Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe has defended his decision to attack and throw author J.K. Rowling under the bus after she spoke out against transgender radicalism. In the summer of 2020, J.K. Rowling said that transgender ideology could lead to the erasure of womanhood as we know it by denying the basic biological functions that differentiate women from men.
“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,” she tweeted.
Following her post, J.K. Rowling faced severe social media backlash as several stars from the Harry Potter franchise rebuked her stance, with Daniel Radcliffe proclaiming that “Transgender women are women” in a gushing letter on the Trevor Project’s website. Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, and Eddie Redmayne also publicly declared their support for the trans movement while only actors Ralph Fiennes, who played Voldemort, and Robbie Coltrane, who played Hagrid, came to Rowling’s defense.
Speaking with IndieWire, Radcliffe said that he spoke out against Rowling to show that not every member of the franchise disagreed with her.
“The reason I felt very, very much as though I needed to say something when I did was because, particularly since finishing ‘Potter,’ I’ve met so many queer and trans kids and young people who had a huge amount of identification with Potter on that,” Radcliffe said. “And so seeing them hurt on that day I was like, I wanted them to know that not everybody in the franchise felt that way. And that was really important.”
“It was really important as I’ve worked with the Trevor Project for more than 10 years, and so I don’t think I would’ve been able to look myself in the mirror had I not said anything,” Radcliffe added. “But it’s not mine to guess what’s going on in someone else’s head.”
In his 2020 letter, Radcliffe even went as far to say that simply stating biological facts about men and women “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.”
“To all the people who now feel that their experience of the [‘Harry Potter’] books has been tarnished or diminished, I am deeply sorry for the pain these comments have caused you. I really hope that you don’t entirely lose what was valuable in these stories to you,” he wrote.