It’s been nearly a month since J.K. Rowling went from beloved author to despised transgender critic, and though many have turned against her — including Harry Potter fansites, which no longer acknowledge her existence — she continues to stand her ground. On Sunday the now controversial writer took to Twitter and tripled — or is it quadrupled? — down on beliefs that look as though they may permanently tarnish her legacy.
This round was instigated when someone pointed out that Rowling had liked a tweet that was critical of hormone prescriptions, calling them “the new antidepressants,” and that while “they are sometimes necessary and lifesaving,” they “should be a last resort – not the first option.” The tweet concluded by saying it’s “Pure laziness for those who would rather medicate than put in the time and effort to heal people’s minds.”
.
https://twitter.com/sineadactually/status/1279499363224559617
The person who caught the like wrote, “oh cool so it’s not just trans people getting to benefit from JK’s reactionary anti-healthcare activism. she’ll no doubt be helpfully helping people with depression overcome their ‘pure laziness’ too!”
That caused yet another backlash against Rowling, eventually causing her to join in and make things even worse. “I’ve ignored fake tweets attributed to me and RTed widely. I’ve ignored porn tweeted at children on a thread about their art. I’ve ignored death and rape threats. I’m not going to ignore this,” Rowling wrote at the outset of what turned out to be a lengthy thread. (Although why she was ignoring those nasty uses of social media but not this is telling.)
Rowling then tried to redirect the conversation to her own history with mental illness, while trying to make herself out to be less despised by that she feels “nothing but admiration and solidarity” for “this trans woman.” She then tried to argue that young people who transition are merely “being shunted towards hormones and surgery,” which she feels is, somehow, a “new kind of conversion therapy for young gay people.”
As Rowling caused yet another uproar — and since Rowling ended her thread by saying “I can’t pretend to care much about your bad opinion of me,” at least she’ll be okay with it — the person who posted the original tweet decided to make their own clarification.
“I take hormones. I take antidepressants. I would never shame their use. Once again extremists leave no space for nuanced conversations. One size does not fit all, and patients are failed every day by doctors who take the easy way out,” they posted. “We have many tools, some more proven than others, to address mental health. My point was talk and behavioral therapy should not be skipped over. Experimenting with brain and body chemistry should not be the first avenue we explore. That is all I meant.”
In the meantime, if you’d like to donate to a charity for LGBTQ+ youth, we recommend The Trevor Project, as well as GLSEN.
(Via The A.V. Club)
