J.K. Rowling’s trans-related posts from 2026

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

Replying to @sallywrover1

@sallywrover1 @damekatydenise_ Yes, I think the demise of Mr ‘some women have penises’ ‘nobody told me Mandelson knew Epstein’ Starmer will definitely be cigar-worthy.

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

The female sex class has specific needs and issues, and the job of addressing these needs and issues at a political level is almost always given to a female. When such a female chooses not to defend women’s rights, because it would endanger their own personal status, that is worthy of comment. Of course it’s true that many men are in thrall to gender ideology too, but by definition, being men, they’ve never needed the rights they now seek to dismantle. A woman, though - unless she’s been unusually sheltered from birth - knows from her own life experience how important those hard won rights are, because she’ll have benefited from them. If she then achieves the kind of power and/or economic security that mean she has no personal need for state-run single-sex spaces and services, but uses her platform to decree that women without her protections no longer need what she herself used and took for granted, she is guilty of a particularly egregious hypocrisy.

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

Replying to @jk_rowling

Just noticed: that should read 2022. An important point, because I doubt very much that she thought men could be women in 2002.

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

Hear, hear.

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

Replying to @colddustfarmer

@colddustfarmer Women in positions of power and influence have had to make a straightforward choice: pander to activists in thrall to a nonsensical ideology and parrot a lie to protect their own status, or follow the dictates of their conscience and accept the repercussions of speaking the truth.

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

Polite notice to those urging me to show blind tribal allegiance to a party that's screwed over female nurses who want to change in a female-only space, female prisoners housed with male sex offenders and female rape survivors who want an all-female support service: nope.

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

Replying to @muttonshunter

@muttonshunter @Keir_Starmer Once somebody's proven they're too frightened of being called 'bigot' to defend the most vulnerable, they've shown who they are.

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

Replying to @jk_rowling

'As far as I’m concerned, women are women who are born women, but women are also women who are trans women' -- Harriet Harman, 2002 You cannot defend what you're afraid to define. 2/2

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

Bravo, @Keir_Starmer, for getting in an Adviser on Women and Girls who thinks the definition of women and girls includes men and boys. That'll definitely win back people who believe Labour's a party for smug, lanyard-wearing, luxury-belief-espousing cultural elitists. 1/2

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

👏👏👏

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

Replying to @damekatydenise_

@damekatydenise_ Look at you, subtly positioning yourself for the leadership. Things might be dire for Labour right now, but we’re still not ready for a PM whose only electoral assets are five nylon wigs and a poorly tucked shenis.

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

The man who's spent years talking over and attacking women for defending their rights has now decided that you must belong to a protected group to express an opinion on the threats facing it. https://t.co/KTPWjA1rxo

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

Replying to @HJoyceGender

@HJoyceGender 👏👏👏 Well deserved!

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

Replying to @jk_rowling

@KirstiMiller30 @thetimes You and everyone else who insists that incarcerated women should be guinea pigs in your little social experiment should never be allowed to forget it. 8/8

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

Replying to @jk_rowling

@KirstiMiller30 @thetimes What could go wrong? 6/8 https://t.co/SJnuvQekBt

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

Replying to @jk_rowling

@KirstiMiller30 @thetimes Not a problem? 4/8 https://t.co/otEPJbrr9h

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

Replying to @jk_rowling

@KirstiMiller30 @thetimes Nothing to see here? 3/8 https://t.co/cI2MsxoZii

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

Replying to @jk_rowling

@KirstiMiller30 @thetimes All fine with you? 2/8 https://t.co/1FE3VeDQmw

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

Replying to @KirstiMiller30

@KirstiMiller30 @thetimes Do you support the following? (Full stories at https://t.co/RpLl5bxsVU) 1/8

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

I wrote this in @thetimes in 2022: “Rarely in politics is it easy to draw a direct line from a single policy decision to the harm it’s done, but in this case, it will be simple. If any woman or girl suffers voyeurism, sexual harassment, assault or rape in consequence of the Scottish government’s lax new rules, the blame will rest squarely with those at Holyrood who ignored safeguarding experts and women’s campaigners.” We knew women and girls were being placed in danger, we knew the Scottish government was planning to introduce measures that would make those dangers more acute, but women trying to make the government listen to their well-evidenced concerns were described by Sturgeon in her turgid memoir as ‘hysterical.’ https://t.co/TLJfRpvXV8

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

Replying to @FacundoSavala

@FacundoSavala @NicolaSturgeon She’s no longer in power, but this is undoubtedly her legacy.

