Author JK Rowling has been a tireless champion for women's rights, spending the last several years pushing back against the radical trans activists to ensure women have access to single-sex spaces and are free from persecution for standing up for their rights and biological truth.
It hasn't been without difficulty. She's received death threats, legal threats, and even lawsuits. She's also been on the outs with several "Harry Potter" actors including Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson.
Last year, Rowling made it very clear she was not going to accept apologies from either of them, writing on X, "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."
Now it seems Watson is hoping to get back into Rowling's good graces:
Oop! Emma Watson has realised the tide is turning and is setting the groundwork so that she can come crawling back to @jk_rowling when it’s politically convenient!
— Hazel Appleyard (@HazelAppleyard_) September 25, 2025
“I just don't think these things are either or. I think it's my deepest wish that I hope people who don't agree… pic.twitter.com/s1tuV9FCIk
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"Harry Potter" star Emma Watson said in a podcast interview released Wednesday that she remains fond of series author J.K. Rowling despite their differences on transgender issues.
Appearing on the "On Purpose" podcast, Watson spoke about her rift with the "Harry Potter" creator, saying she strives to maintain affection for Rowling while rejecting her views of the transgender community.
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Rowling's relationship with "Harry Potter" film stars Watson and Daniel Radcliffe has deteriorated since the fantasy author took a public stance against transgender activism online.
Rowling began her public criticism of the transgender movement in 2020 with a viral X (then called Twitter) post that criticized an article mentioning "people who menstruate." She argued the piece should use the word "women" instead.
Watson said on the podcast, "It’s my deepest wish that I hope people who don’t agree with my opinion will love me, and I hope I can keep loving people who I don’t necessarily share the same opinion with."
Sorry, Hermione. That ship has sailed.
Back in 2020, when Rowling first started standing up for women's rights, Watson posted on X, "I want my trans followers to know that I and so many other people around the world see you, respect you and love you for who you are."
Back in May, Rowling penned a rather long post on X talking about the backlash in academia and arts over the UK Supreme Court's ruling about women, and while she didn't mention Watson or Radcliffe by name, they were undoubtedly two targets of her post.
In light of recent open letters from academia and the arts criticising the UK's Supreme Court ruling on sex-based rights, it's possibly worth remembering that nobody sane believes, or has ever believed, that humans can change sex, or that binary sex isn't a material fact. These…
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) May 3, 2025
Rowling wrote, "Nobody sane believes, or has ever believed, that humans can change sex, or that binary sex isn't a material fact. These letters do nothing but remind us of what we know only too well: that pretending to believe these things has become an elitist badge of virtue."
She added, "History is littered with the debris of irrational and harmful belief systems that once seemed unassailable. As Orwell said, 'Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them.' Gender ideology may have embedded itself deeply into our institutions, where it's been imposed, top-down, on the supposedly unenlightened, but it is not invulnerable."
Today, Rowling quoted that original post and reaffirmed that she hasn't forgotten who led the mob against her, writing, "A little reminder for anyone who may be regretting their very public sprint to the front of the mob and is now trying to discreetly shove their pitchfork out of sight."
A little reminder for anyone who may be regretting their very public sprint to the front of the mob and is now trying to discreetly shove their pitchfork out of sight. https://t.co/pt6SOguDUI
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) September 25, 2025
Rowling is right. This isn't an issue on which people can disagree in good faith.
The trans movement requires not only the suspension of biological reality and scientific fact, it has also led to the wholesale erasure and abuse of women. We went from being women -- adult human females -- to "womb havers," "birthing persons," and "inseminated individuals." Women who object to such dehumanization are attacked as "TERFs" or driven out of their jobs.
In the UK, women who object to having to change in front of men in NHS locker rooms are fired and face legal consequences. In Brazil, a woman faced 25 years in prison for "misgendering" someone and was forced to go to Europe as a refugee to escape prison time.
Our daughters saw their sports teams infiltrated by boys and some of those boys would actively seek to harm their opponents. Payton McNabb was hit in the face by a volleyball spiked by a boy. She suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI), partial paralysis, and other permanent injuries. In Illinois, middle school girls were forced by school officials to change in front of a "trans-identifying" boy in their locker room. Similar things happened in Texas and Wisconsin. In Loudoun County, Virginia, boys who objected to a "trans-identifying" girl in their locker room were punished for "harassment" and "sex-based discrimination" (even though the girl recorded them in the locker room).
On top of all of that, the trans movement has supported the mass mutilation and sterilization of far too many children. There are boys and girls -- many of them gay or lesbian, some who are autistic, and others who have mental health issues or trauma -- who have had their genitals removed, their natural growth stunted by puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones. They will face a lifetime of sexual dysfunction, infertility, expensive ongoing medical care, and difficulty forming relationships. And, despite the insistence from the Left that "gender-affirming care" saves lives, it doesn't. Even the ACLU's lawyer admitted before the Supreme Court that there was no evidence that such care reduced suicides. To the contrary, at least one study showed that those who have "gender affirming surgery" are twelve times more likely to commit suicide.
All of that is what Rowling and her fellow "TERFs" have fought against. For years. Despite threats, despite the possibility of losing our jobs and -- in some countries -- going to prison. Meanwhile, Emma Watson virtue-signaled on X and turned her back on the person who made her a celebrity in the first place.
Now that the culture is shifting back to sanity, Hermione doesn't get to hide that pitchfork, and there can be no reconciliation with people who support such atrocities.
