No longer satisfied with simply repeatedly expressing her transphobic opinions on Twitter and in 3,600-word screeds on her personal website, J.K. Rowling now appears to be bringing her TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminist) logic to a bookshelf near you via her new fictional novel, Troubled Blood, out Tuesday.
According to an early review in The Telegraph, Troubled Blood—the fifth installment in Rowling’s Cormoran Strike series written under the pen name Robert Galbraith—deals with the cold case of a woman who disappeared in 1974 and is believed to be the victim of Dennis Creed, “a transvestite serial killer.” (Transvestite is considered an outdated and derogatory term for cross-dressing, which is not the same as being trans.) The review goes on to say, “One wonders what critics of Rowling’s stance on trans issues will make of a book whose moral seems to be: never trust a man in a dress.”
This also isn’t the first time Rowling’s anti-trans opinions have found their way onto the pages of this particular series. In the second Cormoran Strike book, The Silkworm, a woman named Pippa stalks detective Strike before attempting to stab him. Strike traps her in his office, revealing her identity as a trans woman, with Rowling adding in a description of her Adam’s apple and hands. The detective then tells Pippa that prison “won’t be fun for you.… Not pre-op.” (Rowling’s representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)
The Telegraph review prompted a new wave of criticism aimed at Rowling, with the hashtag #RIPJKRowling inspiring at least one explainer piece. Among the more high-profile critics, even before the Troubled Blood review broke, was Cynthia Nixon. In an interview with The Independent this week, she called out the Harry Potter author for her transphobic comments, calling them “painful” for her transgender son Samuel to hear. “It was really painful for him because so much of his childhood was tied up with Harry Potter,” she said. “We’re a Harry Potter family. The books seem to be about championing people who are different, so for her to select this one group of people who are obviously different and sort of deny their existence, it’s just…it’s really baffling. I know she feels like she’s standing up for feminism, but I don’t get it.”
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