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

Replying to @sprolliehouse

@sprolliehouse @future_fromthe I want to see my government’s representatives stand up in court to explain why women getting shut in with convicted male sex offenders is no biggie and the great unwashed should just stop being bigots.

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

The Scottish government is responsible for this sexual assault. The Supreme Court has confirmed women’s right to single sex spaces, a ruling the SNP continues to flout. If the victim wishes to sue, https://t.co/iyohnrgVZN can assist with all costs.

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

Replying to @surreykiwi

@surreykiwi @NickCohen4 @donotwobble @tonymc39 @theglassfish13 There are many circumstances in which I believe refusing to accurately describe the sex of a person is at best confusing and at worst dangerous. Indulging a quasi-religious ideology over clear language and objective facts has already had disastrous consequences in the contexts of safeguarding, sport, medicine and crime. But I have exclusive rights over my own choice of language. As Mark Twain said: 'I cannot call to mind a single instance where I have ever been irreverent, except toward the things which were sacred to other people.' Both trans activists and GC people who get angry that I'm deviating from their own hard and fast language rules are demanding that I respect things that are sacred to them, but not to me. Trying to dictate how other people express themselves provides a delicious opportunity to chide and correct and to demonstrate one's own purity and righteousness - as indeed you're currently demonstrating - but they achieve nothing except making the language police feel good about themselves. Back in the real world, women's rights remain under attack and it will continue to take time, money and concrete action to defend them. You may feel that the priority is establishing black and white pronoun rules. I happen to disagree.

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

Replying to @surreykiwi

@surreykiwi @donotwobble @tonymc39 @theglassfish13 Linguistic prescription is authoritarian. It’s one of the things trans activists have used, with enormous success. Seeking to control what people are allowed to say is a hallmark of cults and totalitarian regimes. I do not subscribe to the post modern ideas that changing language changes reality, that redefining something alters its nature, that our conception of a thing is of more importance than observable facts about the thing itself. To me, this kind of thinking is a dead end full of people pontificating and obfuscating, enjoying the sounds of their own voices while the world burns outside. Some gender critical people seem to think that demanding we all use correct sex pronouns will return the world to sanity. This is an attempt to make the tail wag the dog. You cannot fight linguistic prescription with more linguistic prescription, and no rights campaign can succeed if its adherents are more interested in creating a purity spiral than allowing the smallest space for nuance or for the complexities of human nature and feelings.

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

Replying to @fame_illusion_

@fame_illusion_ @surreykiwi @tonymc39 @theglassfish13 If you've read what I've just written, you'd understand that the trans woman in question shows obvious physical signs of not having been born female because, you know, I literally said that. I don't believe there's such a thing as 'gender' in the way trans activists use it, ie, as an inner male or female essence that is independent of the sexed body, so it's a matter of total indifference to me what an individual trans person looks like or how well they pass. They're free to identify however they like, whatever they look like. The clash of rights starts when they demand my compelled speech and that I, the law and the whole of society agrees they're a member of the opposite sex.

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

Replying to @vlcnz

@vlcnz @theglassfish13 Every time I think I've heard the very stupidest trans activist argument that could possibly be made, someone like you pops up to prove me wrong.

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

Replying to @donotwobble

@donotwobble @surreykiwi @tonymc39 @theglassfish13 Nobody - gender activist or gender critical - has the right to dictate how I refer to anyone. You appear to have missed everything I've said about freedom of speech.

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

Replying to @theglassfish13

@theglassfish13 It's not 2020 any more, my friend. Lies, slurs and calling reasonable discussion 'hateful rhetoric' is a major reason public support for genderism has tanked. Never have a bunch of activists been so oblivious to the harm they've done to their own cause.

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

Replying to @surreykiwi

@surreykiwi @tonymc39 @theglassfish13 Nothing's changed. I was being honest about how I feel about an individual trans woman I know, who was a gay man pre-transition, and who I met for the first time post-transition. Objectively speaking, she has physical characteristics that make it fairly obvious she wasn't born female, but she's a gentle, funny person I've never referred to as anything other than 'she' and 'her'. I find it perfectly easy to reconcile my fond feelings towards her, and my experience of her as someone with very female-coded energy, with a belief that she hasn't literally changed sex (and incidentally, she doesn't believe she's literally changed sex, either).

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

Replying to @theglassfish13

@theglassfish13 So your argument is that female-presenting members of the sex class that commits 88% of sexual crimes are at such danger from their fellow men that women and girls (who make up between 98 and 99% of sexual assault victims), should lose their right to single-sex spaces.

