JK Rowling comments on schoolgirls who were sexually assaulted in gender-neutral toilets

On 29 June, Telegraph writers, Helen Dixon and Louisa Clarence-Smith, revealed that ‘schoolgirls’ were ‘sexually assaulted in gender-neutral bathrooms.’ The revelations come after a school in Essex contacted the police concerning those claims.

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Soon after The Telegraph article was published, the Harry Potter author, JK Rowling, took to Twitter to comment on it.

The comments made by Rowling yesterday come after a long list of her making comments against transgender people and their rights. Rowling’s newest comments come mere days before the governments is set to make announcements on ‘guidance which is expected to say that students should not be allowed to use facilities designed for the opposite sex’

JK Rowling comments on police investigation about gender-neutral toilets

As stated above, The Telegraph released yesterday (29 June) an article about ‘allegations that female pupils were sexually assaulted in its gender-neutral lavatories’

While the investigation is still going, a 16 year-old boy has been arrested.

Very quickly after the article was published, JK Rowling took to Twitter to comment on it. It should be noted that there is a typo in her tweet, and that it should read 2018 and not 2028.

This was entirely foreseeable and preventable. A Sunday Times investigation in 2028 found 88% of sexual offences committed in changing rooms and public bathrooms take place in those that are unisex. 1/2
https://t.co/goMSBxKAEP
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 29, 2023

Rowling didn’t stop at one tweet but instead provided a thread in which she says:

Girls’ safety, privacy and dignity is being sacrificed to an incoherent ideology pushed by lobby groups, which gives predatory males easy access to victims.

This quote is followed by a Times article titles ‘Unisex changing rooms put women in danger’

Very quickly, Rowling's comments were recuperated and agreed with by James Esses, a co-founder of campaign group Thoughtful Therapists who says:

This is what we warned would happen. This madness must end. Now.

JK Rowling, a long history of controversial tweets

This is not the first time that Rowling has made comments about trans people and gender identity.

Indeed, she started sharing her opinion on the matter in 2019 when she supported Maya Forester who was let go from her job about she made a series of tweets ‘questioning government plans to allow people to self-identify as another gender.’

While defending Forester, Rowling said:

Dress however you please.Call yourself whatever you like. Sleep with any consenting adult who’ll have you. Live your best life in peace and security. But force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real?

These comments and the ones that have been coming out since then have been vehemently criticised and have triggered a lot of media attention. A lot of people have also now started boycotting the Harry Potter saga and other ventures because of it.

Some Harry Potterfans were shell shocked by the author’s statement saying:

I grew up as a trans child reading your books as an escape. I would often pick out names from characters to give to myself, before I ever felt comfortable in who I was.

Throughout the years, Rowling has made several highly controversial comments on gender-identity and she has now become a sort of activist for people who want to prevent trans people from having access to their rights.

The LGBTQI+ organisationGLAAD said that Rowling’s words align and allow the ideology that ‘willfully distorts facts about gender identity and people who are trans.’