Panic World - What happened to JK Rowling?

Episode Date: July 16, 2025

In April this year the UK Supreme Court ruled that the legal definition of a “woman” excludes trans women. Then — apparently celebrating her years-long TERFdom — JK Rowling tweeted an image of herself on a yacht, smoking a cigar, and captioned it with “I love it when a plan comes together.” The question we’re looking at today is: was it Rowling who changed or was it the world that changed? Matt Bernstein joins us to trace Rowling’s radicalization journey, and discuss how we’ve ended up with a bunch of British women who want to brand themselves as liberal, but are socially regressive in basically every way. Our guest Matt Bernstein can be found online @mattxiv. He hosts A Bit Fruity, out anywhere you listen to podcasts. You can also check out Ryan’s recent appearance on the show, in this episode about alpha males and loneliness (naturally). Want even more Panic World content? Like ad-free episodes, bonus episodes, and access to our Discord? Sign up for just five bucks a month at: https://www.patreon.com/PanicWorld. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Matt, welcome to my show this time. Thank you so much for having me. I don't think I've ever been on a straight man's podcast before. I'm thrilled. You know, it is bound to happen eventually. There's a few of us podcasting now. There's a few straight guys in the podcasting world. I think it was always going to end this way.

Yeah, I guess really with the podcasting thing, it's me infiltrating your domain. Yeah. We have Shane Gillis on next. So, you know, then after that we got Theo Vaughn, all the great guys. No. Tell me you're kidding. I am absolutely kidding. Matt, I want to kick this off with what Hogwarts house are you? What do you typically sort it into on online quizzes?

You know what? I haven't done one of those quizzes since childhood. And I think as a kid. Hold on. I want to stop for a second. The fact that online Harry Potter quizzes existed when you were a kid, cut to my core. That actually hurt me physically for you to say that. We've talked about our age difference.

We've talked about our age difference. I saw a picture the other day of someone that was like, this was my grandfather's, and it was a picture of a game boy color, and I wanted to kill myself. But I think as a kid, I always really wanted to be a Ravenclaw. I really, like, over-identified with Cho Chang in the movies because I thought she was pretty. Okay. And the truth, I don't know, I'm probably a Hufflepuff at the end of the day. Interesting. I have never taken one of those quizzes and not gotten Slytherin, which should be not a surprise to anyone who's listening.

to this show. I am a double Scorpio, and I'm always sorted into Slytherin in online Harry Potter quizzes. My name is Ryan Broderick. Sometimes you'll be hearing our producer Grant Irving pop in from time to time when I unmute his mic and allow him to speak. This is Panic World, a show all about how the internet warps our minds, our culture, and eventually reality. And today we want to try to figure out, did JK Rowling change or did the world change?

Yeah, we're going to go with that one. And in the process, we're going to try to figure out what happened to all the British ladies who seem to have entered into a generational war where they want to call themselves liberal while also being regressive in every single conceivable way. Joining me today to entangle all of this is everyone's favorite Gen Z, or someone who is very kind to me on his podcast. Matt Bernstein, welcome to the show. How are you doing? Thank you so much for having me. Wow, that was such a lovely introduction. And in fact, I want to relay the message that when you went on my podcast a month or so ago, I got

so many Spotify comments from my own listeners being like, of all the straight guys you could have gotten, Ryan was a really great choice. Hearing that is like staring at the sun for me. Like I can't focus on that too much or I'll go crazy. But like that's really nice and beautiful. Yeah, I don't know if I should have you that credit. Yeah, I can't have that. Yeah, our producer Grant is shaking his head.

No, I can't have that. So let's move on. But thank you. Thank you, Matt's listeners. Anyone who's followed him over to this show, thank you very much. It's very important to hear. Um, did you read Harry Potter growing up? Did you have it read you growing up?

What's your familiarity with Harry Potter? Yeah, I, oh my God, I read all the books. I was, in fact, I actually, do you remember those Sky Mall magazines? It was like when you, it was like basically like a catalog that was in all of the seat back pockets on planes. And one thing that I saw over and over and over and over and over again in the sky malls, anytime I was on a plane as a young person was, they would sell the, wands. They would sell Ron's, Harries, and Hermione's wands. And eventually, after like so much kicking and screaming, I begged my parents to get me Hermione's wand. I was always a dainty little,

like, even in my Harry Potter obsession, I was like, I want the girl want. But I had the wands. I was like in my backyard practicing the spells. I loved Harry Potter. I really loved Harry Potter. Because I think like so many queer kids did, which is part of what makes her. turn even like more of a twisting of the knife because it was like Hogwarts felt like a place that you could go when like the real world rejected you you know yes I totally get that I I fell off harry potter after goblet of fire I don't know why cedric digreys death uh affected me so but it did i think i also discovered like music around that time and I was okay I think I'm done with books now I think I'm going to go play in like horrible punk bands in freshman year of high school or whatever

it was. But sure. So what we're talking about is sort of what we're going to open with is what you was what you mentioned there. The sort of slow turn towards radicalization that happened with JK Rowling. And, you know, just for an example of where she is with this stuff now, in April this year, the Supreme Court ruled that the legal definition of a woman needed to exclude trans women. And JK Rowling tweeted a photo of herself on a yacht smoking a really pitiful looking cigar with the caption, I love it when a plan comes together, which is just absolute cooked behavior. And then shortly after, she started an organization to fund legal battles that are for, quote,

women's sex-based rights, which, you know, it's definitely like a term you have to specify for the right reasons. But what I wanted to sort of start with is some really interesting reactions. from people who are dealing with the exact thing you're dealing with. The idea that they're watching this author kind of fall apart in real time in front of them. So, Kaysen, Calender in Them wrote, when I accepted the Stonewall Book Award for Hurricane Child early last year, I gave an emotional speech telling a roomful of strangers that J.K. Rowling and the Harry Potter series had saved my life.