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

Replying to @theglassfish13

@theglassfish13 Yes, the people who call themselves 'trans' exist and they deserve exactly the same rights as everyone else, which, fortunately, they already have in the UK. It would rightly be considered discrimination if a person was refused employment, housing or the vote because they identified as trans. 'Trans women are women' is a thought-terminating cliché. Men are not women. That doesn't mean they're not allowed to present themselves however they like, call themselves whatever they like and believe whatever they like about themselves. It means they haven't changed sex. If we replace the objective, observable characteristic of sex with the unfalsifiable concept of gender identify, women and girls lose, among other things, their right to fair and safe sport and women-only spaces, including changing rooms, prison cells and rape crisis services. Women and girls are provably more vulnerable to forms of abuse including sexual assault, harassment and voyeurism in mixed-sex spaces. There is no evidence that trans-identified men don't have exactly the same rates of criminal offending as all other men. Trans people exist. I have no desire for them not to exist; indeed, I wish them safety, happiness and health. However, 'existence' does not, and should not, mean the violation of other people's right to privacy, dignity and freedom of speech, or the reconfiguration of society to indulge a fallacy.

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

No, I don't think 'all people should have the right to decide their own rights', because a pluralistic democratic society can't function that way. Which rights are trans women and 'fans of Pride' missing? https://t.co/nyHsSOuEHA

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

Replying to @HotchkissRhona

@HotchkissRhona @campbellclaret @RestIsPolitics @SarahEMcBride Come on, Rhona, maybe if we hear just one more time how sad it makes such men not to be in the women's changing rooms we'll stop being such hard-hearted bitches.

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

What better way could there be of repudiating accusations of misogyny than recommending an episode where three men instead of two discuss which rights women should be fine giving up - without, of course, mentioning the words 'women's rights.'

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

Replying to @RealEndated

@RealEndated @ForWomenScot @campbellclaret Grace Campbell is an adult public figure who gives interviews to the papers and appears on podcasts. She’s over thirty and has, according to Campbell, helped form his opinions on why women should lose the right to single sex spaces.

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

Replying to @campbellclaret

@campbellclaret That's because I wasn't interested in being used to boost the viewing figures of a pair of exceptionally arrogant men whose understanding of this issue drips with classism and misogyny, @campbellclaret. If you're genuinely interested in a debate I'm at a loss to understand why you're uninterested in interviewing @ForWomenScot, who secured the Supreme Court victory and are therefore THE leading voices on this issue. But perhaps your charming daughter has adequately represented the entire Campbell family's view, by describing them as 'ugly' women, with whom she wouldn't 'want to be in a room'?

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

Replying to @damekatydenise_

@damekatydenise_ All right, I forgot about the opening night of Gender Gandhi: The Musical (featuring the hit song 'Watch Out, Foxy, He's In His Wife's Kimono'). But aside from that I've never met him.

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

Replying to @ForWomenScot

@ForWomenScot I won't have a word said against Gender Gandhi. In these dark and troubled times he remains a wonderful source of amusement.

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

They were thinking that simply EVERYONE*, darling, would applaud like seals. *Obviously excludes such non-persons as nurses needing to change their clothes at work, rape survivors who can't afford private therapy and female prisoners locked in with male sex offenders.

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

Replying to @brookelynn74

@brookelynn74 @sharrond62 “Being female in this world means having been robbed of the potential for human choice by men who love to hate us." What would Dworkin say about women like you, who eagerly kiss the feet of men robbing women and girls of sporting honours and endangering their physical safety?

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

Replying to @DannyWxo

@DannyWxo There's no complexity. Two men were permitted to box against women and robbed them of medals.

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

Today's ruling by the IOC means a welcome return to fair sport for women and girls, but I'll never forget the scandal of Paris 2024, when people who consider themselves supremely virtuous and progressive publicly cheered on men punching women. https://t.co/qmQCI2Mks5

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

Given that @SkyNews thinks this individual's opinions were important enough to be aired on television, it's odd that they've turned off replies.

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

Replying to @NotHackingIt

@NotHackingIt Whistleblowers inside the medical profession have been raising the alarm for years now, but there were more social media likes in parroting the nice easy slogans.

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

And it will forever be appalling to me that a bunch of celebrities with influence over young people used their platforms to amplify unevidenced claims for the benefit of transitioning minors while smearing those urging caution as bigots.

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

Replying to @giddyupbill

@giddyupbill @omid9 If my own daughters were among these girls I wouldn't hesitate to urge them to stay where they were safe, no matter the consequences to me.

