J.K. Rowling Responds To 'Harry Potter' Actor Paapa Essiedu Pushing Transgenderism: "I Don't Have The Power To Sack An Actor From The Series And I Wouldn't Exercise It If I Did"
Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling responded to recently announced Severus Snape actor Paapa Essiedu calling for gender ideology to be propagandized via television and film.
In the middle of April, the UK Supreme Court ruled in favor of For Women Scotland declaring, “The definition of sex in the EA 2010 makes clear that the concept of sex is binary, a person is either a woman or a man. Persons who share that protected characteristic for the purposes of the group-based rights and protections are persons of the same sex and provisions that refer to protection for women necessarily exclude men. Although the word “biological” does not appear in this definition, the ordinary meaning of those plain and unambiguous words corresponds with the biological characteristics that make an individual a man or a woman. These are assumed to be self-explanatory and to require no further explanation. Men and women are on the face of the definition only differentiated as a grouping by the biology they share with their group.”
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In response to this ruling, Essiedu added his name to an open later condemning the ruling and vowing to pushed gender ideology propaganda through film and television.
The letter states in part, “We the undersigned film and television professionals stand in solidarity with the trans, non-binary and intersex communities who have been impacted by the Supreme Court ruling on April 17. We wish to add our voices to the 2000+ signatories of the Open Letter from UK Writers to the Trans Community published last week and call upon members of our industry and cultural bodies to join us.”
It adds, “The UK film and television industry is at the forefront of cultural change. In recent years we have come together in response to the Me Too and Black Lives Matter movements to reflect upon our working practices and uplift a broad spectrum of voices in our society. We must now urgently work to ensure that our trans, non-binary, and intersex colleagues, collaborators and audiences are protected from discrimination and harassment in all areas of the industry - whether on set, in a production office, or at a cinema.”
Finally it concludes by stating, “Film and television are powerful tools for empathy and education, and we believe passionately in the ability of the screen to change hearts and minds. This is our opportunity to be on the right side of history.”
In response to Essiedu signing the letter an anonymous source told The Daily Mail, “I don’t think they would want that [his sacking] optically.”
The source added, “If he chooses to leave the cast then that’s his personal decision but it’s a job on a huge show.”
Rowling reacted to coverage of this anonymous source from the Scottish Daily Express and wrote on X, “I don’t have the power to sack an actor from the series and I wouldn’t exercise it if I did. I don’t believe in taking away people’s jobs or livelihoods because they hold legally protected beliefs that differ from mine.”
Rowling did issue a lengthy statement in response to both the original letter from the writers as well as the one that Essiedu and former Harry Potter actors such as Eddie Redmayne and Katie Leung signed.
She wrote on X, “In light of recent open letters from academia and the arts criticising the UK's Supreme Court ruling on sex-based rights, it's possibly worth remembering that nobody sane believes, or has ever believed, that humans can change sex, or that binary sex isn't a material fact. These letters do nothing but remind us of what we know only too well: that pretending to believe these things has become an elitist badge of virtue. I often wonder whether the signatories of such letters have to quieten their consciences before publicly boosting a movement intent on removing women's and girls' rights, which bullies gay people who admit openly they don't want opposite sex partners, and campaigns for the continued sterilisation of vulnerable and troubled kids. Do they feel any qualms at all while chanting the foundational lie of their religion: Trans Women are Women, Trans Men are Men? “
“I have no idea,” she continued. “All I know for sure is that it's a complete waste of time telling a gender activist that their favourite slogan is self-contradictory nonsense, because the lie is the whole point. They're not repeating it because it's true - they know full well it's not true - but because they believe they can make it true, sort of, if they force everyone else to agree. The foundational lie functions as both catechism and crucifix: the set form of words that obviates the tedious necessity of coming up with your own explanation of why you're one of the Godly, and an exorcist's weapon which will defeat demonic facts and reason, and promote the advance of righteous pseudoscience and sophistry.”
“Some argue that signatories of these sorts of letters are motivated by fear: fear for their careers, of course, but also fear of their co-religionists, who include angry, narcissistic men who threaten and sometimes enact violence on non-believers; back-stabbing colleagues ever ready to report wrongthink; the online shamers and doxxers and rape threateners, and, of course, the influential zealots in the upper echelons of liberal professions (though we can quibble whether they're actually liberal at all, given the draconian authoritarianism that seems to have engulfed so many),” Rowling stated. “Gender ideology could give medieval Catholicism a run for its money when it comes to punishing heretics, so isn't it common sense to keep your head down and recite your Hail Mulvaneys?”
“But before we start feeling too sorry for any cowed and fearful TWAWites who're TERFy on the sly, let's not forget what a high proportion of them have willingly snatched up pitchforks and torches to join the inquisitional purges. Call me lacking in proper womanly sympathy, but I find the harm they've enabled and in some cases directly championed or funded - the hounding and shaming of vulnerable women, the forced loss of livelihoods, the unregulated medical experiment on minors - tends to dry up my tears at source.”
“History is littered with the debris of irrational and harmful belief systems that once seemed unassailable,” she stated. “As Orwell said, 'Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them.' Gender ideology may have embedded itself deeply into our institutions, where it's been imposed, top-down, on the supposedly unenlightened, but it is not invulnerable.”
“Court losses are starting to stack up,” she observed. “The condescension, overreach, entitlement and aggression of gender activists is eroding public support daily. Women are fighting back and winning significant victories. Sporting bodies have miraculously awoken from their slumber and remembered that males tend to be larger, stronger and faster than females. Parts of the medical establishment are questioning cutting healthy breasts off teenaged girls is really the best way to fix their mental health problems.”
“One seemingly harmless little white lie - Trans Women are Women, Trans Men are Men - uttered in most cases without any real thought at all, and a few short years later, people who think of themselves as supremely virtuous are typing 'yes, rapists' pronouns are absolutely the hill I'll die on,' rubbing shoulders with those who call for women to be hanged and decapitated for wanting all-female rape crisis centres, and furiously denying clear and mounting evidence of the greatest medical scandal in a century. I wonder if they ever ask themselves how they got here, and I wonder whether any of them will ever feel shame,” she concluded.
In a follow-up she did concur that “there’s definitely self-interest at work, but the fear is real. I’ve heard the whispered confessions of heresy and the panic of those who feel they’re in too deep to recant.”
She also affirmed that bloodlust plays into it.
What do you make of Rowling’s comments?
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Once we fell for the Inquisition and Witch Trials as cruel and evil, they knew they got rid of the Men, Clerics and Knights who held True Evil at bay.
Binary thinkers are strange. Rowling is Good/Bad in the moment, based on what she says or does in that moment.
She isn't on the side of the angels, never was. But she can stumble into an objectively moral stance on occasion. This isn't one of those occasions.