“Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling fired right back at a critic who accused her of “aligning ideologically” with the brutal former Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.
Rowling has often found herself the target of hateful posts and threats from radical trans rights activists because they claim her defense of biological women — and their right to have spaces where biological males are not allowed — makes her a TERF (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist).
But when one critic attacked Rowling in a tweet suggesting that her ideology matched Stalin’s, the author shot back, tongue in cheek.
“Very excited to announce that after a long stretch of being Literally Hitler I’ve become Ideologically Stalin,” Rowling joked. “With luck, hard work, and your continued support, I believe I can make Vlad the Impaler by Christmas.”
Very excited to announce that after a long stretch of being Literally Hitler I've become Ideologically Stalin.
With luck, hard work and your continued support, I believe I can make Vlad the Impaler by Christmas.
🙏❤️ pic.twitter.com/0Y4Q1KVAKo— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) March 30, 2023
The criticism, posted by climate journalist Dave Vetter, appeared to land rather wide of the mark. He was responding to a thread in which Rowling highlighted an argument between left-wing activist Owen Jones and the Communist Party of Britain over gay rights and abortion access.
Rowling, who is decidedly left of center, tweeted, “Owen Jones versus actual communists is the top quality Twitter content I’m here for.”
Congratulations on aligning ideologically with Stalin, I guess
— Dave Vetter (@davidrvetter) March 30, 2023
In the argument, Jones noted that Stalin had banned both abortion (1933) and made homosexuality a criminal offense (1934) — while the CPB argued that it was the Communist Party that had been first to stand for gay rights and abortion access.
Vetter followed that by claiming that Rowling, who supports both gay rights and abortion access, somehow aligned with Stalin.
The “Harry Potter” creator has also said that she absolutely supports adults who choose to go through gender transition. Where she draws the line is in allowing biological males who self-identify as trans-women to, absent any surgical interventions, insist on being allowed into all-female spaces.
“Women are the only group, to my knowledge, that are being asked to embrace members of their oppressor class unquestioningly with no caveat,” Rowling said on a recent episode of the podcast series “The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling.” “Many people of my generation particularly think that we’re talking about old school transsexuals, people who’ve been through full sex reassignment because of profound gender dysphoria, and I feel 100% compassion for such people and I would absolutely respect their pronouns — always have, always will — and would want, as I say, to have comfortable, easy lives.”
“This [new] movement, though, is pressing for something different, very different,” she continued. “This movement has argued, continues to argue, that a man may have had no surgery whatsoever but if he feels himself to be a woman, the door of every woman’s bathroom, changing room, rape center should be open to him. And I say no. I’m afraid I say no.”