Earlier this week, Harry Potter writer JK Rowling recommended she received’t ‘forgive’ Harry Potter stars Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson, after each beforehand expressed assist for trans individuals.
In just some brief years, Rowling has gone from almost-universally beloved kids’s writer to probably the most controversial figures within the UK, and her latest assertion about Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson is simply the most recent in a protracted line of divisive feedback and tweets she has made about trans individuals and their rights.
In a thread on X/Twitter on 10 April, Rowling wrote that she was “bloody offended” following the discharge of the Cass report, which made a sequence of suggestions in relation to restructuring the way in which trans youth obtain healthcare within the UK.
“I learn Cass this morning and my anger’s been mounting all day. Youngsters have been irreversibly harmed, and hundreds are complicit, not simply medics, however the movie star mouthpieces, unquestioning media and cynical firms,” she claimed.
After one follower demanded Radcliffe and Watson give her a “very public apology, secure within the data that [Rowling] will forgive them,” the writer responded: “Not secure, I’m afraid.”
She went on to say: “Celebs who cosied as much as a motion intent on eroding girls’s hard-won rights and who used their platforms to cheer on the transitioning of minors can save their apologies for traumatised detransitioners and susceptible girls reliant on single-sex areas.”
Ever since Rowling’s June 2020 tweets and “TERF Wars” essay outlining her “issues” about trans equality, these connected to the movie franchise have supplied their very own takes on each transgender rights and the backlash towards the writer.
However what have Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson – and the remainder of the solid of the Harry Potter movies – really stated about trans rights? Let’s discover out.
Daniel Radcliffe – Harry Potter
Daniel Radcliffe performed the titular boy wizard himself, and wasted little time in publicly popping out to defend trans individuals after Rowling’s essay was revealed.
In 2020, the actor and long-time queer ally wrote a weblog for LGBTQ+ charity The Trevor Mission. “Transgender girls are girls,” he clearly acknowledged.
“Any assertion on the contrary erases the identification and dignity of transgender individuals and goes towards all recommendation given by skilled healthcare associations who’ve much more experience on this material than both Jo [Rowling] or I.”
Radcliffe doubled down on his feedback two years later, telling Indiewire he had “met so many queer and trans children and younger individuals who had an enormous quantity of identification with Potter on that”.
Seeing individuals harm following Rowling’s phrases made Radcliffe need individuals to know that “not all people within the franchise felt that manner.”
Emma Watson – Hermione Granger
Emma Watson, who performed Hermione Granger, has additionally vocally – and pointedly – expressed assist for trans individuals.
In a sequence of tweets in June 2020, Watson stated she wished her transgender followers to know that she “and so many different individuals world wide see you, respect you and love you for who you’re”.
She went on to say: “Trans individuals are who they are saying they’re and need to reside their lives with out being continuously questioned or advised they aren’t who they are saying they’re.”
Watson was praised after she introduced a gong on the 2022 BAFTAs, the place she remarked: “I’m right here for all the witches.”
In 2018, she tweeted a photograph of herself sporting a T-shirt bearing the slogan “Trans Rights are Human Rights”, whereas tagging trans-inclusive organisations Stonewall, Mermaids, All About Trans and Gendered Intelligence.
Rupert Grint – Ron Weasley
Rupert Grint additionally defended trans individuals shortly after Rowling’s feedback.
“I firmly stand with the trans group and echo the emotions expressed by a lot of my friends,” he advised The Occasions.
“Trans girls are girls. Trans males are males. We must always all be entitled to reside with love and with out judgment.”
Bonnie Wright – Ginny Weasley
Bonnie Wright, who performed Ron’s younger sister, tweeted a easy however efficient assertion after Rowling’s essay was revealed.
“If Harry Potter was a supply of affection and belonging for you, that love is infinite and there to take with out judgment or query.” she wrote. “Transwomen [sic] are girls. I see and love you”.
Matthew Lewis – Neville Longbottom
Matthew Lewis, who performed hapless Gryffindor pupil Neville Longbottom, addressed the controversy by saying he didn’t consider his view on both trans or girls’s rights was significantly wanted, however that everybody is “entitled to be whoever they wish to be”.
