Rowling is a transphobe.
She has used her platform to signal-boost other transphobes, she has featured transphobic writing in her books, and she posted a blatantly transphobic tweet in support of another virulent transphobe who was seeking to have transphobic views protected under the law.
Her "gender critical" tweet on Thursday shouldn’t be surprising.
www.vox.com
The closet tweet is fake. It was clear it was fake pretty much immediately - it was much too blatant, even for her. It should not have been made, and it should not have been spread. However, the sentiment expressed in the fake tweet (that Rowling supposedly believes some people should stay in the closet) is absolutely in line with Rowling's known beliefs. Her open transphobia and refusal to address it in any way make it absolutely clear that she does believe there are people who should stay in the closet. Transphobia keeps trans people in the closet. She is an unapologetic transphobe, and as such I can not in good faith see her response as a rebuttal of the actual sentiment expressed in the fake tweet, because that sentiment inherently follows from her transphobia - the transphobia she hasn't apologized for or commented on or addressed in any way.
Her response isn't a rebuttal of the content of the fake tweet. It cannot be that without explicit acknowledgement of, and apology for, her own transphobia.
Her response is an evasion. It's a fancy "I didn't say that!", lacking any examination of why people would think she could have, or of how her own transphobia means that she effectively
is saying that.
Of course, she is right - she did not say that. She did not make that tweet. The tweet is fake. It should not have been made and it should not have been shared.
But leaving it unspoken doesn't change the fact that her transphobia contributes to an environment that keeps trans people closeted. She deflects that responsibility, while also evading addressing her own transphobic views. It's cowardly.
Her response also draws an absolutely disproportionate equivalence between the fake tweet and totalitarian propaganda. It is a quote about totalitarianism from a book about the origins and rise of totalitarianism, written by a Jewish woman who was fleeing Nazism. Rowling's tweet is very explicitly about totalitarianism - downplaying it as 'just a quote about forgery' is absolutely naive. Just look at the replies to the tweet, and look at how the tweet's supporters are interpreting it;
(
excelsiorlef posted
a few more earlier )
Rowling is a transphobe, and her transphobic supporters clearly believe her tweet is about 'standing up against the totalitarian trans rights activists who want to erase women'. - and why wouldn't they? It's a tweet featuring a quote about totalitarianism from a book about totalitarianism written by a woman fleeing totalitarianism, posted vaguely in response to a fake tweet concerning LGBTQ+ themes. Why would they not interpret that tweet as being about totalitarianism? Add in Rowling's known transphobic views, and this flood of transphobes railing against the 'totalitarian trans rights activists' is what you get.
When a known transphobe posts something, and all the other transphobes interpret it as 'standing up to trans rights', and several trans people and allies tell you that maybe that reading was intended by said known transphobe, then maybe that reading was intended by said known transphobe. Dismissing it as a 'gigantic leap' or accusing those who point it out of 'proving quotes like these right' is silly and ignorant.
She has chosen not to comment on her transphobia at all, but did choose to comment on this one fake tweet in this particular manner.
Without explicit acknowledgement from her of her own transphobia and the explicitly transphobic support her response is receiving, I see no reason to give her the benefit of the doubt.