J.K. Rowling is Very Sad Stephen King Isn’t a Transphobe

It is hard out there for J.K. Rowling. A decade ago she was a superstar who could do no wrong; people loved Harry Potter, hadn’t really figured out she was essentially a one-hit-wonder and trans people were generally treated like jokes. Now she has to live in a world where everyone hates her because even the insipid liberals who still compare real-world politics to a 20-year-old children’s book can’t stand how transphobic she is and where most people believe trans people deserve to live with dignity.

The latest example of Rowling’s petty hatred of trans people comes from an interaction she had with fellow (and much better) writer Stephen King on Twitter.

Over the weekend, Rowling went on a rant on Twitter explaining the traumas she experienced in her life means it’s okay for her to be a bigot, and concluded it with a quote from Andrea Dworkin, a writer who laundered right-wing Christian morality with the language of feminism, and Stephen King retweeted it, presumably because he thought it was saying something negative about Donald Trump, which is essentially all that’s on his timeline.

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

Rowling saw this and raved about what a wonderful person Stephen King is, tweeting “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.”

And then later she deleted the tweet. Why? What did Stephen King do that Rowling would delete her praise for him and unfollow him? He tweeted those four little words that make every TERF see red.

Yes. Trans women are women.

— Stephen King (@StephenKing) June 28, 2020

“Trans women are women.” That’s the thing Stephen King said they sent Rowling over the edge. In case you think there’s something going on with her that isn’t just hatred of trans people.

People like to hide their bigotries behind things that seem more socially acceptable. For example, the Ku Klux Klan used to say they didn’t hate black people, they were only opposed to interracial marriage because it erases the wonderful diversity that the Christian god created. Keep that in mind when Rowling says she supports trans women, just thinks cis women deserve their own private spaces because “bad actors” might take advantage of trans rights to harm women. It’s bullshit, she’s just uncomfortable with trans people and thinks she’s incapable of being a bigot because she voted for agony Blair in the 90s.