JK Rowling has compared trans rights activists to people faking involvement in terror attacks.
The Harry Potter author has been posting on X, formerly Twitter, about gender rights campaigners she says will change their views in a decade’s time and instead rebrand themselves as TERFs.
That is a term standing for the label ‘Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists’, used as a slur about but also embraced by gender critical campaigners opposed to trans people accessing single-sex spaces and competing in women’s sports.
She suggested pro-trans activists would not only rethink their stance but also behave like people falsely claiming to have survived tragedies such as the 9/11 attacks.
The British writer, 60, earlier this year celebrated a ruling by London’s Supreme Court determining that, specifically within the terms of Britain’s Equality act, ‘woman’ meant a biological female and not gender.
Rowling, who also writes under the pen name Robert Galbraith, has also been involved in wars of words over the subject with Sir Stephen Fry, Boy George and the three young actors who played the main trio in the original Harry Potter movies.
She has now been posting on social media about an ongoing employment tribunal case involving a female-identifying nurse in Scotland.
Dr Sandie Peggie was suspended from work at Victoria Hospital, Kirkcaldy, after she objected to trans medic Dr Beth Upton using a female changing area on Christmas Eve 2023.
The 51-year-old has since launched an employment tribunal against NHS Fife and Dr Upton, in a hearing scheduled to reconvene in September.
Rowling has been posting about the ongoing case while also doubling down on her criticisms of trans rights campaigners – and she today made comparisons suggesting similarities with people faking claims to have been involved in the 9/11 terror attacks in the US in 2001.
The author posted: ‘I promise you this: in ten years time, a load of women who’re currently riding the gender identity bandwagon will claim they were always TERFs.
‘They’ll be like the fakers who pretend to have survived terrorist attacks they were never even near.’
One of her 14.3million followers on the site responded by posting: ‘Have you seen The Woman Who Wasn’t There? It’s a documentary about a woman who faked being a 9/11 victim.’
Rowling replied: ‘It seems to happen every time there’s a historic atrocity. Stolen valour.’
The documentary called The Woman Who Wasn’t There, released in 2012, told of Spanish businesswoman Alicia Esteve Head, who had claimed to be a survivor of the 9/11 strike on New York’s World Trade Center – before multiple doubts were raised.
Another of Rowling’s supporters, gender critical lawyer Allison Bailey, posted: ‘It will be like the fall of apartheid in South Africa. Everyone will say they supported Nelson Mandela.’
April’s ruling by the Supreme Court in London deemed the definition of a woman to be based on biological sex, meaning transgender women are not considered to be women in the eyes of the law.
The verdict means trans women with a gender recognition certificate (GRC) could potentially be excluded from single-sex spaces if ‘proportionate’.
Multi-millionaire author Rowling, who reportedly helped fund the women’s rights campaign group which brought the Supreme Court case, shared a photo online from on board her superyacht puffing a cigar in celebration.
She told her 14.3million followers on X, formerly Twitter: ‘I love it when a plan comes together.’
The written Supreme Court judgment gives examples including rape or domestic violence counselling, refuges, rape crisis centres, female-only hospital wards and changing rooms.
It marks the culmination of a long-running legal battle between the Scottish government and women’s group For Women Scotland over the definition of a ‘woman’ in Scottish law.
The case centred on whether somebody with a GRC recognising their gender as female should be protected from discrimination as a woman under the Equality Act.
The Scottish government had argued that such people were entitled to sex-based protections, meaning a transgender person with a GRC certificate identifying them as female would count towards women’s quota.
What did the Supreme Court rule?
The Supreme Court ruled the terms ‘woman’ and ‘sex’ in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman and biological sex.
What does it mean for single sex spaces?
The court’s decision will have huge consequences for how single-sex spaces and services operate across the UK, experts said today.
The written Supreme Court judgment gives examples including rape or domestic violence counselling, refuges, rape crisis centres, female-only hospital wards and changing rooms.
The court ruled that trans women with a gender recognition certificate (GRC) can be excluded from single-sex spaces if ‘proportionate’.
The government said the ruling ‘brings clarity and confidence, for women and service providers such as hospitals, refuges, and sports clubs’.
What does it mean for employers?
Employment experts say it will provide companies with greater ‘clarity’ over single sex spaces for their staff.
Lara Brown, senior Research Fellow in the Culture and Identity Unit at Policy Exchange, said a trans woman with a GRC who is excluded from single-sex spaces cannot say she is being discriminated against as a woman.
She explained: ‘This ruling makes it legal for any space that wants to be single sex to exclude biological men.’
Could employers still be at risk of discrimination?
The Supreme Court made it clear that trans people are protected under the gender reassignment provisions in the Equality Act and will be able to bring claims if they are discriminated or harassed.
Experts say a trans woman will be able to bring a sex discrimination claim if they are disadvantaged because they are perceived to be a woman or because they associate with a woman.
Rob McKellar, legal services director at Peninsula, said failure to be an inclusive workplace, regardless of any protected characteristics, could result in a discrimination claim.
What does the ruling mean for competitive sports?
In recent years, many sports have cracked down on rules around transgender athletes at the elite level.
