Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, who has made numerous transphobic statements over the years, unfollowed horror master Stephen King on Twitter after he tweeted that “trans women are women.” She also bizarrely deleted a tweet praising her fellow multi-millionaire novelist. King was asked about the interaction — and Rowling’s petty unfollowing — in an interview with the Daily Beast, where he said, “Jo canceled me.”
King says that Rowling is welcome to her opinion (even if it’s a sh*tty, hateful opinion) because “that’s the way that the world works. If she thinks that trans women are dangerous, or that trans women are somehow not women, or whatever problem she has with it — the idea that someone ‘masquerading’ as a woman is going to assault a ‘real’ woman in the toilet — if she believes all those things, she has a right to her opinion.” But “I just felt that her belief was, in my opinion, wrong. We have differing opinions, but that’s life.”
The It author was also asked about the infamous Harper’s letter, in which Rowling, Noam Chomsky, and Salman Rushdie, among others, unsuccessfully argued that stifled free speech is creating an “intolerant climate,” something something cancel culture. He agrees that she’s said some vile things, but they also agree on many politicized topics.
“Jo’s opinion on trans women is an outlier in her entire political spectrum,” King said. “She was very much anti-Brexit and very much anti-Trump. She’s on the side of the angels in most respects, but she does have this one thing that she’s very vehement about. No doubt.” The days of them teaming up to troll Trump seem like forever ago.
(Editor’s note: An edit was made to this post after publication to make it more clear that Stephen King does not believe that J.K. Rowling’s opinions about transgender people are “shitty and hateful.” We apologize for any confusion.)
My opinion is that Jo Rowling is wrong about trans women. Leave shitty and hateful out of it, please.
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) May 19, 2021
(Via the Daily Beast)
