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Boy George calls JK Rowling 'bored rich bully' as row erupts over trans rights
Rowling, 59, has faced backlash from Harry Potter stars and actor Pedro Pascal for her views on trans rights
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Boy George has branded JK Rowling a âbored rich bullyâ in a social media argument about trans rights.
Harry Potter author Rowling, 59, has faced repeated backlash for her comments about gender ideology in the past few years, with some critics accusing her of transphobia.
Culture Club singer George, 64, waded into the row when a user on X accused Rowling of being âthe person maybe most responsible for the push to take away trans rightsâ.
Rowling asked the user, âWhich rights have been taken away from trans people?â to which George replied: âThe right to be left alone by a rich bored bully!â
Rowling hit back with a lengthy response in whcih she referenced George being sentenced to 15 months in prison in 2009 after he was convicted of the assault and false imprisonment of male escort Audun Carlsen.
George called the author a âbored rich bullyâ
Getty Images
âIâve never been given 15 months for handcuffing a man to a wall and beating him with a chain,â she wrote.
âYou yourself have been convicted of violent assault. The overwhelming number of people who commit crimes of violence are male, just like you.
âThatâs why I donât want to see men identifying into womenâs prison cells or any of the spaces mentioned above. Not all men are violent or predatory but enough are to make safeguarding necessary.â
The childrenâs book author added: âAs we both know, the safe, fashionable thing in the arts world right now is to do exactly what youâre doing: parrot TWAW [trans women are women] and sneer at the unenlightened plebs who think sex is important and matters.â
âFor a man who was once all about non-conformity, George, you couldnât have become more predictably or more tediously conformist,â she concluded.
On April 17, the Supreme Court ruled that the legal definition of âmanâ and âwomanâ should be based on âbiological sexâ, concluding that any other definition would be âincoherent and unworkableâ.
The case was brought by a group called For Women Scotland (FWS), which challenged the Scottish governmentâs definition of âwomenâ in a law governing gender representation on public bards. Rowling funded the group.
Responding to the ruling, Rowling wrote: âIt took three extraordinary, tenacious Scottish women with an army behind them to get this case heard by the Supreme Court and, in winning, theyâve protected the rights of women and girls across the UK. @ForWomenScot, Iâm so proud to know you.â
Soon afterwards, Eddie Redmayne, star of the Fantastic Beasts films, along with Katie Leung who played Cho Chang in the Harry Potter series, and Charlotte Ritchie, who played a student in The Goblet of Fire, signed an open letter in support of trans people.
The Last Of Us actor Pedro Pascal, whose sister Lux is a trans woman, liked a post shared by activist Tariq Raâouf, who urged a boycott of all future Harry Potter projects and branded the authorâs views âawful and disgustingâ.
Pascal also commented on the post: âAwful disgusting S**T is exactly right. Heinous LOSER behavior.â
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