Isolated, bullied, and feeling zero hope for the future. I've been planning to die by suicide as a child. I never planned to live past the age of 16. There were multiple reasons I didn't fall through with my plan. I was afraid to die. I was worried how my family would feel. And as silly as it might seem now, I told myself that I couldn't die yet

because I needed to know how the Harry Potter series would end. Harry Potter at times offered the only light I could see in years spent within a vortex of depression and anxiety. I hadn't begun to fully understand my queer or trans identity yet, but in retrospect, the books offered the foundation I needed to love. love myself at a time when I hated everything about me. It feels like an almost universal experience with queer people, which is, I mean, like I said, it's why what has happened feels even worse because so many people and, you know, I won't

speak on behalf of trans people, but like, I remember, I believe the age that Harry Potter was when he was like got his Hogwarts letter originally was like 12 somewhere around there. And I remember like being in like fifth and sixth grade and being like, why has my letter not come? Because I thought it was going to come. I was like waiting. And then when it didn't come, I was like, oh my God, I guess I actually have to live in this world. Doesn't that suck? And in fact, it does.

It does. It does suck. I think J.K. Rowling, maybe in spite of herself, maybe because she was less insane. We'll get to that in a second. There is something universal about the Harry Potter story. And you do have to sort of like I think it's very cool to bash Harry Potter right now, especially like on blue sky or whatever like leftist and it's fair batch it all you want adults probably like don't need to be totally obsessed with it but there is sort of a universal story in there that i do

think like particularly kids who feel like they're living some kind of double life or sort of don't understand why they don't fit into the world that they're in that is extremely relatable and you can't remove that from from the story i don't think yeah a hundred percent and regardless of whether the books are like good or not it's like the way that you felt about them as a very young person with like a very malleable brain you know like that kind of stays with you forever i feel yeah like actually wait i remember i gave up on the harry potter series because it got very invested in a series of unfortunate events because my parents had gotten divorced and i needed something darker and edgy that's what is and uh that guy who wrote him i think he's a creep too

so you know like it just goes to show you uh you really can't find good children's fiction anymore or at least i couldn't back that um okay so let's get into the timeline here of like How Jake. What a tragic conclusion to reach on that topic. Moving right along. Moving along. Don't talk along that. The only good one was Raul doll.

Never, no problem. Oh, yeah. I don't think that's true, Grant. I'm not quite sure that's true about Rolls doll. I think he was a real weird guy. But yeah, let's get into our timeline here because I do want to sort of figure out at what point does J.K. Relling lose the plot and sort of go off the deep end. So in 1999, Harry Potter comes out.

It's a massive hit. And it was heavily protested. Do you remember this? Do you know about this? No, I was one years old. In 1999? Yeah. Hold on. This thing came up last time.

Do you remember 9-11? No. Ah, okay. Right. Okay. He brought me on this podcast just to make me feel small. This feels unfair. That's what all of our guests say.

I have to be a better host. I'm sorry. I have one follow up. Do you feel like you missed out because you didn't, you don't remember 9-11? I hear this amongst the youths that, They feel like they missed out on like the cultural touchstone. I mean, I mostly do FOMO about this? Like, no, like, Brittany's self-titled album came out that year, and I feel more FOMO about, like,

not being conscious. Yeah, like, I'm a slave for you. Like, I wish I was around for the release of that. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah, that is a really good album. Yeah. Yeah, it is really good album.

Okay, right. So, yeah, I think I missed, like, that more than I missed 9-11, but. Okay, so if you had to, if you had to guess, like, Who would be protesting Harry Potter? Like, who do you think? Conservatives. Sure, yes. I mean, just because like Christians.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because like there, I don't know, there would be something like in early form of woke in there. Or like, oh, is it, are they accusing it of being satanic? Exactly. Yes. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. So there's a full on satanic panic over Harry Potter in the late 90s.

This is from the Denver Rocky Mountain News. November of that year. Sherry Ogden's son Carson Carson. Carson Ogden. What a name. Sherry Ogden's son Carson came home from third grade Thursday and told his mother a story she could hardly believe. His teacher at West Ridge Elementary had stopped reading the class Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. She had decided to err on the side of caution after a parent at another Jefferson County Public School raised questions in reference to sorcery in the New York Times bestseller. Nice.

America has always been this way. I love that in a way. It has. It has. And like, I don't know. The satanic panic is like kind of, like the original satanic panic from the 80s is kind of like the, I don't know. I feel like you can trace everything in culture right now. It's like to that.

Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's shocking how it has just sort of evolved and re-evolved and re-evolved. This is from a 2000 article in Christianity today. I have an idea for a wonderful series of children's books. I'm imagining a delightful fantasy world. In my world, there's a secret. Tucked away on the upper shelves of every home as a product that, when used the right way, can make children's dreams come true.

Common rat poison. When mixed with orange soda turns into an elixir that's out of this world. When you drink it in one big gulp, not only does it taste heavenly, it also makes you happy, beautiful, and for 24 hours it gives you the power to accomplish one wish. One shy picked on but highly intelligent boys discovered the secret and he intends to use his new power to help the world. What? Parents would worry that this innocent fantasy might spill over under the real world.

Someone might actually try mixing rap boys in orange soda in real life. Though the parallels are hardly exact, which is doing a lot of work there. This is what we're talking about regarding the Harry Potter series. We're talking about something deadly from our world and turning it into what some are calling merely a literary device. regardless of how magic is portrayed in the series, we need to remember that witchcraft in real life can and does lead to death the forever and ever kind. I always wish that the things that these types of people,

decade over decades say are happening and are going to happen, like I always wish that they were actually happening. You know, like when they're like... Like magic was real and dangerous? Yeah, like, but like even today when it's like, because it's the same people who are like, the teachers are like turning the students gay. I'm like, I wish I could.

I'm trying. I've tried. I've tried. And there would be a lot more gay kids if I had the power that you think I have, you know? Actually, we did an episode last year, kind of debunking or bunking maybe. We couldn't really decide if it was true or not.

