The scariest thing in Stranger Things wasn’t the demodogs, Vecna, or the unstable reality. It was the women lying unconscious in hospital beds, forced to carry pregnancies to term by the government even if it killed them.
Buckle in for a little timeline of JK Rowling's anti-trans shift. Spanning from 2018 to 2026, including important things you may have missed!
By Theara Coleman
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2018: Rowling 'likes' an anti-trans tweet, Rowling later said she "absent-mindedly" liked the tweet when she meant to screenshot it because she had taken "an interest in gender identity and transgender matters."
2019: Rowling follows 'self-professed transphobe' on Twitter. Rowling later admitted she followed Berns, an "immensely brave young feminist and lesbian who was dying of an aggressive brain tumour," because she "wanted to contact her directly."
2019: Rowling stands with researcher who lost contract over anti-trans statements. "Dress however you please," she said on X. "Live your best life in peace and security. But force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real?"
2020: Rowling likes another controversial tweet in this case one that misgendered psychotherapist and photographer Alex Drummond and described her as "an adult human male who claims to be a lesbian (yes, he's kept his dangling bits and skipped the hormones)."
2020: Rowling's tweets spark backlash. The controversy escalated significantly in June 2020 after Rowling tweeted about an article with the headline, "Creating a more equal post-COVID-19 world for people who menstruate."
2020: Rowling published an over 3,600-word essay on her website about why she had spoken out on "sex and gender issues." In it, Rowling said she is "worried about the new trans activism" and "the huge explosion in young women wishing to transition and also about the increasing numbers who seem to be detransitioning."
2020: Actors from the "Harry Potter" film franchises began to speak out against Rowling including Emma Watson, Daniel Radcliffe and Eddie Redmayne
2020: After Rowling received the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Ripple of Hope Award in 2019, the human rights group's president released a statement the following year expressing "profound disappointment" that the author "has chosen to use her remarkable gifts to create a narrative that diminishes the identity of trans and nonbinary people." As a result, Rowling announced in August that she would return the award. The group's statement "incorrectly implied that I was transphobic, and that I am responsible for harm to trans people," Rowling said. As a donor to LGBT charities and a "supporter of trans people's right to live free of persecution, I absolutely refute the accusation that I hate trans people or wish them ill."
2020: Rowling published a new novel titled "Troubled Blood" under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. The book, which revolved around a male serial killer who dresses like a woman, was accused of being anti-trans. Rowling, meanwhile, said the book "was loosely based" on real killers.
2021: Rowling shared a Times of London piece about the "'absurdity' of police logging rapists as women," which said police in Scotland would "record rapes by offenders with male genitalia as being committed by a woman if the attacker 'identifies as a female.'"
2022: Rowling condemned a bill in Scotland that would make it easier for a trans person to legally change their gender, Variety said. It would remove the requirement that applicants must be "medically diagnosed as having gender dysphoria" and "go through a minimum two year process and be aged over 18," lowering the age to 16, The Times said. On X, Rowling said the bill would "harm the most vulnerable women in society: those seeking help after male violence/rape and incarcerated women."
2022: Rowling released another book in 2022 that drew scrutiny in light of her anti-trans controversies. Again published under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, the book, "The Ink Black Heart," follows the creator of a YouTube cartoon, Edie Ledwell, who is accused of being transphobic. "The book takes a clear aim at 'social justice warriors' and suggests that Ledwell was a victim of a masterfully plotted, politically fueled hate campaign against her," Rolling Stone said.
2023: After "Hogwarts Legacy" debuted in 2023, reviewers from major outlets wrestled with the implications of purchasing a game that would financially benefit Rowling. Reviews, however, were largely positive.
2024: When Scotland's new Hate Crime and Public Order Act went into effect in April, Rowling tried to bait them into arresting her with posts online. The law criminalizes "stirring up hatred" against people based on their race, religion, disability, sexuality or gender identity. By passing the law, Scotland "placed higher value on the feelings of men performing their idea of femaleness, however misogynistically or opportunistically, than on the rights and freedoms of actual women and girls," Rowling said in the thread on X. If anything she wrote qualified as an offense under the new law, "I look forward to being arrested when I return to the birthplace of the Scottish Enlightenment," Rowling said.