Chatting with iNews in 2021, he added: “It’s very emotive and if I used to be to supply the one place I believe affordable, it’s that we’re speaking about exceptionally marginalised teams.
“I simply don’t know if this dialog wants one more opinion from a white man telling both a) the trans group, or b) girls, what to suppose, what to really feel, what to say.
“It doesn’t matter what I believe, and what my opinion is, I’ve to sit down this one out as a result of each side of this dialogue have had sufficient of people that seem like me telling them what to do.”
The actor added: “If I’m gonna soar off that fence, I’ll make rattling certain I do know as a lot as I really feel like I can. Perhaps that’s a mealy-mouthed, wishy-washy reply, however I really feel like we may do with a bit extra considering and fewer speaking typically.”
Evanna Lynch – Luna Lovegood
Evanna Lynch publicly distanced herself from Rowling shortly after the writer revealed her essay, whereas additionally taking goal at “poisonous” Twitter debates by saying: “I believe she’s on the incorrect facet of this debate. However that doesn’t imply she has fully misplaced her humanity.”
In a message to followers, Lynch wrote: “I think about that being trans and studying to just accept and love your self is difficult sufficient, and we as a society shouldn’t be including to that ache.
“Feeling such as you don’t slot in or aren’t accepted for who you’re, are the worst, most lonely emotions a human can expertise and I received’t be serving to to marginalise trans men and women additional.”
Nevertheless, in February 2023, Lynch appeared to row again on that criticism, saying that she was “very naive” when she made the unique feedback.
“I didn’t even know there have been two sides” she advised The Every day Telegraph. “I had a view of, like, good and dangerous.”
Explaining that she has “compassion for each side of the argument,” she as soon as once more reiterated that she didn’t wish to “add” to trans individuals’s “ache”.
She did, nevertheless, go on to reward Rowling for “amplifying the voices of detransitioners”.
Lynch additionally stated: “I simply felt her character has at all times been to advocate for essentially the most susceptible members of society. The issue is that there’s a disagreement over who’s essentially the most susceptible.
“I do want individuals would simply give her extra grace and take heed to her.”
Chris Rankin – Percy Weasley
Like fellow trans rights champion Daniel Radcliffe, Chris Rankin was one of many first of the movie franchise’s stars to talk up in assist of the transgender group.
The actor, who performed Ron’s older brother Percy, stated: “My stunning, courageous, sturdy, trans buddies and home of #ChrisNess [referring to a queer youth network he founded] household. We love you. I can’t say it sufficient.
“You’re fantastic and need to be handled as such. Please know that. Be pleased with who you’re, we’re pleased with you.”
Rankin’s tweet can’t be embedded right here as he’s since made his Twitter/X account personal.
Katie Leung – Cho Chang
Katie Leung, who performed Ravenclaw pupil and Harry’s short-lived love curiosity Cho Chang, appeared to make her emotions clear in June 2020 when she tweeted hyperlinks to varied trans-supportive sources.
“So, you need my ideas on Cho Chang? OK, right here goes,” Leung wrote, earlier than promptly producing a Twitter thread that includes numerous petitions, fundraisers and different web sites in assist of trans individuals.
Leung’s X account not exists: she has left the platform.
Eddie Redmayne – Newt Scamander
Eddie Redmayne stated he wanted to make it “completely clear” the place he stood following Rowling’s outburst.
Already a extremely profitable actor earlier than enjoying Newt Scamander within the spin-off movie sequence Unbelievable Beasts, he advised Selection: “Respect for transgender individuals stays a cultural crucial, and, through the years, I’ve been attempting to continuously educate myself. That is an ongoing course of.
“I disagree with Jo’s feedback. Trans girls are girls, trans males are males and non-binary identities are legitimate. I’d by no means wish to communicate on behalf of the group however I do know that my expensive transgender buddies and colleagues are uninterested in this fixed questioning of their identities, which all too typically leads to violence and abuse.
