Author J.K. Rowling let critics have it in a blistering thread aimed specifically at those who continue to push radical gender ideology even in the face of studies indicating that medical gender transitions — particularly for children — do more harm than good.
Rowling, who has long championed women’s sex-based rights — and argued that no combination of hormones, therapies, drugs, or surgeries can change sex — referenced Dr. Hilary Cass’ review of “gender identity services for children and young people,” which advised the medical community to stop the trend of pushing children toward medical transitions.
The immediate response from the transgender activist community was to attack the study, calling it “flawed” and “ideologically led” — and Rowling fired back via X.
“Over the last four years, Hilary Cass has conducted the most robust review of the medical evidence for transitioning children that’s ever been conducted. Mere hours after it was released to the press and public, committed ideologues are doubling down,” she said.
Over the last four years, Hilary Cass has conducted the most robust review of the medical evidence for transitioning children that's ever been conducted. Mere hours after it was released to the press and public, committed ideologues are doubling down. 1/6 https://t.co/J4fA4JYgkC
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) April 10, 2024
“These are people who’ve deemed opponents ‘far-right’ for wanting to know there are proper checks and balances in place before autistic, gay and abused kids — groups that are all overrepresented at gender clinics — are left sterilised, inorgasmic, lifelong patients,” she continued.
I understand that the review's conclusions will have come as a seismic shock to those who've hounded and demonised whistleblowers and smeared opponents as bigots and transphobes, but trying to discredit Hilary Cass's work isn't merely misguided. It's actively malign. 3/6
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) April 10, 2024
“I understand that the review’s conclusions will have come as a seismic shock to those who’ve hounded and demonised whistleblowers and smeared opponents as bigots and transphobes, but trying to discredit Hilary Cass’s work isn’t merely misguided. It’s actively malign,” Rowling – who has often faced such criticisms from her detractors — added.
Rowling then turned on those who were still actively supporting the idea of medically transitioning children, arguing that every new piece of evidence seemed to be flying in the face of the things they were advocating.
“Even if you don’t feel ashamed of cheerleading for what now looks like severe medical malpractice, even if you don’t want to accept that you might have been wrong, where’s your sense of self-preservation? The bandwagon you hopped on so gladly is hurtling towards a cliff,” she warned.
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And if I sound angry, it's because I'm bloody angry. I read Cass this morning and my anger's been mounting all day. Kids have been irreversibly harmed, and thousands are complicit, not just medics, but the celebrity mouthpieces, unquestioning media and cynical corporations. 5/6
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) April 10, 2024
“And if I sound angry, it’s because I’m bloody angry,” the “Harry Potter” author continued. “I read Cass this morning and my anger’s been mounting all day. Kids have been irreversibly harmed, and thousands are complicit, not just medics, but the celebrity mouthpieces, unquestioning media and cynical corporations.”
“The consequences of this scandal will play out for decades,” Rowling continued to hammer her point. “You cheered it on. You did all you could to impede and misrepresent research. You tried to bully people out of their jobs for opposing you. Young people have been experimented on, left infertile and in pain.”
I thought the last tweet was going to be my last, but I just burst into tears. The #CassReview may be a watershed moment, but it comes too late for detransitioners who've written me heartbreaking letters of regret. Today's not a triumph, it's the laying bare of a tragedy. 7/7
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) April 10, 2024
Despite her initial plan to stop the thread there, Rowling added one more post saying that she had “just burst into tears” over the fact that the report and others like it did not come in time to save the “detransitioners who have written me heartbreaking letters of regret.”
“Today’s not a triumph, it’s the laying bare of a tragedy,” she concluded.