The Martyrdom of Saint Joanne

A terrible tragedy has occurred in the last few days. ‘Beloved Author’ J K Rowling has been murdered. Struck down in her prime, in an entirely unjustified and violent assault. I’m not going to tell you how it happens, mind you. You’ll have to buy the book it happens in and find out for yourself.

Yes. There is an outcry because someone’s written a fictional account of JKR’s death, feeling, it would seem, that she richly deserved it. Someone has used their imagination and written down words in a novel, and no one has a better understanding of the nuances of fictional worlds than Jo, after all. She’s made teens into wizards and a bizarrely-named man into a really poor detective, and made herself a billionaire in the process.

She’s also used the power of her reach and writing to make statements about trans people that are immensely damaging to the trans community. The trans community let her know about this, but apparently Joanne knows best. Don’t you know how many books she’s sold? How important her writing is, and how many lonely and marginalised kids she’s made feel that they have a place in the world? How many LGBTQIA kids, and trans kids especially felt they saw themselves in her writing?

And how badly they now feel betrayed?

Rowlling’s statements have gone from an ‘accidental like’, to posting tweets, congratulating anti-trans statements, sharing anti-trans voices and supporting anti-trans rhetoric, to whole articles expressing why trans positive action and thinking is a ‘threat to…