The idea that Tumblr turned kids gay. And our guest, do you know if you were Drew, the director of the People's Joker? Have you heard of the People's Joker? Great film. But she was talking about how she was like, yeah, I did put in stuff in the movie to hopefully turn kids trans.

or at least realize their trans. Of course I did. Totally. Well, I mean, did Tumblr turn people gay? Not to get too far off topic, but like the first person that I ever came out to was a stranger, was a guy, though, that I was kind of like flirty texting with as like, you know, we were 15 on Tumblr that I met through Tumblr. So I can't confirm or deny that from my own personal experience. That's kind of where we ended up with that episode as well, which is just like it was a useful,

sort of vector for those kind of conversations. A hundred percent. Much in the same way that Harry Potter was a useful sort of way to kind of think about what your dream sort of other world would look like. And apparently for Christians, it was a total nightmare that scared the absolute shadow of them. And it went on for years. And the extent of this mayhem is important because I think it really shaped Rowling and

reveals something about her, as we'll see later. But one last example, so you can really appreciate the hysteria here. In 2006, Father Gabriel Amorth, a Vatican official, and this is true, the Pope's Exorcist, which is a real thing. Wow. Wow. What a job title. What are you putting your LinkedIn to apply for that one? Pope's Exorcist is sick.

What a job. The Vatican also has a DJ, and I would think I'd prefer to be the Vatican DJ, actually, because that seems fun. Anyway, so Amorth in 2006 says that Harry Potter is Satanic, which I guess the Pope's Exorcists, like, would be the guy you ask about that. And he called Harry Potter the King of Darkness and the Devil. And do you have any idea, do you have any guesses of, like, how J.K. Rallying was dealing with all this at the time? Hmm.

Dealing with it, like, publicly? Yeah, because, like, a lot of people were sort of saying, like, people are saying that your books are satanic and evil and teach children evil magic. Well, so I have no idea what the answer to this is. but based on what I know about her personality, I know that she does not concede anything. And so I feel like she would probably be like, fuck you guys.

You know, it's interesting. I also thought that I, because I was sort of thinking, through, reading through what we pulled for this episode, and we're going to get deeper into this. Like, yeah. I sort of assume that J.K. Rowling's anti-trans bigotry

was based on kind of like a sub, like a, like an anti-authoritarian kind of bent, right? Like the typical conservative who thinks that they're like waging some kind of of holy war. I'm now kind of wondering if that she is just like someone who's addicted to like the status quo, like a deeply neoliberal person who's like nothing should ever change. And I started to wonder that with this where she was asked by the BBC about this

because her books were being burned in New Mexico like in the early 2000s. and she just sort of didn't seem to care much. She just said, I have met thousands of children now, and not even one time as a child come up to me and said, Miss Rowling, I'm so glad I've read these books because now I want to be a witch. That was the extent of her sort of being at the center of a massive culture war panic, which I think is kind of telling in a way. Hmm.

What do you think that's, what do you think that's saying about her at the time? I don't think she's actually very politically, curious in a way. I mean, I have my own theories about why she became the way that she became. And like, not to get too far ahead, but I think it comes from like real anger that a lot of cis women feel with patriarchy. And then that just being totally misdirected and punching down instead of punching up. But she, I was just thinking about this podcast and the optics of it.

And I know she's going to be like, two misogynistic males. Like, you know, she has a very specific way of deflecting any criticism. I think our theories go together. There's a lot of anger towards patriarchy, but when you start to be critical of something that large, it also leads to questions about upending how the world is familiar to you. There's always that impulse to become more reactionary. I think when you start to become more revolutionary. So instead of the anger that's directed elsewhere towards something that is challenging what's normal,

which I bet, you know, is especially hard if you're used to people loving everything you say. You end up putting that anger on more vulnerable people. And that is where we're headed right after the break. So we're now sort of in the peak Obama era. And what is really interesting about the peak Obama era for J.K. Rowling is that she has held up as this sort of liberal hero. But her behavior does change. She goes from publicly, you know, fairly reclusive to being extremely online. And this either does something to her or it reveals something that's always been there for Rowling.

We all begin to see that she's a person that likes to, she likes to make decrees, you know. And we started to notice a pattern with Miss Rowling as she started to get very popular on the internet, which is that she started to basically just sort of write fanfic about her own books and continue the story. And it seems like social media was like kind of egging her on. Yeah. And the first big example of this is in October of 2007 when she drops the bombshell that Albus Dumbledore is gay. I remember this so well.

Sorry, you did not give me an opportunity to speak there. I just go for it. I just, I remember this really well. And it felt like I actually can't believe that that was as far back as 2007. because I guess she just like kept this little thing up like for a while with her sort of sort of conceding all of these like fan fiction type things to her fans but it was it almost became like a meme very quickly in my mind when I think back to how I felt about it like then like every it felt like every week she was like oh and this person was gay and this person was gay and it felt like oh like but that's actually kind of cool because it was also like around the time that we then started to talk about gay marriage on a national scale and it felt like she was this like ally you know. know, and then it obviously came crashing down, like, really quickly. But it was one of those things where when she became so fervently anti-trans, and it felt like that had happened really quickly, even though I think we'll determine that it wasn't

that fast for her, that it had been fomenting for a while. But it felt like a wild heel turn because this was this woman who was, like, inventing all of this, like, homosexuality in her characters, you know? And then it was like, all of a sudden, oh, wait, actually, she hates us, you know? Yes. Or, yeah, it seems like she kind of realized this thing that we just sort of talked about in a previous episode about Kanye West where you could talk to people and be super mega famous. And Kanye West is like getting yelled out by the entire planet and he's yelling back at them. I'm the most special person on Earth.

J.K. Rowling is having a different but similar kind of dynamic where everyone is holding her up as being like the hero of progressivism because, you know, she wrote this massively popular book series. is that now the adults who read it as children are sort of leading the world. Racism is over. Gay marriage is legal. Like everything is happening. It's all coming together in the late 2000s or early 2010s. And what was crazy is if you go back and you look at some of the blogs like the Mary Sue that are covering this stuff at the time, all of these tweets of hers are being taken as news.

So, you know, she. Dumbled door comes out. Right. Massive, massive story, huge story. This is the time period where she's confirming that there was a Jewish wizard at Hogwarts named Anthony Goldstein. Lovely. Oh, he's also, I think, Ravenclaw.

