J.K. Rowling has attempted to defend her controversial Twitter posts about sex and transgender people.
The Harry Potter author found herself under attack by social media users and human rights activists over the weekend, after sharing a series of remarks which many deemed to be transphobic.
Among her posts were, "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."
Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe, Eddie Redmayne, and Sarah Paulson were among the famous faces to criticise Rowling for her comments, but on Wednesday, she published a lengthy essay on her website, seeking to clarify her point of view.
In the piece, she details her "first violent marriage" and claims she is "a domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor" who was "triggered" into sharing her thoughts publicly after reading about "controversial" plans for Scottish government officials to make it easier for transgender people to change their gender on their birth certificate.
"I'm mentioning these things now not in an attempt to garner sympathy, but out of solidarity with the huge numbers of women who have histories like mine, who've been slurred as bigots for having concerns around single-sex spaces," the 54-year-old wrote. "If you could come inside my head and understand what I feel when I read about a trans woman dying at the hands of a violent man, you'd find solidarity and kinship. I have a visceral sense of the terror in which those trans women will have spent their last seconds on earth, because I too have known moments of blind fear when I realised that the only thing keeping me alive was the shaky self-restraint of my attacker."
Rowling went on to insist she supports genuine members of the transgender community, but she felt the need to speak out amid fears Scottish lawmakers are "playing fast and loose with women's and girls' safety".
"The current explosion of trans activism is urging a removal of almost all the robust systems through which candidates for sex reassignment were once required to pass," she added. "A man who intends to have no surgery and take no hormones may now secure himself a Gender Recognition Certificate and be a woman in the sight of the law. Many people aren't aware of this."
