Actor Rupert Grint has become the latest Harry Potter star to turn on author J.K Rowling after she cited the scientific fact transgender women are unable to menstruate.
In an essay last week, Rowling reaffirmed her stance that one’s biological sex is both important and irreversible and should not be viewed merely as a social construct.
She wrote:
If sex isn’t real, there’s no same-sex attraction. If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isn’t hate to speak the truth…The idea that women like me, who’ve been empathetic to trans people for decades, feeling kinship because they’re vulnerable in the same way as women — ie, to male violence — ‘hate’ trans people because they think sex is real and has lived consequences — is a nonsense.
Grint, whose career was made by Rowling after he was chosen to play Harry Potter’s best friend Ronald Weasley in the film franchise, backed his fellow cast members in effectively denouncing Rowling for her comments.
“I firmly stand with the trans community and echo the sentiments expressed by many of my peers. Trans women are women. Trans men are men,” he told the Sunday Times. “We should all be entitled to live with love and without judgment.”
Both Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson, who played the roles of Harry Potter and Hermione Granger, have also spoken out against the woman who made their careers over her supposedly backward views.
“Trans people are who they say they are and deserve to live their lives without being constantly questioned or told they aren’t who they say they are,” Watson wrote on Twitter shortly after Rowling published her essay.
Trans people are who they say they are and deserve to live their lives without being constantly questioned or told they aren’t who they say they are.
— Emma Watson (@EmmaWatson) June 10, 2020
“Transgender women are women,” added Radcliffe in a statement earlier this week. “Any statement to the contrary erases the identity and dignity of transgender people and goes against all advice given by professional health care associations, who have far more expertise on this subject matter than either Jo or I.”
The widespread attacks on Rowling are all the more surprising given her previously impeccable progressive credentials. A long-time supporter of the British Labour Party, she was left devastated by the country’s decision to leave the European Union.
She has also previously described President Donald Trump as “worse than Voldemort,” the main villain of her books who she once compared to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
Follow Ben Kew on Facebook, Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at bkew@breitbart.com
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