June 30, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – Horror novelist Stephen King has added his voice to the chorus of entertainers rejecting Harry Potter author JK Rowling’s dissent from LGBT orthodoxy on the issue of transgenderism, declaring that “trans women are women” in response to an inquiry from a follower.
Over the weekend, King retweeted the following tweet from Rowling, which was part of a longer thread on the feedback, both positive and negative, she has received for her willingness to publicly declare that identifying as female does not change gender-confused men into women:
Andrea Dworkin wrote: ‘Men often react to women’s words—speaking and writing—as if they were acts of violence; sometimes men react to women’s words with violence.’ It isn't hateful for women speak about their own experiences, nor do they deserve shaming for doing so. 8/9
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 28, 2020
A follower subsequently asked King to “address the TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminist) tweet. By telling us constant readers if you believe trans women are women,” to which King agreed:
Yes. Trans women are women.
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) June 28, 2020
Newsweek reported that, after King’s initial retweet, Rowling had tweeted, “I've always revered @StephenKing, but today my love reached — maybe not Annie Wilkes levels — but new heights. It's so much easier for men to ignore women's concerns, or to belittle them, but I won't ever forget the men who stood up when they didn't need to. Thank you, Stephen.” Rowling deleted the statement of gratitude after King’s follow-up statement.
King is only the latest to align against Rowling, joining a chorus that includes trans activists, staffers at the publishing company for her latest children’s book, the Canadian children’s show CBC Kids News, and even the stars of the Harry Potter film adaptations. Yet Rowling has consistently said she has no intention of backing down.
“But endlessly unpleasant as its constant targeting of me has been, I refuse to bow down to a movement that I believe is doing demonstrable harm in seeking to erode ‘woman’ as a political and biological class and offering cover to predators like few before it,” Rowling wrote in an essay response to her critics. “I stand alongside the brave women and men, gay, straight and trans, who’re standing up for freedom of speech and thought, and for the rights and safety of some of the most vulnerable in our society: young gay kids, fragile teenagers, and women who’re reliant on and wish to retain their single sex spaces. Polls show those women are in the vast majority, and exclude only those privileged or lucky enough never to have come up against male violence or sexual assault, and who’ve never troubled to educate themselves on how prevalent it is.”
Rowling's current leadership against the “gender-fluidity” movement is particularly striking in light of the fact that, on most issues, she is a doctrinaire partisan liberal.
She has made clear her support for abortion and homosexuality and disapproval of U.S. President Donald Trump, claiming Harry Potter villain Lord Voldemort is “kind of a nationalist,” a label associated with Trump in the United States and Brexit supporters in the United Kingdom. The Harry Potter series has grown closely aligned with young liberals in recent years, thanks in part to Rowling’s notorious decision to declare the wizard Dumbledore was gay all along after completing the original series, despite the character’s sexual attraction not being referenced in the books themselves.