As a ‘terrified lesbian’, I find JK Rowling’s tweets a lot more worrying than trans rights

What should matter to the Harry Potter author, and you, are the scores of children this has hurt and the two in five trans adults who are left to navigate threats in the street

When I saw why JK Rowling was trending on Twitter on Sunday, I tensed. Once again, a small radical subsection of the internet was speaking for me as a cisgender lesbian and putting words in my mouth.

It wasn't trans people who led the charge, as some would have you believe, but Rowling herself. In the middle of the global resurgence of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, she had taken it upon herself to dish out tired tropes about sex and gender, arguably stoking the fires of hate for trans people under the guise of protecting women, lesbians in particular. It's a curious stance given there isn't a single lesbian character in the 4,224 pages of the Harry Potter series. Featuring a same-sex attraction in the most popular children’s book in the 21st century would have done far more for visibility than those tweets.

The likes of Rowling should note that lesbians like me don’t want or need her protection. Personally, looking at those tweets and the willful ignorance they seem to show, I feel it's worth stating that their impact shouldn’t be underestimated. In fact, they're terrifying.

As I see it, arguing the right to deny the recognition of trans people just serves to legitimise transphobia, providing a window for many into a cult that feeds off hate.

Perhaps you have come to this article looking to get some nuance to what seems like another culture war, or you too are concerned about perceived threats to yourself or the women in your life.

Welcome, you are in the right place. This is an article from another “terrified lesbian.” But I have a different fear from the one that Rowling shared. I am terrified for my trans friends and chosen family. I am scared that people will read the tweets of my former favourite author and end up falling down a rabbit hole of gender-critical feminism, that former lesbian members have since called out as a cult, without ever quite grasping what the crux of the argument is.

So let’s break it down together because, on many levels, sex and gender seem vast and complex. But they're actually much simpler than they seem.

Rowling’s first argument was against ‘‘people who menstruate’ – a statement that ensures it is inclusive of trans men and non-binary people who get periods. This term does not affect cisgender women. It is not denying that women get periods; it is simply saying that others do too.

In fact, by taking umbrage with this phrase, Rowling's comments are simply limiting who does and doesn't get to define as a woman – yes, including cis women. As trans man Kenny Ethan Jones put it, not all cis women menstruate.

What about those who have gone through menopause or who don’t have uteri? The goal of feminism is to expand all the ways we can be women, whether that’s being gay, not having children, menstruating or not. To me, Rowling’s comments simultaneously reduce women to their biological functions while defending the erasure of the existence of trans people.

Which brings me to a key point. The truth is that when trans people win rights, of which they are in desperate need of more, everybody wins.

Let’s take a popular example. According to Rowling, and other trans-exclusionary feminists, women’s spaces are threatened. In essence, they believe that what we should have in place are blanket rules which mean your genitals decide your right to a refuge. In reality, approaches like those actually harm people like me, a cis lesbian, who Rowling is so keen to protect.

Under these rules, if I were ever in the terrifying situation of fleeing an abusive relationship, my cis partner would also get to gain access to that shelter – with me. If we determine women’s spaces purely based on sex, then I would never be safe in a women’s shelter.

Excluding trans women from these spaces does nothing to address this harm but instead wields further violence with more than half of trans women experiencing sexual violence at some point in their lifetime. Luckily, this argument is already recognised. The Equality Act has protected and recognised the existence of trans people for a decade and women’s shelters have been operating with this in mind for the same length of time, if not longer.

Besides, Rowling and others, in their half-arsed attempt to protect lesbians, are ignoring the fact the trans lesbians exist. That isn’t up for debate they were here before Rowling's “self-described butch lesbian” friend, before she began her ignorant crusade and they will be here long after its demise.

Another popular Rowling argument is that trans people believe that sex doesn’t exist, yet this simply isn’t true. I’ve never known a single trans person or ally argue this. Rather, it is the idea that sex is a social construct, which is something that medical professionals, trans people and cis lesbians can all agree on. As the incredible activist Nim Ralph puts it: “Sex being a social construct means that its a system of categorising plants, objects, insects, animals, humans etc that humans made up based on *some* characteristics in order to classify *all* objects. No flower or scart lead ever told a human 'I’m male'. Humans decided that .”

In the middle of the BLM movement and in the wake of Tony McDade, a black trans man, being shot and killed by police, Rowling has posted relatively few tweets in support of BLM, yet has taken the time to tweet about this issue. It's also important to note that transphobia and white supremacy are inextricably linked.

Looking at things like the life expectancy of black trans women in the US (35) and the rates of black trans people being routinely killed by police, her silence leads me to question whether her main priority may not actually be concern for people’s safety, but rather a chance to push her own seemingly ignorant beliefs.

To me, it seems clear, a white billionaire has chosen to target a group of people who are currently fighting for their lives in the middle of a mass human rights movement. That is not something that is worth defending.

Rowling’s attempts to argue that lesbians and other women are being erased are unfounded. In fact, this month is the beginning of the LGBTQ+ community celebrating how trans people of colour won us our rights and gave us Pride.

What should matter to Rowling, and you, are the scores of children who look up to her who are hurt; the one in four trans young people who have attempted to commit suicide and nine in ten who have thought about it; the two in five trans adults who are left to navigate threats in the street. These are the people we should be tweeting about and protecting. Behind these statistics are real people desperately trying to live their normal lives, but yet again, have been forced to weather huge waves of hate against them. Please, don’t be a part of the next surge.