I guess. So stupid. Yeah, someone says, my wife said there's no Jews at Hogwarts. I'm a Jew, so I assume she said it to be the only magical one in the family thoughts. And then J.K. Rowling replied, Anthony Goldstein, Ravenclaw, Jewish Wizard, to everyone asking whether their religion, belief, non-belief system is represented at Hogwarts. It's the only people I have never imagined there are Wiccans. I don't know what that means.

Is that a joke? I don't know what I'm. Wicons? Yeah, like a pagan, like real, like people who, I grew up near Seattle, Massachusetts. So like, it's a real community of people who believe that they are not believe that they're pagan. They, they can't, I don't want to, I don't want to get into the weeds on this one. Sure, sure, sure, sure. Because they can curse me and I don't want that.

Well, yeah, this is the whole, the whole naming system with her characters too. I mean, I know this is like frequently joked about online, but it's absurd. Like the, I think the one black character she has in Harry Potter is Kingsley Shacklebolt. I mean, you brought up Cho Chang at the top of the episode. Cho Chang, the one Asian wizard. Crazy. Crazy. I also saw like a map that she made for Pottermore of like where all the Hogwarts regional variants are.

And I think there's only one for the entire African continent. It's like stuff like that. It's like peak just like 90s liberal brains. right yeah okay so they were signs that loving rowling as this like progressive supportive mum figure was not the case but once we are all really on twitter she starts giving her two cents on politics her first true foray into politics at least publicly was in 2014 when she votes no on do you know anything about the scottish independence movement of the early 2000 basically Scotland kind of thought they had oil and they thought they'd be able to break away from the UK and become their

own country and then join the EU. It was a whole thing. She donated a million dollars to the no side and voted no. Okay. She also in 2016 was anti-Brexit. She wrote in a blog post, I'm not an expert on much, I'll say, but I do know how to create a monster, Hannibal Lecter, Big Brother, and Lord Voldemort. Oh, my God. Are all simultaneously inhuman and superhuman, and that is what frightens us most. We are being asked whether we wish to remain part of the European Union and both sides of this campaign have been telling us stories. They have not been afraid to conjure monsters calculated to stir up our deepest fears. And yeah, she is anti-Brexit, which was a right-wing political concern in the UK. Right. But even there, I think it's fascinating

that she comes to like the both sides. Like she still finds a way to be like, but both sides are crazy, which is kind of her M.O., at least in this point, where she's got that kind of, like, you know, end of history, kind of like, everything's crazy. We should just slow down, you know? It's all a bit much, isn't it? Yeah, it's so Bill Maher-brained. It's exactly Bill-Mor-brained. Yes, it's the same people who are like, I'm not conservative.

They just change what liberal is. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, yeah, we could make this whole thing about centrism, which I think in the case of jk rowing there's like more to talk about than that but it's just like if you always you know um position your politics as like in between what the current center left and center right are and it drifts rightward like you're going to move right too which is like what happens with people like bill mar i hate him so much i just love talking about how i hate himar his podcast just got canceled nice i didn't see that wow wow small wins small wins yeah that win that rules before we go any further our researcher adam

who I think hates J. Carewrelling. You have a researcher? Yeah, his name's Adam. He's delightful. Wow. This is a whole fucking operation. So cool. I told him to go for the jugular with today's episode because he hates J.

Kerrallying so much. And this was a real joy to read his research and kind of work on it. And he said that this has nothing to do with transphobia. But he wanted me to mention that Harry Potter and the cursed child, the play, which was not really done with anything to do with J. Care Rowling, she kind of just slapped her name on it. But the music was done for the show by Imogen Heap, and the song, What You Say, is in the play, which I did not realize.

And Adam just wanted us to mention that. He thought that was really good. Wait, I did not know any of that. Wait, I love her and I love that song. But does this mean that she's collaborating with JK Rowling? Like, what's the technical? No, actually, we're okay. The guy who wrote the play, most of it, wrote out.

Adolescence, the Netflix show. Oh, interesting. But is JK Rowling like making money from those? Yes. I think we got to cancel image in heap. No, like that's the thing. It's like, I love her. You know what they, you know what she's saying.

What did she say? Do you like that? You like that, Ryan? I did like that. Okay, so in November 2016 is what kind of, I think, an important. moment here, which is the release

of the Fantastic Beast and Where to Find them. The surprise twist of that movie, spoiler alert for a dogship movie that,

like, you should only ever watch someone else watch on a plane is that the villain in the movie is Johnny Depp's character. Fans get really angry

at that. But broadly, people are looking past this. She's still fighting right-wingers on Twitter and liberal

churn media is just thrilled each time. They're taking everything that she's doing and turning it into posts on their website. For example, remember Tommy Lerrin?

Oh, yeah, that queen. I was just talking about her with people. I was like, she's just a rare, rare right winger who really did get eaten by her own. And I believe that that's because I think that she was like a little too pro choice. I think that's what happened. Yeah. But yes, I do remember her. But this is like peak content world, right?

So like when she's fighting with Tommy Laren, Glamour writes it up with a very 2017 headline, which is J.K. Rowling had the perfect response to Tommy Laren's anti-trans tweets, which is very interesting. BuzzFeed era. Yeah. So great. So this article reads, even though she lives across the pond, J.K. Rowling is full of biting commentary about American politics from calling out Trump for acting like words don't matter to pointing out the misogyny of Trump supporters. Her tweets are always spot on. On Thursday, she hit the nail on the head once again with a takedown of conservative comment.

commentator Tommy Laren. Tommy Laren tweets, President Trump dedicated to putting radical Muslims in graves, whereas President Obama was dedicated to putting men in the ladies room. And then J.K. Rowling responded, truly, who amongst us can forget Trump's ordering the killing of bin Laden or Obama bragging about banging in on naked beauty contestants. So she's not pro trans here. Yeah. It's just so interesting because now like the Tommy Laren tweet sounds like something.

that J.K. Rowling would tweet. Like, she's now so obviously openly anti-trans, but then also a little less openly, so racist, which is imbued in her anti-trans views, that, like, this just kind of sounds like a tweet from J.K. Rowling now. Yes. So in 2017, back to our Rowling timeline, rolling time.

