Here are some recent headlines from the U.K. press:
JK Rowling deliberately misgenders trans activist India Willoughby, The Independent
JK Rowling misgenders Loose Women star India Willoughby in Yet Another Twitter Spat, The Mirror
JK Rowling: Trans newsreader India Willoughby calls comments by Harry Potter author ‘grotesque’ transphobia’, Sky News
And here’s what happened: India (previously Jonathan) Willoughby is a male TV presenter in the U.K. who is often very unpleasant toward women who disagree with him about transgender ideology.
On X, a user posted a video of Willoughby pouting and suggestively dancing and asked if Rowling thought “this lady should use the men’s locker room.” Rowling replied: “You’ve sent me the wrong video. There isn’t a lady in this one, just a man reveling in his misogynistic performance of what he thinks ‘woman’ means: narcissistic, shallow and exhibitionist.”
Well said, J.K.! As you can imagine, Willoughby did not take this well. “I am every bit as much a woman as JK Rowling,” he wrote, accusing the author of “grotesque transphobia.”
Really, what is grotesque is Willoughby’s continued public advocacy for an ideology that makes a mockery of women; deprives them of privacy, safety, and equal opportunity to men; and exposes children to harmful medical experimentation. As Rowling has explained elsewhere, “man is not a slur.” In this case, it’s the truth. And needs to be said.