“They merely wish to reside their lives peacefully and it’s time to allow them to accomplish that.”
Redmayne, who has been criticised himself prior to now for taking part in transgender artist Lili Elbe in The Danish Woman, regardless of being a cisgender man, additionally condemned abuse directed in direction of Rowling for her views.
In an interview with the Every day Mail simply months after Rowling revealed her “TERF Wars”, he stated the net abuse she confronted was “completely disgusting”, whereas additionally making clear such abuse in direction of trans individuals was “equally disgusting”.
Helena Bonham Carter – Bellatrix Lestrange
One other already-successful star had a considerably completely different tackle the controversy.
Helena Bonham Carter hasn’t explicitly expressed a view on the trans group, however has condemned those that have criticised Rowling.
The star of The Crown and Russell T Davies’ Nolly remained silent till November 2022, when she advised The Occasions she believed the response to Rowling’s feedback was a “load of b*****ks [and] horrendous”.
Bonham Carter, who performed villainous Dying Eater Bellatrix Lestrange within the Potter movies, stated issues had been “taken to the acute, the judgementalism of individuals”.
Seemingly referring to Rowling’s place as a home abuse and sexual assault survivor – one thing the writer touched upon in her essay – Bonham Carter added: “She’s allowed her opinion, significantly if she’s suffered abuse.”
Rowling wasn’t expressing a view “aggressively,” the star continued, “she’s simply saying one thing out of her personal expertise… [everybody] kinds their opinions from that trauma, [which] “it’s important to respect”.
Ralph Fiennes – Lord Voldemort
Like Bonham Carter, Ralph Fiennes’ feedback had been extra instantly about Rowling relatively than about trans equality.
In 2021, the Oscar nominee advised The Telegraph that he couldn’t “perceive” [the] degree of hatred” directed in direction of the writer.
“I discover the extent of hatred that folks specific about views that differ from theirs, and the violence of language in direction of others, disturbing,” the star of Schindler’s Listing stated. “I can’t perceive the vitriol directed at her.”
He reiterated his feedback a yr in the past in an interview with The New York Occasions, the place he described the Potter sequence, wherein he performed Harry’s arch-nemesis, as one in all “empowerment, about younger kids discovering themselves as human beings”, including: “It’s about the way you turn out to be a greater, stronger, extra morally centred human being.”
However he went on to say the “verbal abuse directed at [JK Rowling] is disgusting, it’s appalling. I imply, I can perceive a viewpoint that is perhaps offended at what she says about girls.
“Nevertheless it’s not some obscene, uber-right-wing fascist. It’s only a lady saying: ‘I’m a girl and I really feel like I’m a girl and I would like to have the ability to say that I’m a girl’.”
Miriam Margoyles – Professor Sprout
As you may think, outspoken lesbian actress Miriam Margoyles hasn’t held again from sharing her views.
Initially, in 2020, she distanced herself from JK Rowling’s “conservative” views about trans individuals, urging individuals to not be “fascist” about gender.
In an interview with The Occasions, Margolyes stated of Rowling: “I do know what has occurred… She has a relatively conservative view of transgender individuals. I don’t suppose I do.”
Talking about anti-trans rhetoric, she added: “I can’t make it out. It’s a matter of private happiness for individuals and I believe that’s what it is best to think about. When you significantly wish to turn out to be a girl you have to be allowed to. You’ll be able to’t be fascist about it. I believe it’s complicated.”
Regardless of often reaffirming her assist for trans individuals, in April 2022, Margolyes defended JK Rowling over what she referred to as “misplaced” criticism the author has confronted for her “gender-critical” views. Saying she “admires” Rowling as a “human being”, Margoyles supplied to mediate between the writer and Emma Watson.
Most just lately, in March 2024, she stated: “I fear about Harry Potter followers. They need to be over that by now. You understand, I imply, it was 25 years in the past and it’s for kids. I believe it’s for kids, however they get caught in it.”
So, as you’ll be able to see – it’s not simply Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson who’ve spoken out about trans rights: many of the principal Harry Potter solid have. We’ll replace this text each time extra of the solid communicate out.