J.K. Rowling has been labeled a “progressive queen” over a detail in a recent social media message.
The Harry Potter author, who has made headlines in recent years for her conservative views on gender issues, was called out for an apparent inconsistency between her expressed stance and a post on X.
On Tuesday (March 31), Rowling shared a selfie she took at the beach with her dog during an Easter egg hunt.
J.K. Rowling is being trolled over an Easter message featuring her dog
Image credits: Getty/Mike Marsland
“Someone found an Easter egg that WASN’T THEIRS. #HappyEaster,” she wrote, pointing to the pup as the culprit.
“To all who’re concerned she ate chocolate, the egg was fortunately weeny. Her remorse is zero,” she added.
Mark MacKillop, a singer and trans rights activist, reposted the message and highlighted Rowling’s gender-neutral language, writing, “THEIRS?!?! #nonbinary.”
The post has amassed 250,000 likes, surpassing the author’s original post, which received 60,000.
“She doesn’t assume their gender or pronouns because human beings cannot understand animal language, so she’s using a gender-neutral pronoun. J K ROWLING OUR PROGRESSIVE QUEEN,” one user on X commented.
“Free J.K. Rowling’s dog, they want to escape, I know it,” added someone else.
Social media users argued that the author used a gender-neutral pronoun to refer to her dog
Image credits: X/jk_rowling
“You think she’s talking about her dog but she’s actually talking about me. I went to her castle and stole her Easter egg,” joked a non-binary user.
“Woke Rowling?! Did we finally break her?” asked one critic.
Others defended the British author with a grammatical explanation, writing, “Because she started the sentence with ‘someone.’”
Non-binary people feel their gender identity cannot be defined as either man or woman. They may identify as both male and female, or neither. They may feel their gender is fluid and can change, or that they permanently don’t identify with a particular gender.
Rowling’s first major gender-related controversy took place in 2020 when she posted about an article with the headline, “Creating a more equal post-COVID-19 world for people who menstruate.”
“‘People who menstruate.’ I’m sure there used to be a word for those people,” Rowling said on X (then Twitter). “Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?”
That year, Rowling also compared gender-affirming care to a “new kind of conversion therapy.”
The Harry Potter author is known for her conservative views on gender issues
Image credits: X/jk_rowling
In an essay, she stated that she is “worried about the new trans activism” and “the huge explosion in young women wishing to transition and also about the increasing numbers who seem to be detransitioning.”
In a 2015 survey of nearly 28,000 people conducted by the US-based National Center for Transgender Equality, only 8% of respondents reported detransitioning, which means going back to living as their gender assigned at birth.
Rowling’s anti-trans views have been questioned by the lead Harry Potter actors, who have spoken out to distance themselves from the 60-year-old writer.
Daniel Radcliffe, who played the titular wizard, released an essay for The Trevor Project, an LGBTQ+ non-profit focused on mental health, to voice his support for the trans community and apologize for the “pain” caused by Rowling’s words.
He also said he’s “deeply sorry” to those who “feel that their experience of the books has been tarnished or diminished” because of Rowling’s remarks.
Emma Watson, who portrayed Hermione Granger, also released a statement, saying, “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.”
Rowling recently slammed Emma Watson while addressing their contrasting views on trans rights, calling the actress “ignorant”
Image credits: Getty/Chris Jackson
Rupert Grint, who played Ron Weasley, stated that he “firmly stood” with the trans community and wrote, “Trans women are women. Trans men are men. We should all be entitled to live with love and without judgment.”
Some have gone even further. After Rowling celebrated the UK Supreme Court ruling declaring that the term “women” in the 2010 Equality Act refers only to biological women, Sean Biggerstaff, who portrayed Oliver Wood, responded to the author and wrote, “Bigotry rots the wit.”
The Hogwarts architect previously expressed that she wouldn’t accept a hypothetical apology from Radcliffe, Watson, or Grint over their support for the trans community.
“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 s*x spaces,” she wrote in April 2024.
She also said Watson “has so little experience of real life she’s ignorant of how ignorant she is.”
Despite the backlash against the author, Rowling remains connected to the Harry Potter universe and serves as an executive producer of the upcoming HBO series adaptation of her books.
Rowling’s use of “theirs” sparked a heated debate on social media
Image credits: WinterRewind
