Daniel Radcliffe Is ‘Really Sad’ About J.K. Rowling
The author’s transphobia has created a massive rift between her and the actor.
Daniel Radcliffe is “really sad” about J.K. Rowling’s anti-trans rhetoric. In a profile in The Atlantic, the actor carefully spoke about his decision to publicly distance himself from the woman who created Harry Potter (and thus, Daniel Radcliffe).
For some backstory: Radcliffe first clashed with Rowling in 2020, when she snarkily tweeted about an article that referred to “people who menstruate.” Rowling had been tiptoeing into transphobia for a while at that point, and her tweets created enough of a firestorm that Radcliffe felt he had to speak out. He issued a statement through the Trevor Project, in which he said, “Transgender women are women. 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.”
“I’d worked with the Trevor Project for 12 years and it would have seemed like, I don’t know, immense cowardice to me to not say something,” Radcliffe told The Atlantic. “I wanted to try and help people that had been negatively affected by the comments … And to say that if those are Jo’s views, then they are not the views of everybody associated with the Potter franchise.”
In the years since, Rowling has become something of a full-time TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminist). She has doubled and tripled down on her beliefs that trans women aren’t women, and that it’s dangerous to allow them to transition. Radcliffe said that he has not spoken to Rowling in recent years, but he has been paying attention.
“It makes me really sad, ultimately,” he said, “because I do look at the person that I met, the times that we met, and the books that she wrote, and the world that she created, and all of that is to me so deeply empathic.” Radcliffe also acknowledged that while Rowling created Potter, that doesn’t mean he has to be buddy-buddy with her for the rest of his life.
“Jo, obviously Harry Potter would not have happened without her, so nothing in my life would have probably happened the way it is without that person,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean that you owe the things you truly believe to someone else for your entire life.”
Last month, after the Atlantic’s interview with Radcliffe had been conducted, Rowling had even more to say about trans people. A British report on prescribing hormones or puberty blockers to minors stated there was “no good evidence on the long-term outcomes of interventions to manage gender-related distress.” Rowling tweeted in support of the study, and someone responded saying that they were “waiting for Dan and Emma [Watson] to give you a very public apology.”
In response, Rowling wrote, “Celebs who cosied up to a movement intent on eroding women’s hard-won rights and who used their platforms to cheer on the transitioning of minors can save their apologies for traumatised detransitioners and vulnerable women reliant on single sex spaces.”
When reached for comment, Radcliffe told The Atlantic, “I will continue to support the rights of all LGBTQ people, and have no further comment than that.”
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