JK Rowling: Trans activists’ tweet about author ‘not criminal’, police say
Police Scotland have said they will not be pressing charges against the trans activists who tweeted against JK Rowling in November last year.
On 19 November 2021, the Harry Potter author filed a complaint against three “activist actors” for allegedly leaking her Edinburgh home address in a tweet.
At the time, Rowling claimed the group posted a photo of themselves in front of her house while “carefully positioning themselves to ensure” that the address could be seen.
Rowling, whose views on transgender rights have been widely criticised in recent years, also said she was being targeted for speaking up “for women’s sex-based rights”. It has been reported that the activists deleted the tweet shortly after it was posted.
On Monday (12 January), Police Scotland said an investigation into the incident confirmed that the tweet against Rowling was not a criminal act.
The Independent has reached out to Rowling’s representatives for comment.
In June 2020, Rowling sparked outrage after calling out an article’s use of the phrase “people who menstruate”.
“I’m sure there used to be a word for those people,” she wrote, adding: “Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?”
While many Twitter users supported Rowling, there were others – including numerous celebrities – who criticised her comment as “anti-trans”, arguing that transgender, non-binary and non-gender conforming people can also menstruate.
In a follow-up essay, the author addressed the backlash and revealed her experiences of surviving alleged domestic abuse and sexual assault.
However, the essay sparked further criticism and many actors from the Harry Potter franchise, including Rupert Grint, Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson, have since voiced their support for trans women.
In 2019, Rowling came out in support of researcher Maya Forstater, a visiting fellow at the Centre for Global Development who was fired for tweeting anti-trans comments like “men cannot change into women”.
At the time, Rowling condemned that Forstater was being “forced” out of her job for stating that “sex is real”.
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