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

Replying to @bindelj

@bindelj Call me wildly idealistic, but I like to think we'll one day have a PM who gives a shit about protecting the rights and safety of girls and women.

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

Add Keir Starmer's newfound concern for victims of Peter Mandelson's bestie to his backflip on whether women can have penises and his U-turn on the Rotherham grooming gangs enquiry. Starmer is indifferent to harm done to girls and women unless it threatens his career. #StarmerOut

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

A young detransitioner, Fox Varian, has won $2 million damages in a medical malpractice lawsuit, in which she sued the psychologist and surgeon who approved her for a double mastectomy, aged 16. Varian's mother testified that she'd been against the surgery, but was pressured into agreeing because she'd been told that unless her daughter transitioned she was likely to commit suicide. As the floodgates open, and more and more detransitioners sue the clinicians who subjected them to an unregulated medical experiment, gender identity activists will almost certainly continue to ignore any evidence that fails to support their preferred narrative. They'll keep insisting that hardly any transitioned people regret their irreversible procedures, that gender clinicians know exactly what they're doing, that surgeries, cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers are of proven benefit and that minors who're denied these treatments will to kill themselves. All of this is a lie. Speaking at the WPATH conference in 2021, British endocrinology consultant Leighton Seal admitted 'we are doing procedures here where we don’t have outcome data.' A woman from Utah said she felt gender clinicians like her were making it up as they went along: 'Because I feel like we’re all just winging it, you know? And which is okay, you’re winging it too. But maybe we can just, like, wing it together.' (https://t.co/dW4xXKUzOY) This will go down in history as one of the worst medical scandals of all time. Adults inside and outside the medical profession sold troubled young people like Varian the idea that all of their complex trauma would be resolved by removing healthy body parts. As more and more detransitioners arrive in court, the public will learn the full extent of the harm done to kids in the name of an ideology. Clinicians performing these 'treatments' will go down in history as barbarous activists who betrayed a sacred oath: to do no harm. But we should never forget how many people outside the medical profession urged these young people on, gleefully assuring them that anyone advising caution was an evil bigot. There are people in elitist professions like publishing and academia, not to mention politicians and celebrities with young fan bases, who did all they could to champion the idea of gender identity, and kept pushing it even as the evidence of harm mounted. They're just as culpable as the clinicians. Too lazy to think more deeply than the fashionable mantras that got them social media likes, too arrogant to look at evidence from anyone outside their political bubble, they've slurred whistleblowers and attacked anyone with valid questions. In doing so, they've created a cultural climate without which this appalling tragedy could not have taken place. Never forget, because only by learning the lesson can we stop this happening again. https://t.co/6Z9rV8wI00

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

Replying to @hermionegingol1

@hermionegingol1 @RefilweSeboko Well, you live and learn. I had no idea men celebrated their first haemorrhoid.

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

Replying to @Tenzin24Tenzin

@Tenzin24Tenzin @FFS_WhatNow But I don’t want to stop India having right of reply. I’m firmly of the belief that letting India talk is essential. Indeed, I’ve often wondered whether he isn’t part of some TERF black ops project I haven’t been briefed on.

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

Women have the right not to undress in front of men at work. Twenty years ago, that sentence would have been a statement of such obviousness that people would have laughed at you for saying it aloud. Now it's a matter for celebration. Congratulations, you heroines 🎉😘👏

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

I've signed. This is an unethical experiment on children who can't give meaningful consent. https://t.co/zHvzVIyq7g

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

Replying to @wokeandwoofing

@wokeandwoofing As everybody knows, the most transphobic number is two. My books are always longer than two pages. However, I do insist that the printers make the 2s very slightly larger than all the other numbers and I encourage activists to verify this claim by buying all my books.

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

Fabulous! I've been trying to get arrested for knowing what a woman is for a couple of years now and no luck at all, yet they persecute and harass working class women who need to crowdfund for their defence. I've been discriminated against far too long. Fingers crossed for 2026! https://t.co/BjZSJwLnir

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

Replying to @tweeting_keith

@tweeting_keith @ThomasWillett9 The only prerequisite for being a trans woman is being a man. Short/French/tall women remain women if the adjective is taken away. The compound noun ‘trans women’ describes a category of men. If the individuals described weren’t trans, they’d be men who don’t identify as women.

J.K. Rowling@jk_rowling

Replying to @ThomasWillett9

@ThomasWillett9 ‘Trans woman’ is a compound noun. By definition, it means ‘man who identifies as a woman.’ If the person in question was actually a woman, ‘trans’ wouldn’t be there.