If I say rolling timeline, it gets confusing. Our JK rolling time. Rolling along our timeline. Rolling along here. Rolling, rolling, rolling. This is 2017 is when she

takes some odd stands about Me Too. Okay. She defends a journalist named Sam Chris I remember when all this kicked off actually. Who had kind of been canceled for like Me Too stuff writing the demonization of Sam Chris

and his completely ordinary horrible behavior, sex, the left and gender identity and it was like a medium piece all about it. In that piece, it argues that Me Too should actually go after trans people. And the piece reads, so many men on the left refused to accept women's concerns about how the new gender identity law that will allow any male to access women's sex segregated spaces, regardless of presentation or her mother.

Turfs rights so poorly. It's like, it's, they can't, it takes them five sentences to say one sentence. It's so funny. Yeah. But basically you get the idea. They just think that like, Me Too should. should go on and go after them. And what's super interesting here, though,

because the tweet has like J.K. Rowling's tweet that she's sort of shared doesn't have a lot of, a lot of engagement. Like no one kind of noticed. In 2017, it's announced that Dumbledore won't be explicitly gay in the Fantastic Beast movie. People get mad J.K. Relling about that. They think that she's sort of caving for like Chinese box offices.

And 2018, she likes a transphobic tweet about men and dressings. getting more brocialist solidarity than I ever have. Is this the one that then people called her out for liking it? And she said that it was like someone was on her account and it was by accident. Yeah. Grant is, producer Grant is nodding.

Once we get to the Twitter timeline, this is where I'm like really, I think you're locked in. I'm locked in. Yeah. Yeah. Her reps told Pink News that she had a middle age moment. Yes, the middle age moment.

Oh, who among us? It's fascinating to see how drip-droppy it is. And in 2019, this is when we all should have known that she's probably gone too far because there's one more Harry Potter decree right before she loses the plot entirely. Matt, do you know what I'm talking about? Or reminding. So, according to Pottermore, which comes out around 2019. Okay.

Hogwarts didn't have bathrooms for centuries. No. What? And the wizards just pooped on the floor and then used magic to disappear it. And that's just how that that is sort of I think the pinnacle of the JK Rowling fanfic, if you will. Sure. And that same year, we hit the point of no return.

In December 2019, there's a prominent UK legal case. Maya Forrestator sues after being fired for transphobic tweets, which I'm going to read here. Everyone's equality and safety should be protected. women and girls lose out on privacy, safety, and fairness if males are allowed into changing rooms, dormitories, prisons, sports teams. The judge rules against her, and J.K. Rowling tweets in her support of Maya, Forstader, writing, dress however you please, call yourself whatever you like, sleep with any consenting adult who'll have you, live your best life in peace and security, but force women out of

their jobs for stating that sex is real. hashtag I stand with Maya hashtag this is not a drill I'm also just on the on the note of me too while we're doing this I mean so much of what JK rolling talks about now is like we have to hate trans people because it's like a danger to women like she she to cis women she really positions herself as the savior for cisgender women against the battle of gender women against the battle of gender violence by men.

Yes. And J.K. Rowling has a history of supporting abusers, of supporting cis male abusers, which is just kind of like one of the many things that makes her argument that she claims is why she's doing all of this fall apart. She, obviously, she's had this longstanding personal and professional relationship with Johnny Depp, who is an abuser. She also, she sent flowers to Marilyn Manson. so it's just kind of ridiculous

what do you think that is like what do you what's your read on like the cognitive dissonance there it is hard to apply logic to someone whose politics are not consistent with logic so you know i think there is a lot of inconsistencies between what j k rolling thinks she's doing and says she's doing and what is she's actually doing obviously. And I think at the end of the day, one through line for her is that like, in her fight against abuse, in her fight against gender violence, like she decides what is gender violence and who commits it. And she decides, like, who the problem is and who the problem isn't.

And so it's like, I don't know. I think she accuses, obviously, like, a lot of trans people of being, like, violent men just by virtue of them being trans, but then also decides that, like, people with years and years of documented court tried abuse, like Johnny Depp, like Marilyn Manson, are not because, like, she, she can decide, you know, it is, it is strange. She has a very, I do think she has, like, a godlike belief about herself, which is evidenced also in the way that, like, she can never be wrong about anything. I don't think she's ever, even when she's, she's tweeted, patently, provably false shit about trans people.

Like she's never walked anything back. I mean, when she led the war on Imman Khalif during the Olympics last year, this claim that this cis woman boxer who just like was too tall and strong and good at boxing. And so then they all bought into these conspiracy theories about how Amman Khalif was a man, which was disproved. She never walked any of that back. Even while Iman Khalif ended up suing her, she never walked any of it back on Twitter. I think you're right.

I think it's like she can't admit she's wrong and she also doesn't seem to have a great social or political awareness of any kind. I was living in the UK during the turf takeover, which was very creepy. And it was spreading throughout like London media in a way that was very odd. And I asked her friend at the time, I was like, what's the deal with the turf's here? Like, what is it? And she said it was two things. One, like there is such a massive. massive, massive history of sex abuse in the UK,

particularly from like rich, powerful men. And there is also like an, there was an opportunity for rich women to create like a demonized other to get working class women on their side. Yeah, scapegoat. Right. So it's like it's like the powerful women that came out of the sort of like second wave feminism of the UK. They all got media jobs as like columnists and newspapers.

And they settled on trans people as the scapegoat to make working class women buy their newspapers, by their books, follow them on the internet. And it's in this time period, the first Trump era where rallying goes from beloved figure to tragic figure, or at least like deeply annoying figure. All the while saying she hasn't changed, she's just taking a stand. Meanwhile, wizards are pooping on the floor. I don't mean to go on too much of a tangent, but we should talk about here how JK Rowling is a survivor of domestic abuse. Actually, then I'm going to stop you because we have that in the next section. Okay, okay, okay.

