J.K. Rowling's new book The Ink Black Heart, the sixth installment in the thriller series The Cormoran Strike (and published under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith), features a female cartoonist who is murdered after posting an animation on YouTube about a hermaphroditic worm.
The funny video runs afoul of the trans-activist mob, which doxxes the cartoonist, releases photos of her home, and threatens to rape and murder her. The cartoonist is ultimately found stabbed to death in a graveyard.
Critics have been quick to point out that the plot bears a striking resemblance to Rowling's real-life experience of harassment by trans activists online, though Rowling insisted in an interview that she wrote the book before any of her personal experience with the trans mob occurred.
"I should make it really clear after some of the things that have happened the last year that this is not depicting [that]," she said.
"I had written the book before certain things happened to me online," she continued. "I said to my husband, ‘I think everyone is going to see this as a response to what happened to me,' but it genuinely wasn't. The first draft of the book was finished at the point certain things happened."
Two years ago, the Harry Potter creator famously made the audacious statement saying erasing women in the service of empowering trans people was really just erasing women, as well as the "LGB" part of the LGBT community.
Cries of Rowling being "transphobic" echoed across the internet, demanding she apologize. To her credit, Rowling doubled down and started mocking language shifts like "people who menstruate."
Apparently they've invented a whole new acronym for Rowling and women like her: TERF, (trans-exclusionary radical feminist).
How dare women not want to be erased!
There have been some pretty public death threats. For instance, after Salman Rushdie was stabbed on stage, several trans activists sent "You're next" messages to Rowling.
And of course, Twitter is fine with that.
At least, Rowling still has a voice powerful enough to be not shouted down, and it seems to be working. I went on Twitter looking for some juicy trans-activist quotes targeting Rowling, but even though #inkblackheart was trending, I mostly found positive comments like
I guess even Twitter users are getting tired of the constant barrage of trans outrage. Maybe it's not such a stretch to dream that sanity may return to the United States one day.
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