JK Rowling wouldn't accept apology from Harry Potter stars Daniel Ratcliffe and Emma Watson over trans rights row
11 April 2024, 07:54 | Updated: 11 April 2024, 08:21
JK Rowling has said she would not accept an apology from Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson over a transgender rights row.
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The Harry Potter author slammed "celebs who cosied up to a movement intent on eroding women's hard-won rights", and stars who "used their platforms to cheer on the transitioning of minors".
It comes after a landmark review said that gender medicine is "built on shaky foundations".
The long-awaited report by Dr Hilary Cass recommended that under 18s are not prescribed powerful hormone drugs and warned that many children who want to change their gender end up regretting it.
The NHS is now expected to review all transgender treatment it offers to both children and adults.
Rowling has long been a vocal critic of medical gender transitions among children. Both Radcliffe and Watson have spoken out in support of transgender people.
After the publication of the report, a supporter of Rowling suggested that Radcliffe and Watson owed Rowling an apology "safe in the knowledge that you will forgive them".
Ms Rowling said: "Not safe, I'm afraid."
She went on: "Celebs who cosied up to a movement intent on eroding women's hard-won rights and who used their platforms to cheer on the transitioning of minors can save their apologies for traumatised detransitioners and vulnerable women reliant on single sex spaces."
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She added in a series of tweets: "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.
"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.
"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.
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"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.
"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.
"The consequences of this scandal will play out for decades. 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."
Dr Cass said healthcare for people questioning their gender "needs to be improved across the board" but said that there is a distinction between having a trans identity and medically transitioning.
Dr Cass also warned that more care should be taken before anyone under the age of 25 is allowed to transition.
The long-awaited report warned that many children who want to change their gender end up regretting it.
Many of these children have experienced trauma, neglect and abuse, the report added.
Responding to the report's findings, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak earlier said: "The wellbeing and health of children must come first."