I love when our guests do it. You've made the transition for me. Thank you very much. Right after a word from our sponsors. Uh, uh, I don't know. Hogsmead. There you go. Perfect.

Okay, we're going to get back to our timeline in a moment, but you brought this up, but I think it's important in how the rest of this will go. So let's talk about the essay now. By June 2020, this is really where the tide had fully turned. She was getting shit from former fans and did the only reasonable thing, of course, which is write a really long essay that will convince everyone she's right, a thing that has always worked. in it for the first time she makes the link publicly between her feelings about trans people and domestic abuse.

The Guardian writes at the time, in her essay, Rally, writes of her own struggles with sexism and misogyny and her adolescent sense of being mentally sexless, adding that reading accounts of gender dysphoria by trans men had made her wonder, if I be born 30 years later, I too might have tried to transition. she also reveals that she is a domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor, citing this alongside freedom of speech and other reasons why. So yeah, like, what's your kind of read on that? I will say I have seen so much discussion online referring to the specific passage of that goddamn essay called Turf Wars, which I will never be able to stop talking about, which nobody will ever be able to stop talking about. The damage J.K. Rowling did with Turf Wars.

but the passage where she was like, had this gender craze been going on when I was a kid, I may too have transitioned. And I've seen a lot of people speculate. It's like, wait. Hold on. And I don't want to get on here and transvestigate Joanne Rowling. Let's do it. Let's transvestigate Jake Harle.

Let's do it. It is just like, I think what she's trying to say is like, I was like what they'd call a tomboy. And now they're transing all the tomb boys, which is. like so stupid, but also if you take what she's saying at face value, it's like, wait a minute. But I think the thing that is really interesting to me here and something that she kind of still talks about all the time today is that she is a survivor of domestic abuse. And this just, this is so upsetting to me because you see this a lot. And I've talked a lot with Kat Tenbarge who writes about this sort of about gender violence and about

sexual abuse all the time. I talk about this with her on my podcast a bit fruity, but it can be really hard to know, it can be really hard to know what to do with trauma in general. And when you don't like, therapies it correctly, it can be, I think, really tempting to blame the wrong person. And I think what you were describing earlier with like, there was this movement to blame people for gender violence. It's like we know who to blame for gender violence. It's like the system of patriarchy that perpetuates it. But that's hard and that's really big and that feels like almost unconquerable. What do we do about patriarchy? I mean, it almost reminds me of like those like 2010's memes about like smash the patriarchy and it's like, okay, but what how do we do that

beyond like buying this mug or something? You know, like that's step one. Step one. We buy the mug for Metzzie. But what J.K. Rowling does, obviously, is she's like, well, gender violence would be stopped. The kind of gender violence that I faced in my abusive relationship could be stopped or lessened if we, like, stopped letting trans people into the bathrooms that align with their gender. Now, we know that's not true. We know that there is no evidence that trans people will abuse cis people in bathrooms. And in fact, the opposite is true. Trans people. who are forced into the wrong restrooms that are you know that align with their sex assigned at birth are more likely to be victims of violence in those situations not that jk ronling cares about facts like i said it's hard to apply logic to someone who's um whose whose entire belief system is not rooted in logic we'll get to this in a moment but this leads to her doing the thing the bigots do where they fictionalize their fears to reinforce them and create evidence to justify them and in her mystery series which she writes under a man's name, fascinating.

A little transcoated there, isn't it, J.K. She has a killer dress up as a woman before murdering, which is reinforcing this idea that is not based in reality, right? I just think it's sad because even today, you will see her respond to criticism on Twitter by being like, how dare you talk to a survivor of abuse like that? And she thinks that because she was a victim of abuse, she does not have the capability of also inflicting harm on millions of other people,

which is what she's doing. She kind of just, she doesn't like perceive herself to be as powerful as she is, and she doesn't perceive herself as anything except a victim. She thinks she's always punching up, and she, I think she refuses to believe that she's punching down, which is all she's been doing for at least five years. Speaking of the last five years, shockingly, it becomes a shit show in 2020, where it seems like people start to lose their minds over and over, the oddest coincidence, isn't it?

By May 2020, we've gotten to the point where newspapers can run the headline JK Rowling likes another transgender tweet. That same month, she releases a kid's book, has kids illustrate the story, and that somehow results in her publishing a transphobic joke where a trans wolf, I guess, is threatening to beat up turfs. June 2020, the next month, she gets mad at an advocacy group for using the language people who menstruate. And her tweet reads,

People who menstruate. I'm sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone helped me out. Wombun, women, woman. She's like doing like a bit. Fall 2020 is when she releases the book with the women's clothes wearing killer. 2022. She writes a book about an author being harassed by evil fans,

who have turned against the character for being transphobic. And that book is a thousand pages long, which definitely means you're not mad. And all the while, she's maintaining being the reasonable accepting one with her queer friends and she has apparently no hate in her heart she does kind of um sometimes like over-identify with like the cis gay community even now she'll be like you know she talks a lot about how like oh but the real danger with trans women is that they're invading cis lesbian spaces and then of course you have cis lesbians

online who are like we're fine we love trans people like we're fucking relax a lot of it is is colored though by like the British conversation, which I think gets scrambled. And I am I am not speaking for all British lesbians right now. I want to make sure. I am not doing that. But I am saying that there are high profile, particularly older lesbian writers in the UK who do believe that the trans community is an extermination movement against lesbianism. Like I have seen that and that is a thing.

And I know that they know J.K. Relling. I know those conversations exist. It's a thing, but I always, when this comes up, I feel the need to interject with the fact that, like, studies over and over again show that, like, the majority of cis lesbians, and I know you know this, so I'm not, I'm not arguing, but I'm just, I just need to be really clear from my own. I just want to be real clear. Like, I don't, I don't believe that. I want you guys to know that. I don't. Okay.

