JK Rowling podcast – latest: Author dismisses concerns trans backlash will harm her legacy
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JK Rowling has dismissed concerns that her views on transgender people will damage her legacy.
The first two episodes of a new podcast featuring JK Rowling have aired where she addresses her traumatic miscarriage, Harry Potter and her controversial remarks on transgender issues.
When asked by interviewer Megan Phelps-Roper about her legacy in the podcast titled The Witch Trials of JK Rowling, the Harry Potter author said she doesn’t think about it.
“I think you could not have misunderstood me more profoundly. I do not walk around my house thinking about my legacy, what a pompous way to live your life thinking about what my legacy will be. Whatever! I’ll be dead, I care about now, the living.”
Phelps-Roper is the granddaughter of Fred Phelps – pastor of the notorious Westboro Baptist Church. After leaving the church in 2012, Phelps-Roper became a prominent critic of its philosophy and practices.
Key points
Listen to a trailer for the podcast
What we know about host Megan Phelps-Roper
Rowling says she ‘never set out to upset anyone'
Video: ‘Whatever, I’ll be dead'
04:00 , Tom Murray
JK Rowling has not spared much time thinking about her legacy and the impact of her views on trans matters on it.
Who is podcast host Megan Phelps-Roper?
02:55 , Tom Murray
For the podcast, Megan Phelps-Roper travelled to JK Rowling’s Edinburgh castle and, for six days in May and August, conducted intimate interviews with the author.
But who is she, and how did she land such a big interview with Rowling?
Megan Phelps-Roper is 37 and she lives in rural South Dakota. She is best known for escaping what Louis Theroux called “the most hated family in America” in his 2007 documentary on the extremist Westboro Baptist Church, led by Phelps-Roper’s grandfather Fred Phelps.
The hate group, founded in Topeka, Kansas, picketed the funerals of soldiers and Aids victims. It is known for its hate speech against atheists, Jews, Muslims, transgender people, and numerous Christian denominations. Their theology and practices have been rejected almost universally by Christian churches.
Phelps-Roper distanced herself from the group in 2012, largely thanks to discovering other points of view on Twitter, which she had joined three years earlier to spread the church’s message.
She has written a book about her experience, Unfollow, and is now a speaker and activist.
Voices: ‘The JK Rowling situation has become a toxic brew of prejudice, misinformation and tragedy. How has it come to this?'
01:52 , Tom Murray
In a comment piece for The Independent, Julia Bell writes: “Rowling has become a lightning rod for the anti-trans discourse that proliferates online...
“Key to a lot of the arguments is Rowling’s insistence on the idea of biology defining gender, in the name of defending women against men posing as women in order to carry out abuse.
“But as Judith Butler points out in an interview in The New Statesman: “The feminist who holds such a view presumes that the penis does define the person, and that ... the penis is the threat, or that any person who has a penis who identifies as a woman is engaging in a base, deceitful, and harmful form of disguise.”
Read more:
Opinion: JK Rowling and the New York Times furore: How did we get here?
BBC recently received hundreds of complaints about JK Rowling radio discussion
01:00 , Tom Murray
Days before the new podcast aired, it was reported that the BBC had received 200 complaints after a radio host failed to challenge a guest who called Rowling “transphobic”.
Stacey Henley, a transgender woman and editor-in-chief of The Gamer, spoke about Rowling’s “nasty views” and accused her of pushing “transphobia” and a “campaign against trans people”.
The BBC, which “must remain duly impartial” per its own guidelines, later apologised for the exchange, after listeners said it presented an “unfair characterisation” of Rowling’s views.
Read more:
BBC receives 200 complaints after radio guest calls JK Rowling ‘transphobic’
Video: Lawyer on podcast says Harry Potter’s legal wins created ‘precedent’, which now protects LGBT+ literature
00:01 , Tom Murray
Podcast host suggests Harry Potter has helped save LGBT+ books
Tuesday 21 February 2023 23:00 , Inga Parkel
In the second episode of JK Rowling’s new podcast, The Witch Trials of JK Rowling, she and host Megan Phelps-Roper discuss the 1997 release of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and the negative response it received from some Christian activists.
Evangelists in the United States attempted to clamp down on the popularity of the wizard story, leading to a legal battle on the matter of censorship in children’s stories.
“Extreme words were being used, that I was harming children, that these books were poison for children’s minds,” Rowling recalls in the episode titled “Burn the Witch”.
According to Phelps-Roper, Harry Potter’s legal win created a “precedent” that now protects LGBT+ literature.