Athletics, cycling and aquatics are among those who have banned trans women from taking part in women’s events.
The UK government said it hopes the decision will provide clarity for sports clubs.
Although today’s ruling did not concern sport directly, former Olympian Sharron Davies welcomed the decision, saying it was important to ‘define what a woman is’.
Could a pregnant woman with a GRC be entitled to maternity leave?
Experts said today that the ruling that only women can become pregnant shows a trans man (biological woman) would be able to take maternity leave, while a trans woman (biological man) would not.
Jo Moseley, an employment law specialist at national law firm Irwin Mitchell, said: ‘The Supreme Court acknowledged that only women can become pregnant. Therefore a trans man (a biological woman who identifies as a man) can take maternity leave.
‘Had the court reached a different decision, it’s possible that trans men with a GRC wouldn’t have been entitled to protection in relation to pregnancy under the characteristics of ‘pregnancy or maternity’.’
But campaign group For Women Scotland claimed they only applied to people born female.
The Supreme Court ruled that the words ‘sex’, ‘man’ and ‘woman’ in the Equality Act must mean ‘biological sex’, rejecting any alternative interpretations as ‘incoherence and impracticable’.
Rowling and supporters insist biologically male trans women should not be allowed in women’s spaces nor to take part in women’s sports.
She has also opposed new legislation in Scotland seeking to make it easier for trans people to change their legal gender.
Rowling has denied accusations she is transphobic, and police said recent tweets in which she ‘misgendered’ trans women did not fall foul of Scotland’s new hate crime laws which outlaw ‘stirring up’ hate against transgender people.
And she has recently been hitting back at showbusiness critics of her stance, including actor Sir Stephen Fry, 67, who narrated the Harry Potter audiobooks.
He had previously called the author a ‘friend of mine’, adding he did not plan to ‘abandon’ friendships despite his trans friends being ‘deeply upset’ by Rowling.
But last month he turned on her as he labelled Rowling her a ‘lost cause’ and accused her of being ‘radicalised by TERFs’, while recording podcast The Show People.
He said: ‘She started to make these peculiar statements and had very strong difficult views.
‘She seemed to wake up or kick a hornet’s nest of transphobia which has been entirely destructive.
‘I disagree profoundly with her on this subject. I am angry she does not disavow some of the more revolting and truly horrible, destructive violently destructive things that people say. She does not attack those at all.
‘She says things that are inflammatory and contemptuous, mocking and add to a terribly distressing time for trans people.
‘She has crowed at the success of legislation in Scotland and elsewhere declaring things about gender.
‘So I am very happy to go on the record to say that I am really angry about that. My view about all things of sharp and difficult nature is that is is much more important to be effective than to be right.’
Sir Stephen, who had until recently not spoken openly about the row, explained that he had previously got on well with the author.
He added: ‘I am sorry because I always liked her company. I found her charming, funny and interesting and then this thing happened and it completely altered the way she talks and engages with the world now.’
Rowling herself has since hit back, suggesting the pair were never friends.
British barrister Jo Maugham had posted online welcoming Sir Stephen’s comments, saying: ‘Really creditable this, from Stephen Fry. I’ve spoken to so many of JKR’s once friends who now despair at her privately but won’t do so publicly, which is very much the British way and why nothing ever changes for the better. So well done Stephen.’
Rowling then shared his remarks on X, while adding her own riposte: ‘It is a great mistake to assume that everyone who claims to have been a friend of mine was ever considered a friend by me.’
She has also engaged in a furious online war of words with popstar Boy George after he accused her of hating men following the Supreme Court’s ruling.
Responding to a tweet suggesting that actor Pascal was a misogynist, the singer wrote: ‘Stop this nonsense that if you don’t agree with @jk_rowling you hate women. She hates men. This is where this truth lies.
‘She cannot differentiate between a ‘trans’ woman and a biological male. Which is weird with her imagination?’
But Rowling fired back with an eye-rolling emoji and the retort: ‘I do not hate men. I’m married to a man, George. I do not hate men.
‘I simply live in reality where men – however they identify – commit 98 per cent of sexual assaults, and 88 per cent of victims are female.
‘Trans-identified men are no less likely than other kinds of men to pose a risk to women or girls.’
Boy George last week reignited the argument, telling the Daily Mail the pair would never agree or bury the hatchet amid their ongoing war over trans rights.
Speaking at the Diamonds and Dust Premiere at the Emerald Theatre in London, he said: ‘Do I love her films? Yes, her films are amazing. I love Harry Potter and I’ve read all the books, they’re brilliant.
‘But remember she didn’t make the films, a lot of brilliant people were in the films, like the actors, and everyone to do with it, it’s just not about her.’
He went on to say how important it was to be ‘be nice’, claiming that the majority of those who are concerned about trans issues ‘don’t know anything about it’.
He added: ‘JK Rowling doesn’t know any trans people – I do. Since I was 16-years-old I’ve known trans people. I know people with trans kids.
‘And April Ashley – who was the first woman to transition in this country. She died a couple of years ago, and I photographed her – she was amazing.’