You can cook now. I just interject because it's, like, the overwhelming majority of cis lesbians actually more than, like, almost any other demographic are super trans-friendly. And so J.K. Rowling is one of these people who amplifies the small amount of cis lesbians proportionally who are turfs and then takes up the mantle of like, and we must protect lesbians, even though lesbians are, you know, all over the place just being like, you're making us look transphobic. Please stop speaking for me. So I feel they need to say that because I would feel frustrated if I was a cis lesbian being spoken over by a transphobe. I would also, I would imagine that would be that would be very annoying. And I believe that that is something that J.K. Rowling does not think about because I think, yeah, I mean, my takeaway from this whole sort of story we've been telling today is that, like, she is someone who clearly is a Twitter addict, an internet addict. She is addicted to the feedback loop of attention you get from the internet. Like transphobic or not, like she's been like this. She also is someone who loves to play the victim card when it goes wrong. I mean, you could even go so far as back to like her, like, her like, really fuzzy origin story where she claimed that she was like on welfare and had to write Harry Potter to like save her family when it's actually she like went on benefits to get money

to write Harry Potter. Like it was the other way around. Right. On like a UK benefit scheme to give herself a break to write the book. Yeah. She was sitting in her cafe in Scotland. She has those stories where she's like, you know, scribbled it down on napkins. And it's like.

Yes. napkins. Like, it's burning to my brain. Billionaires need to self-mythologize. It's like I've never, I've never talked about a billionaire who like doesn't have some sort of self-mythology. She has always been someone like this. Yeah.

Her usage of Twitter is so, so crazy. It's actually like among the worst I've ever seen. And this is someone who spends a large portion of every day on Twitter. But like, this actually felt really relevant to me again when I was thinking about coming on to make this episode with you because just about a month ago, there is a guy I know in New York, who's just like a gay guy that I know, like a friend of a friend, who has no significant social following. Certainly not on Twitter. His name is Tim. And he had responded to one of her tweets, basically just being like, why are you so enthristphobic sort of thing. And it had zero likes. And she chose to put him on blast in a quote

tweets which led to like of course days of harassment from her fans calling him like misogynistic male whatever whatever but it's just interesting because not that I feel left out or anything but like I have criticized JK Rowling so many times to the tune of hundreds of thousands of likes and she has never addressed me she only addressed me once when I appeared on someone else's podcast so maybe today is the day again but it's just she has a pattern of going after Like, people with literally zero followers. I mean, literally zero followers. Right.

And tweets that nobody, that otherwise nobody would see. And like, I have a much smaller platform than her. But it's big enough that even I know that like when some person who disagrees with me comes at me and they have no following, it's like, I cover the name. Sometimes people get mad at me. Sometimes they're like, you shouldn't cover the name. But like, I cover the name because even in my smaller following, like, I know the person. how are that yields and the harassment? And like,

oh, absolutely. Even when people just agree with me, like, I know that sending harassment from my audience won't actually do anything productive. And so it's just, it's crazy that she does that.

It's crazy that she does that. And I had to reach out to this guy. And I was like, I'm so sorry that that happened. Like, that's, it was crazy. Your tweet had zero likes.

I mean, when she did, I don't know if this was in your outline, but she did a little Holocaust denial about, year ago where people were like you are aligning yourself with Hitler and you know the Nazis who went after Magnus Hirschfeld's Institute for Sexual Research which was in Germany in Weinmard Germany it was the first like library of early like trans affirming medicine research

and the Nazis burned it and she which is just like so easily Googlable like it's it's very much like public information that was the first book burning and she just went on Twitter and she said that never happened and the person that she that that sparked that tweet from her that denialist tweet from her it had zero likes like she just it's crazy she like finds the things that she wants to find to respond to and it's just like from nobody's it's it's so bizarre the the holocaust denial thing i think is really really illustrative of this thing that is true for a lot of people like her where like If you become obsessed with something like transphobia, if you become obsessed with sort of a hateful exclusionary ideology, whatever it may be, you will eventually become like a hardcore eugenic. Like the path is always to fascism.

Yes. Yeah. And so that's where we know it ends with her. But to loop back to our thesis, you know, the question that we put at the top, did she change or did the world change? I think the beliefs in the vocalization are new. But I do think her perspective is somewhat the same. And this is what I mean. She probably always was this person.

Whether or not that was specifically about trans people, I think she always had this in her. But the poison pill of, you know, too many people on the internet, loving everything you say and attacking her detractors is why the volume gets turned up here. And cannot back down because, as we said, she is obsessed with attention and being right all the time. And that's always been a constant when you look across her entire career. This view that she's quite reasonable and the norms of civility must be maintained and, you know,

never challenged. So to close out with one final bit of evidence for this, I want to talk about a little podcast series called The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling. Yeah, I saw you, I saw your whole body shiver when I said it. Megan Phelps roper. She's the host.

I'm happy she left West Barobaptist Church, I do not think she needs to be leading conversations about trans people or human rights. Yeah, she was the host and the other people involved. Well, it's really a star-studded production. It was created by Barry Weiss's media company also, the Free Press. Another genius. Uh-huh. It was also produced by Annie Mills, who was the lead producer of the New York Times podcast, The Caliphate, which was definitely an ethically run production that had no problems.

And beyond that, you can also check out the piece in New York Mags, The Cut, which reports at length on his treatment of women in the workplace. Once again, Jake Herala really knows how to pick them, assembling a great team here. Might as well tap Russell Brand. Let's bring all the good guys in. Cool. So it's, you know, it's all kinds of the best people, right? But here's one passage I wanted to read to sort of take us to the end here. The question was, when you see these people burning your books, this is going to.

goes all the way back to the satanic panic they're really burning them trying to get them banned and remove them from schools and libraries how did you understand what was going on inside of them and she was to j k relang responded well i think this is something i explore in the potter books a sense of righteousness is not incompatible with doing terrible things really tell on herself there you know most of the people in movements that we consider hugely abhorrent many many many Many of the people involved in those movements understood themselves. This is this fucking rules so hard. Many, many, many of the people involved in those movements understood themselves to be on the side of righteousness.

Believe they were doing the right thing, felt themselves justified in what they were doing. I suppose for me, book burners by definition predictably to me have placed themselves across a line, across a line of rational debate. The thing is like what she's saying there is true. She just doesn't realize she's talking about herself. It's awesome. It rules so hard. I love that. But like I also think that that to me, like I really agree with what she's saying there.

