Author J.K. Rowling announced in a Saturday X post that she may have found the most “bat-s*** gender identity argument” yet, noting that the latest gem she’d come across had brought the Catholic Church into the discussion.
Rowling’s efforts to stand for women’s sex-based rights and private spaces have provoked ire from the radical trans activist crowd — they’ve labeled her a Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist (TERF) — and they often target her on social media with the latest arguments aimed at shaming her into agreeing with them.
The attacks are so constant that Rowling doesn’t often appear to be shocked by them — she even said once that she’d gotten so many death threats that she could paper her house with them — but she admitted on Saturday that the latest one was new to her.
“You think you’ve heard the last word in bat-s*** gender identity arguments and then you see a post saying that using the new Pope’s title instead of his birth name is exactly the same as accepting that a man is a woman if he says he is,” Rowling said.
You think you’ve heard the last word in batshit gender identity arguments and then you see a post saying that using the new Pope’s title instead of his birth name is exactly the same as accepting that a man is a woman if he says he is. pic.twitter.com/vJRSUw29dO
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) May 10, 2025
When the conclave concluded on May 8, and the Vatican announced that Cardinal Robert Prevost of Chicago would become Pope Leo XIV, X was flooded with activists who complained that Catholics everywhere seemed to have no objection to addressing the pontiff by his new “chosen” name, but had a problem with doing the same for those who choose new names or pronouns because they identify as transgender.
A few critics other than Rowling pushed back as well, some of them noting that Prevost had not simply “self-identified” as Leo XIV to become the Pope.
