threats but I lawyer-proofed mine by offering the rationale; If you’re transphobic then you are not to be trusted around children because you don’t know which ones are trans or even how you’re hurting them.

I’ve seen lawyers pontificating over the supposed legal action; of which the only proof is an apology from the account who posted the meme to begin with. One verified Twitter account even had the gall to suggest that JK Rowling asked politely for the tweet to be deleted but was “left with no other option” but to get lawyers involved when the user refused. Which is frankly amazing, one of Britain’s richest people doesn’t have “any other option”? Her wealth and position means she’s one of the lucky few to have literally all of the fucking options.

I have personally been defamed, libelled, harassed, abused, doxxed, threatened, and all sorts of other nasty bullshit. I don’t have the money to be able to get lawyers involved and even if I did what would it achieve, really? I’d rather buy a house. Can you imagine having enough money to do whatever the fuck you wanted whenever the fuck you wanted to and then using it to force an apology out of someone on Twitter with less than 2,000 followers? Utterly pathetic.

Oh, and since we haven’t actually addressed the elephant in the room; “porn tweeted at children” what what whaaaat? Lets do that real quick before signing off. I was one of the trans people posting regularly to #TheIckabog tag and encouraging others to do so too. The point was to raise awareness about JK Rowling’s transphobia using her own marketing budget to help get that word out. I did not see anyone posting porn on that tag, I would not tolerate anyone posting porn on that tag.

Simmer down lawyers, I’m not calling her a liar; I’m saying if it did exist then I don’t believe it came from within the trans community. Since no one has posted any evidence to suggest where it did come from, I’d wager that the accounts posting it weren’t easy to link to the trans community. Unlike that time someone who had “queer” in their username posted another meme at JK Rowling. Which was very quickly posted around and linked to the trans community by transphobes. A link which was immediately revealed to be non-existent when no one in the trans community knew who they were or was following/followed by them.

So yeah, short story. JK Rowling has repeatedly used legal threats to go after small queer creators talking about her transphobia or damaging her ego too much. Small queer creators can’t compete with that and don’t tend to have access to solicitors or the time to go through a lengthy legal battle over a meme. It seems she just doesn’t like people holding a mirror up to her because this mirror doesn’t show you what you want, just what you are; a bully.

I stand in solidarity with all the LGBTQIA+ people utterly fed up with this shit. Fuck off, Jo.