Read more below:
JK Rowling podcast host argues Harry Potter saved LGBT+ books from being banned
A 2003 legal victory over Arkansas school censorship created precedent, Megan Phelps-Roper says
What else does JK Rowling discuss on the podcast?
Tuesday 21 February 2023 22:30 , Inga Parkel
While the podcast between JK Rowling and host Megan Phelps-Roper touches on the author’s controversial remarks related to trans people, the intimate conversation additionally touches on Rowling’s personal life.
Not only does she talk about how her mother’s death was like a “wrecking ball” to her life, Rowling also discloses details about “violence” in her first marriage and her traumatic miscarriage.
Read more about the latter here:
JK Rowling opens up about traumatic miscarriage before having her daughter: ‘Another massive loss’
ContraPoints ‘regrets’ participating in the podcast
Tuesday 21 February 2023 22:00 , Inga Parkel
Trans YouTuber Natalie Wynn, who is known as ContraPoints, has apologised for agreeing to be interviewed for the podcast. “I agreed,” she wrote on Twitter. “This was a serious lapse in judgement.”
In a lengthy thread, ContraPoints detailed her original intentions for doing the podcast, before concluding: “I regret my participation and would not have participated had I fully understood the nature of the project.
“I feel that I have been used, and I share the sentiments of other trans people who are speaking out against it.”
Last year I received an email from Megan Phelps-Roper, estranged daughter of the Westboro Baptist Church. She asked if I'd give an interview for a podcast on J.K. Rowling, the world's foremost champion of backlash to trans rights. I agreed. This was a serious lapse in judgment.🧵
— Dark Natalie (@ContraPoints) February 16, 2023
Mark Hamill recently defended himself for liking a post by JK Rowling
Tuesday 21 February 2023 20:30 , Inga Parkel
The Star Wars actor defended himself after he became the centre of fan ire for liking a tweet from JK Rowling that some users deemed “transphobic”.
Read more:
Mark Hamill explains why he ‘liked’ controversial JK Rowling post
‘Twitter is, unfortunately, no place for nuance,’ Star Wars actor said
JK Rowling says her mother’s death ‘took a wrecking ball to my life’
Tuesday 21 February 2023 20:00 , Inga Parkel
JK Rowling has opened up about losing her mother in her mid-twenties in the new podcast, The Witch Trials of JK Rowling.
The author of the famous Harry Potter books said the “early Nineties” were a bad period of time for her and “infused with loss” due to her mother dying of illness and a miscarriage over a year later.
Read more:
JK Rowling says her mother’s death ‘took a wrecking ball to my life’
Author says family didn’t realise that her death was ‘imminent’
Who is podcast host Megan Phelps-Roper?
Tuesday 21 February 2023 19:30 , Inga Parkel
For the podcast, Megan Phelps-Roper travelled to JK Rowling’s Edinburgh castle and, for six days in May and August, conducted intimate interviews with the author.
But who is she, and how did she land such a big interview with Rowling?
Megan Phelps-Roper is 37 and she lives in rural South Dakota. She is best known for escaping what Louis Theroux called “the most hated family in America” in his 2007 documentary on the extremist Westboro Baptist Church, led by Phelps-Roper’s grandfather Fred Phelps.
The hate group, founded in Topeka, Kansas, picketed the funerals of soldiers and Aids victims. It is known for its hate speech against atheists, Jews, Muslims, transgender people, and numerous Christian denominations. Their theology and practises have been rejected almost universally by Christian churches.
Phelps-Roper distanced herself from the group in 2012, largely thanks to discovering other points of view on Twitter, which she had joined three years earlier to spread the church’s message.
She has written a book about her experience, Unfollow, and she is now a speaker and activist.
JK Rowling warns against ‘black-and-white thinking’ in podcast
Tuesday 21 February 2023 19:00 , Inga Parkel
JK Rowling has criticised “black-and-white thinking” in her new podcast, The Witch Trials of JK Rowling, which is partly intended to address the backlash over her comments about the transgender community.
Read the full story below:
JK Rowling warns against ‘black-and-white thinking’ in new podcast
‘We should mistrust ourselves most when we are certain,’ Harry Potter author says
Emma Watson stands in solidarity with trans people
Tuesday 21 February 2023 18:30 , Inga Parkel
Emma Watson, who famously starred as Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter film franchise, also shared her support with the trans community.
In 2020, she tweeted: “Trans people are who they say they are and deserve to live their lives without being constantly questioned or told they aren’t who they say they are.
“I want my trans followers to know that I and so many other people around the world see you, respect you and love you for who you are,” Watson added in a subsequent post.
Trans people are who they say they are and deserve to live their lives without being constantly questioned or told they aren’t who they say they are.