2024: Rowling named in cyberbullying lawsuit made by Algerian boxer Imane Khelif filed a criminal complaint with French authorities alleging "acts of aggravated cyber harassment" that named Rowling and other high-profile figures, like tech billionaire Elon Musk, said a Variety exclusive
2024: Rowling responds to Donald Trump's win
2024: In response to comments on X accusing her of being far-right and of celebrating Trump's recent win, Rowling stated that Women like her "aren't and never have been far-right," she said in the post. "We simply want the left to wake the hell up because we're watching it do its utmost to alienate people it used to represent." She clarified that she was not saying that "Trump's win was down to the gender stuff," as she is "not an American voter, so can't judge." However, she pointed out that the Labour Party won the last U.K. election, and they have "embraced gender identity ideology whole-heartedly."
2024: Rowling attacked Barbra Banda, a cisgender woman, after she was selected for the BBC's Women's Footballer of the Year. "Presumably, the BBC decided this was more time efficient than going door to door to spit directly in women's faces," the author said in a retweet of an article about Banda winning the award.
2024: Rowling stated there "are no trans kids" and that no child is "born in the wrong body," in a post on X. She went on to call out the adults around the kids, including parents, teachers and surgeons, that encouraged what she deemed harmful rhetoric about gender identity. These adults are "prepared to sacrifice the health of minors to bolster your belief in an ideology that will end up wreaking more harm than lobotomies and false memory syndrome combined," she said.
2025: The United Kingdom's Supreme Court unanimously passed a ruling that limited the definition of a woman to be based on "biological sex" under Britain's Equality Act, excluding trans women from being protected from discrimination. In response to the ruling, Rowling gloated in several X posts celebrating "terfs" and referring to the ruling as "TERF VE Day," a "play on V-E Day, the formal end of World War II and Nazi occupation in Europe," said USA Today. She capped off the thread with a photo of herself drinking a cocktail and smoking a cigar, captioned "I love it when a plan comes together."
2025: In May 2025, Rowling announced the launch of the J.K. Rowling Women's Fund, which "offers legal funding support to individuals and organizations fighting to retain women’s sex-based rights in the workplace, in public life and in protected female spaces," the fund's website said.
2025: In August 2025, Chris Columbus, who directed the first two "Harry Potter" films, told Variety that Rowling's stance on the LGBTQ+ community was "unfortunate. I certainly don't agree with what she's talking about. But it's just sad, it's very sad."
2025: Several months after criticizing director Christopher Columbus, Rowling turned her ire toward Emma Watson, who starred as Hermione in the "Potter" films and has often been outspoken about human rights issues. Watson had previously lambasted Rowling indirectly for her anti-trans views, and offered a bit of further insight during a September podcast interview. "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," Watson said…Rowling jabbed back, saying on X that Watson (and Radcliffe) "think our former professional association gives them a particular right — nay, obligation — to critique me and my views." Watson "has so little experience of real life she's ignorant of how ignorant she is."
2025: The controversy over Rowling's stance has made its way into the halls of British government. Nadia Whittome, a member of the U.K.'s House of Commons, claimed that people like Rowling were funding anti-trans movements across the country. "There are external forces funded by big money from Elon Musk to J.K. Rowling, but the Government isn’t standing up against that with a compassionate alternative," Whittome, a member of the LGBTQ+ community, said to The Mirror. It is "very sad, I feel very sorry for her, someone who was once a treasured children's author." Whittome urged people to "follow where the transphobia is coming from, it’s not coming from working class people, it’s trickling down from the top."
2025: Rowling criticized Glamour UK after the magazine featured nine trans women on its "Women of the Year" list in October. The cover of the issue had the group posing in T-shirts and crop tops with the slogan "Protect the Dolls," a term of endearment used within the trans community to refer to trans women. Once again, Rowling took to X to express her displeasure, saying she "grew up in an era when mainstream women’s magazines told girls they needed to be thinner and prettier" but now they "tell girls that men are better women than they are."
2025: Rowling defends Girlguiding, the British equivalent of Girl Scouts, after the organization announced that trans girls would no longer be allowed to join. Someone posted, "Serious question. Who does this help?" referencing the ban. "Answer: it helps girls," Rowling replied in an X post on Dec. 3. It tells girls they "have the right to things of their own" and that "they have the right to say 'no.’" It also "reminds girls that the desires of boys do not supersede their feelings, their rights, their discomfort or their safety," Rowling added.
2026: Both HBO and the new cast have received backlash for working with Rowling due to her anti-trans posts. Actor John Lithgow called Rowling’s views on transgender rights "ironic and inexplicable," saying that the fallout from his decision to play Albus Dumbledore in the series "upsets me," while speaking on stage at Rotterdam film festival after a screening of his latest film, "Jimpa." People are "vehemently opposed to me having anything to do with this," he added. "But in Potter canon you see no trace of transphobic sensitivity." Lithgow has "never met" Rowling and said she is "not really involved in this production at all."
