Actor Ralph Fiennes made it clear that he stood with “Harry Potter” creator J.K. Rowling, decrying the verbal abuse directed at her in recent months as “appalling” and “disgusting.”
Fiennes, who brought Rowling’s villain Lord Voldemort to life on the big screen, said in a recent New York Times interview that while people were certainly free to disagree with or challenge the author’s views, he didn’t believe that her comments about women rose to the level of vitriol that has been aimed at her by angry members of the transgender community.
“The verbal abuse directed at her is disgusting, it’s appalling. I mean, I can understand a viewpoint that might be angry at what she says about women. But it’s not some obscene, über-right-wing fascist,” Fiennes said.
“It’s just a woman saying, ‘I’m a woman and I feel I’m a woman and I want to be able to say that I’m a woman.’ And I understand where she’s coming from. Even though I’m not a woman,” Fiennes continued.
Fiennes is not the only “Harry Potter” actor to defend Rowling, however. Miriam Margolyes — who played Hogwarts’ Professor Sprout in the films — said earlier this year, “There isn’t one answer to all these trans questions.”
“I think the vituperation JK Rowling has received is misplaced. I don’t know her at all. I admire her as a human being. She’s a generous woman, she’s a brilliant writer,” she added.
Rowling has faced considerable backlash over her stance on transgender rights and her repeated assertions that the absolute acceptance of trans-women as “women” would inevitably blur the lines until biological women and what it meant to be a woman were erased entirely.
The “Harry Potter” series author has often been labeled a Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist (TERF) for pushing back on issues like allowing biological males who self-identify as women access to female-only spaces in schools and jails.
“When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman – and, as I’ve said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones – then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside. That is a simple truth,” Rowling said in a 2020 essay.
In addition to the near-constant outpouring of hatred on social media, the author has often spoken out about receiving a number of threats as well.
“I’ve now received so many death threats I could paper the house with them, and I haven’t stopped speaking out,” she said.
