JK Rowling has again found herself the subject of some serious internet ire. This time, it's not Rowling directly who is taking the heat, though.
Instead, a fan of hers offered up one of the most asinine and factually incorrect defenses the internet has seen in a while. And they got dragged for it so thoroughly that they deleted both the tweet and the account.
But screenshots are forever, so here goes nuthin'.
The unknown person stated:
"Not long before Rowling was published, women authors were unheard of"
"Now, your generation gets to take us further than my generation ever could because we aren't living you lives"
"But at least acknowledge that we laid the groundwork for you to take us on the next step"
Allow us to give you a frame of reference for this claim.
Recently, Rowling has been making some increasingly transphobic comments. She made small statements here and there in the past, but for the last two months she has really dug in her heels about the subject repeatedly stating she'll allow transgender people to exist, but she won't allow transgender women to be women.
She stated transgender women are a danger to cisgender women with nothing to back it up and flying in the face of the fact that violence and murder against transgender women, especially trans women of color is higher than any other group. Rowling also took offense to the phrase "people who menstruate"—insisting that only women menstruate and that menstruation is what makes a woman a woman.
Many believe the insistence was not only factually incorrect, but also hurtful and erased the struggles of transgender men, intersex people, non-binary people and cisgender women who for medical reasons or menopause do not menstruate.
JK recently got petty over anyone who supports trans women online. Initially, she praised fellow author Stephen King on social media, but deleted the praise when King posted his belief that transgender women are women.
Four days ago, JK Rowling tweeted her belief that gender confirming hormone therapy is just as hurtful and dangerous as gay-conversion therapy.
Interestingly, Rowling has adopted the pen name "Robert Galbraith"—which also happens to be the name of a psychiatrist who laid the groundwork for gay conversion therapy and was fond of using electroshock treatment to "cure" gay men. Rowling also joined a chorus of mostly White, almost exclusively rich writers in signing an open letter that claimed to be against censorship and cancel culture which was strongly criticized as actually being against accountability for rich White people who make racist, homophobic or transphobic public statements with a smattering of actual persecuted writers like Salman Rushdie added to give them credibility.
So now you're all caught up.
The world has been talking about Rowling's jarringly transphobic behavior as of late after years of discussions about her problematic comments on homosexuality and examples of racism in her writing and public statements. That criticism of Rowling's problematic worldview is what Rowling's fan was addressing when they spoke up in her defense.
Rather than provide evidence of Rowling not being racist, homophobic or transphobic to counter the examples people provided of times she had been, the person claimed Rowling was the first woman writer to achieve success and needed to be sheltered from criticism and given only gratitude.
Twitter scoffed collectively.
sarcastic schitts creek GIF by CBCGiphy
We do not know much about the original author, but the tweet itself offers some clues.
The use of "my generation" indicates someone who is not young. When they later say "we" they seem to be linking themselves to Rowling.
Maybe they're a woman close to Rowling in age? Or maybe by "we" they meant Rowling's fans paving the way for female authors?
It's entirely possible the writer meant that we in more of a "royal we" sense. Could it be Rowling patting herself on the back again?
Whoever it is, Twitter is absolutely not having it with their revisionist literary history.
@candynggg/Twitter
@ShartpantsBtBox/Twitter
This continues for pretty much ever. Like we said, it was so thoroughly dragged that the author deleted the tweet, the account and probably the whole app.
Maybe it's better that way. It'll give them time to brush up on all of the incredible pre-Rowling women authors they have (apparently) been unaware existed up until now.
