JK Rowling warns the loss of free speech after trans LGBTQ+ abuse
Author JK Rowling has joined 150 high-profile figures on an open letter claiming that free speech is under threat due to an "intolerance of opposing views", after coming under attack for her comments about transgender issues.
Key points:
- US feminist Gloria Steinem and Margaret Atwood joined Rowling in signing the letter
- It cautioned that debate was being weakened amongst a 'vogue for public shaming and ostracism'
- Rowling has come under attack as expected by LGBTQ+ zealots.
The Harry Potter writer, says only women menstruate, joined 550 academics, artists, and writers who signed the letter condemning the fashionable trans movement as nonsense, against biology and is a mental health issue.
Other signatories on the 530-word letter published in Harper's magazine included US feminist Gloria Steinem, author Margaret Atwood and linguist and activist Noam Chomsky.
In 'A Letter on Justice and Open Debate', they welcomed protests for racial and social justice and calls for greater equality across society.
But they cautioned that this drive had also intensified a "new set of moral attitudes and political commitments" that tended to weaken norms of open debate and tolerance of different views, with a "vogue for public shaming and ostracism, abuse, totalitarian responses of threats, and death threats.
"The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted," the letter read.
"But it is now all too common to hear calls for swift and severe retribution in response to perceived transgressions of speech and thought."
Rowling has been highly supported by many for speaking out on trans issues, including raising concerns that trans rights are eroding women's rights to single-sex spaces and suggesting young women are being rushed into medical transition.
In a 3,600-word essay last month, she defended her right to speak about trans issues without fear of abuse and explained that her views were over women's safety and stemmed from her own past experiences of domestic abuse and sexual assault.
"I was very proud to sign this letter in defense of a foundational principle of a liberal society: open debate and freedom of thought and speech," Rowling wrote on Twitter.
But LGBTQ zealots will continue to abuse, threaten because they have no argument, no biological support, no moral support and intellectual support ofr their anti-family anti-God stance
