Cross-dressing killer in J.K. Rowling book fuels ire

Best-selling Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling has stoked anger in the transgender community by including a cross-dressing serial killer in her latest novel.


Penned under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, Troubled Blood, published on Tuesday, is Rowling's fifth book to feature private investigator Cormoran Strike, the first four of which have been dramatised by the BBC.
Rowling has faced serial accusations of transphobia in recent months and trans activists said the new book appeared to take a deliberate swipe at the community.
"It's really sad to see this road J.K. Rowling appears to be on," said writer and trans advocate Ugla Stefania Kristjonudottir Jonsdottir, who quit Rowling's literary agency in June in protest at the writer's stance.
"It's one thing to have diverse characters, but when you write about a man dressing up as a woman in order to kill women, you are deliberately enforcing an awful trope about transgender people."
Admirers of the Harry Potter books were among those to express their anger.
"The hardest part of being a Harry Potter fan is JK Rowling herself," one said on Twitter on Tuesday.
The trans rights row does not appear to have dented sales, however, with the various hardback, audiobook and Kindle versions of "Troubled Blood" all occupying top five positions in Amazon's best sellers' list on Tuesday.
The book revolves around the case of a woman missing since 1974 and presumed to be the unknown victim of a long-jailed serial killer.
In one scene in the novel, the murderer disguises himself as a woman in order to abduct his victim.
'THIS IS FICTION'
Rowling weighed into the trans rights debate in June, when she published an initial tweet criticising a headline that said "creating a more equal post-Covid-19 world for people who menstruate".
"'People who menstruate'. I'm sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?" Rowling tweeted at the time.
The writer, whose Harry Potter series has sold more than 500 million books, followed the tweet with a 3600-word essay, in which she disclosed she had been a victim of domestic abuse and sexual assault.
Rowling's agent said the writer would not be commenting further.
But while many in the trans community were outraged by what they saw as further transphobia from the world's wealthiest author, others have defended her.
Robbie Coltrane, who played a recurring character in the Harry Potter film series, which has grossed a total of almost $US8 billion ($NZ11.9 billion) , told a British magazine that people were "waiting to be offended".
"I don't think what she said was offensive really," the actor told Radio Times, despite the film series' three main leads, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, having publicly criticised Rowling's past trans remarks.
Bev Jackson, co-founder of activist group LGB Alliance, said many of the attacks, which saw the hashtag #RIPJKRowling trending on Twitter, amounted to "misogyny".
It was "extraordinary that people have opinions about a book they haven't read", she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation on Tuesday.
"There are thousands of thrillers published every year, many of them will feature people who dress up in disguises, and this is fiction."

whats the timeline here? Was she writing the book before or after her problems with the trans activists started?

If after... jeeze, fair play for having the balls to troll them in book form..

I imagine before but to be honest props if she did do it just to give these oiks the birdie

Even if it was before.. to go through with it, knowing what will happen - just goes to show big balls a few hundred million pounds gives you!

Its a funny news story, but outside of harry potter I've never exactly been motivated to read any of her stuff.

Now the real question is did Rowling actually use this character to 'take a swipe' at trans people, as these activists claim, or is this but an effort to further defame her?
Bearing in mind the seriously dubious nature of the claim that presenting a cross dresser as a killer is somehow "transphobic" it would come across as more them getting frightfully het up over, well, nothing. Last time one checked using this as a literary device is perfectly proper and acceptable. Unless they honestly take the view that you must never, ever, present such people in a bad light? Something i imagine would make writing books rather tricky if every group suddenly rose up and screamed bigotry if the bad guy happened to be represented by them


https://www.odt.co.nz/entertainment/books/cross-dressing-killer-jk-rowling-book-fuels-ire

Ugla Stefania Kristjonudottir Jonsdottir is one hell of a long and complex name.

I thought it was about a transvestite man and not a trans woman.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-8747125/JK-Rowling-accused-Islamophobia-passage-book-shared-online.html

Uh oh! As if that wasn't bad enough, it looks as if JK is a raging islamophobe too! Can we conclude now that JK Rowling is literally Hitler? I for one say yes.

The character isn't a cross dresser. I think the character wore a women's coat once. This whole thing is beyond ridiculous.

The character isn't a cross dresser. I think the character wore a women's coat once. This whole thing is beyond ridiculous.

Now the real question is did Rowling actually use this character to 'take a swipe' at trans people, as these activists claim, or is this but an effort to further defame her?
Bearing in mind the seriously dubious nature of the claim that presenting a cross dresser as a killer is somehow "transphobic" it would come across as more them getting frightfully het up over, well, nothing. Last time one checked using this as a literary device is perfectly proper and acceptable. Unless they honestly take the view that you must never, ever, present such people in a bad light? Something i imagine would make writing books rather tricky if every group suddenly rose up and screamed bigotry if the bad guy happened to be represented by them


https://www.odt.co.nz/entertainment/books/cross-dressing-killer-jk-rowling-book-fuels-ire