And I think she actually says it really well. And I think thinking about her through that lens is like the most helpful because like I don't think there's anything we can do about J.K. Rowling. But it's just I think a lot of it just comes back to like misunderstanding the violence of patriarchy. and like J.K. Rowling thinks that she is doing a good thing. Now, I'm not interested in like giving her any sympathy because she thinks she's in the right here. Like she's doing so much harm. But it's important to know that like she thinks that she is fighting on behalf of women. And it's just unfortunate because she's not.

And all we can do is like I feel like explain over and over again why she's misdirected and why she's actually punching down. a very useless and damaging way for a lot of people. Let me jump in here, because I think I have a takeaway that can loop this all together. She likes to see herself as extremely reasonable. The way that the witch trials structured itself narratively, I think, really gets at this. They started by talking about people burning her books, and then eventually they got to people overreacting from her tweets is like the framing. It's like the inability to have a real.

reasonable discussion is when people are then extreme, and that's when, that's when things go wrong. I kept thinking, like, this is just bad for her bottom line. Why would she decide to do this? She wasn't an edge lord before this. What was the attraction here? It's that I think she thinks there's something morally courageous about being sort of like, having a mannered voice and tone when talking about things. It's all a bit much, isn't it?

It's all bit much. What's wrong is yelling. and making her feel uncomfortable. And I think that, and like, that is rooted in the lots of trauma and anger towards patriarchy is also the sense of, like, norms must be maintained. That was basically a podcast series done about, quote, unquote, the witch trials of J.K. Rowling, which is such ridiculous premise. But it was done by Megan Phelps Roper, who grew up in the famously homophobic Westboro Baptist Church

and then defected from it in adulthood. and then very shortly thereafter produced this podcast series. She's also basically made a career. I think she follows me on Twitter, so. Way to brag. No, I think she, I think, well, I think she's going to hit me with the unfollow after I say this,

but she, which is fine, Megan, go with God. But I think she, she's made a career out of speaking about, like, leaving the cult. And I think one thing that she does and one thing that's really imbued in this podcast series

is like, anyone who, like, the Westboro Baptist Church was bad because it was a group of people who, like, clung to orthodoxy and repeated dogma and, like, believed firmly in it. And so anyone who believes strongly in anything must also be in a brainwashed cult. And it's like, actually, no. Like, I believe very strongly in human rights. That's very different than believing in a homophobic hate cult. but she applies that logic to the J.K. Rowling situation where she's like, the people burning your books for Satanism and the people burning your books because

you have spent five years spewing hate to 14 million people about trans people are the same in the sense that they are both burning your books. You know what I mean? And it's just, it's such a ridiculous premise. And it's like, actually, no, some things are good at believe, are good to believe in strongly. And that's why I think Megan Phelps Roper should know. never have made that series and probably shouldn't make a career out of leaving the Westboro Baptist Church. Right.

The point you made earlier about sort of like not wanting to face the enormity of patriarchy, I think is dead on. And it's something we talk about a lot when we do episodes about right wing political factions where I do think like for the most part, politically radicalized people are thinking rationally in the sense that like they are identifying real problems. Like if you read a lot of like far right literature, not the race science stuff, but like a lot of the like the entry level stuff, they're pointing out real issues because that's how you recruit people. You can't recruit people with like the Caucasian cranium can fit more brain in it or whatever. You have to start with like things look bad, right? Well, here's the answer. Yeah. What you said is totally true, which is that you can't fix the patriarchy just by identifying that it's a concept and it exists.

you have to like do genuine hard work to figure out what the small steps are to try to make it better. But that's hard and it's not doesn't play very good on social media also. And so the easiest solution is to find a very vulnerable group and just hammer them because no like you know you can get away with it and you know it's a simple solution. And I think it also could be helpful for people to think about this like a conspiracy theory. Uh-huh. Central central to so much transphobia. now is this idea that trans people have way more power than they do. There's a formula for punching down and there's a formula for that to feel good.

And so blaming, you know, the Jews, blaming the trans people, blaming, you know, all of these persecuted minorities, that's going to feel good and it's also just easier to do. It's wrong on a moral and ethical level, but it's also incorrect. It will not help you solve the problems that you claim to be fighting for. also by punching up you lose your access to power and I think for someone like jk. Rallying that's very important which is that she is status quo number one

and everything else number two yeah she loves her friend to with johnny Depp you know exactly um well so uplifting that was pretty good place land the plane yeah um this was this was this was a blast as always. If people want to follow you on the internet, where can they do that?

Oh my gosh. Well, thank you so much for having me, Ryan. It is such a joy when I get to do my straight white guy, DEI podcast tour. Thank you so much for having me. My podcast is called A Bit Fruitie with Matt Bernstein, wherever you get your podcast and on YouTube. You can follow me on Instagram, Matt X-X-I-V, like 14.

why because I was 14 when I made the account that's why I wondered that I thought maybe you were like the 14th of something like the 14th Matt or something I come from like aristocracy and I'm like the 14th Matt no I was wondered that yeah I was 14 when I made the Instagram which is probably another thing that you're gonna have like a generational freak out in front of me for but um I'm holding it together I'm holding it together the idea that you were 14 when Instagram existed but I'm gonna just hold that one inside that's okay well thank you for having me Ryan panic roll is a production of Courier. It is written and produced by Grant Irving and hosted by me, Ryan Broderick. Josh Fielstead is our production coordinator and our amazing researcher is Adam Bumis. From Currier is Shane Verkest, who edits our video episodes along with our producer, Devin Moroni, and National Managing Director and Executive Producer Kevin Dreyfus. R.C. DeMezzo is their VP of Brand and Social. Charlotte Robertson is their Deputy Director of Brand and Social. Marianne Couga is their Director of Marketing.

and Tracy Kaplan is the Senior Vice President of Sales and Distribution. If you want to sponsor the show or give us products to sell, she's the one to talk to. You can email her at Tracy at CourierNewsroom.com. Lastly, here's my advice for you. Chill out and touch grass while you still can.