J.K. Rowling facing backlash after supporting researcher who lost her job over transphobic tweets

[Jose Garcia]

Source: CBS News

"Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling is facing backlash after tweeting support for a researcher who has a history of making transphobic comments online. Rowling on Thursday tweeted her support for Maya Forstater, who lost a court case against her former employer this week.

The Centre for Global Development, an inequality think tank, decided not to renew Forstater's contract earlier this year after she used discriminatory language against transgender people on social media, specifically transgender women.

"Dress however you please. Call yourself whatever you like. Sleep with any consenting adult who'll have you. Live your best life in peace and security. But force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real? #IStandWithMaya #ThisIsNotADrill," Rowling tweeted Thursday morning. 

Link to tweet

?s=19

In March, Forstater publicly opposed a potential update to the U.K. Gender Recognition Act that would allow people to self-identify their gender without having to undergo medical procedures.

Read more: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/jk-rowling-maya-forstater-backlash-support-researcher-fired-over-transphobic-tweets-2019-12-19/

[Loki Liesmith]

1. Tempest. Teapot.

[JonLP24]

2. I agree with main comments under the Tweet

To be more specific I agree with Amanda Jette Knox's Tweet among others.

[cstanleytech]

3. *shrug* Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and allowed to make their own choices which

is how it should be.
Besides it would be a pretty dull world if we all frog marched to the same tune.

[obamanut2012]

4. Supporting Rowlin's extreme anti-trans TERF rhetoric

As her "own opinion."

You should be ashamed.

[GoneOffShore]

5. Here we go -

[Captain Stern]

6. I agree with Rowling.

I don't think this should be all that controversial.

'Sex is real'. If someone has two x chromosomes, they're biologically a female. If they have an x chromosome and a y chromosome, they're biologically a male. How the person thinks of themselves can't change that.

However, gender is also real, and not tied to biology. There's no reason a person with a y chromosome can't identify as a woman. And there's no reason that person shouldn't be treated as a woman. But it just isn't true to say that they are biologically exactly the same as someone with two x chromosomes.

[marble falls]

7. Even a straight identifying old white geezer like me 'gets' it ...

you'd think it wouldn't be so hard for anyone else to get it. We are who we are. And others need to just plain old accept it.

"Trans women are women. Trans men are men. Non-binary people are non-binary. CC: JK Rowling,"