J.K. Rowling hits out at ‘certain celebrities’ who support transgender charity after bombshell report

The Harry Potter author has launched a furious tweet criticising “certain celebrities” including actress Emma Watson who are linked to a controversial transgender charity.

Famed author J.K. Rowling has launched a thinly veiled swipe at Harry Potter actress Emma Watson after a transgender charity she supports was linked to a paedophile rights group.

The British writer, 57, responded to a story in The Times which reported that Dr Jacob Breslow, a Trustee for UK-based children’s transgender charity Mermaids, stepped down on Monday after it emerged he had previously attended a conference for B4U-ACT, an organisation which supports paedophiles.

B4U-ACT’s website calls for an “understanding about people in our communities with an attraction to children or adolescents” and for them to have the right to live “in truth and dignity”.

Mermaids, which was founded in 1995 and has been supported by Watson, 32, as well as Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, said it had been “made aware of Dr Breslow’s historical participation in a conference that is completely at odds with our values.”

Rowling, whose controversial comments about trans people have widely been deemed transphobic, hit out at “certain celebrities” who have backed Mermaids despite “red flags”.

“We’ve now learned that Mermaids appointed a paedophilia apologist as Trustee and that their online moderator encouraged kids to move onto a platform notorious for sexual exploitation,” Rowling wrote in a tweet. “This is a charity that’s achieved unprecedented influence in the UK.”

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J.K. Rowling’s stance on the transgender community has landed her in hot water in recent years.

Rowling added: “They couldn’t have achieved it without the money and public support of certain corporations and celebrities, who eagerly boosted them even though the red flags have been there for years.

“They’ve been allowed into classrooms, trained police and had unprecedented influence over health policy, even though by their own admission they aren’t a medical charity. We’ve also found out they’re sending devices to flatten breasts to underage girls w/o [without] parental consent.”

It comes after The Times reported Dr Breslow attended a conference for B4U-ACT in 2011 when he was a PhD student. He reportedly made a speech to the group at the time, in which he was said to have coined the phrase “minor-attracted persons” instead of paedophile.

British actress Emma Watson has previously voiced her support for Mermaids. Picture: ANGELA WEISS / AFP

As have Harry and Meghan. Picture: Phil Noble – WPA Pool/Getty Images

Rowling became the centre of a PR storm when, in June 2020, she mocked an article using the phrase “People who menstruate”.

The billionaire author responded to the story on Twitter, “I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?”

Watson was one of the several Harry Potter actors who addressed Rowling’s controversial tweet, taking to Twitter to declare, “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.”

The English actress, who nabbed her first film role in the blockbuster Harry Potter franchise aged 11, further pledged her financial support to Mermaids in a subsequent tweet, adding to her followers, “If you can, perhaps you’ll feel inclined to do the same”.

The Times’ bombshell report claimed Dr Breslow, who works for London School of Economics and Political Science in their Department of Gender Studies, was made a trustee of Mermaids in July.

Just last week, Mermaids was the subject of another damning reports in the UK’s Telegraph, after being accused by regulators of giving chest-flattening devices to girls as young as 13 without consulting their parents.

Fellow Harry Potter stars speak out

Rupert Grint, Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson have all criticised J.K. Rowling’s transgender comments. Picture: Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images

Watson wasn’t the only big name to lash out at Rowling in mid-2020.

Daniel Radcliffe – who played Harry Potter – issued a lengthy statement criticising her stance.

“Jo is unquestionably responsible for the course my life has taken,” Radcliffe wrote in a statement published by The Trevor Project, an organisation that works in crisis prevention for LGBTQ youth. “As a human being, I feel compelled to say something at this moment … 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 am deeply sorry for the pain these comments have caused you. If these books taught you that love is the strongest force in the universe, capable of overcoming anything; if they taught you that strength is found in diversity, and that dogmatic ideas of pureness lead to the oppression of vulnerable groups …

“If you found anything in these stories that resonated with you and helped you at any time in your life – then that is between you and the book that you read, and it is sacred. And in my opinion nobody can touch that.”

Rupert Grint, who played Ron Weasley, also launched his own response in a statement.

“I firmly stand with the trans community. Trans women are women. Trans men are men. We should all be entitled to live with love and without judgment,” Grint said.

In further evidence of a divide, Rowling wasn’t invited to participate in the 20th anniversary Harry Potter reunion special, which aired locally on Binge in January.

Originally published as J.K. Rowling hits out at ‘certain celebrities’ who support transgender charity after bombshell report