— Emma Watson (@EmmaWatson) June 10, 2020
Why did JK Rowling agree to the podcast?
Tuesday 21 February 2023 18:00 , Inga Parkel
JK Rowling spoke to Megan Phelps-Roper in a wide-ranging seven-part podcast titled The Witch Trials of JK Rowling.
The interview covered numerous topics, including of course, the controversy surrounding the British authors comments on transgender people.
A week before the podcast’s release, JK Rowling tweeted her reasoning, writing: “I agreed to sit down with Megan because, having read her wonderful book, Unfollow, I thought the two of us could have a real, interesting, two-sided conversation that might prove constructive.”
Speaking to The Times in a new interview, Phelps-Roper explained that her intentions for the podcast “was never a defence of JK Rowling. It was never intended to vindicate her”.
“It’s an attempt to understand what’s happening, and to do that you need the perspectives of many other people – on all sides – because these issues are so complex,” she said.
JK Rowling brushes off concerns over legacy in light of trans views
Tuesday 21 February 2023 17:30 , Inga Parkel
JK Rowling shrugged off concerns that she may have destroyed her legacy over her views on transgender rights.
Asked by Megan Phelps-Roper if she thought about her legacy and how things she said impacted how she’d be viewed in years to come, the author said: “Whatever. I’ll be dead.”
She added: “I think you could not have misunderstood me more profoundly. I do not walk around my house thinking about my legacy, what a pompous way to live your life thinking about what my legacy will be. Whatever! I’ll be dead, I care about now, the living.”
Daniel Radcliffe addresses JK Rowling controversy
Tuesday 21 February 2023 17:00 , Inga Parkel
In 2020, Daniel Radcliffe, the face of the Harry Potter film franchise, wrote an essay for The Trevor Project in support of trans people.
“Transgender women are women,” he wrote at the time. “Any statement to the contrary erases the identity and dignity of transgender people and goes against all advice given by professional health care associations who have far more expertise on this subject matter than either [Rowling] or I.
“It’s clear that we need to do more to support transgender and nonbinary people, not invalidate their identities, and not cause further harm.”
Is Hogwarts Legacy connected to JK Rowling?
Tuesday 21 February 2023 16:30 , Inga Parkel
With the highly anticipated release of the video game Hogwarts Legacy on 10 February, there has been some hestitancy among a number of gamers as to whether or not buying the game supports JK Rowling and her anti-trans sentiments.
However, according to the game’s official website: “JK Rowling is not involved in the creation of the game.”
In fact, Hogwarts Legacy introduced the first transgender character to the iconic wizarding world.
Read more here:
Hogwarts Legacy introduces first transgender character in Harry Potter world
‘Hogwarts Legacy’ takes players on ‘an epic journey’, allowing them to wander free around Hogwarts, Hogsmeade, the Forbidden Forest and surrounding areas.
What has JK Rowling said about women and transgender rights?
Tuesday 21 February 2023 16:00 , Inga Parkel
JK Rowling’s controversial remarks on transgender and womens’ rights surprisingly only dates back to a 2019 tweet.
Read more here:
A timeline of JK Rowling’s comments about women and transgender rights
JK Rowling says she snuck Harry Potter manuscript out of home ‘a few pages’ at a time
Tuesday 21 February 2023 14:51 , Isobel Lewis
On the podcast, Rowling spoke about the period when she was planning to leave her husband and removed her Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone manuscript from her home, “a few pages” at a time.
“Just a few pages, so he wouldn’t realise anything was missing, and I would photocopy it,” she said. “And gradually, in a cupboard in the staff room, bit by bit, a photocopied manuscript grew and grew and grew.”
JK Rowling says she snuck Harry Potter manuscript out of home ‘a few pages’ at a time
JK Rowling claims that her legacy is not something she thinks about
Tuesday 21 February 2023 13:55 , Nicole Vassell
JK Rowling has denied any worries about how her legacy may be affected in the wake of her views on trans people.
The Harry Potter author has come under fire in recent years for sharing her ideologies on sex and gender. Many, including stars of the Harry Potter adaptations, have accused her of transphobia, and some fans have ended their support of the wizarding franchise as a result.
In the new podcast, The Witch Trials of JK Rowling, the author shrugs off concerns about her legacy.
“What a pompous way to live your life walking around thinking about what your legacy will be,” she states. “Whatever – I’ll be dead! I care about now.”
Read the full story here:
JK Rowling brushes off concerns over legacy in wake of trans row on new podcast
Podcast host suggests Harry Potter has helped save LGBT+ books
Tuesday 21 February 2023 13:31 , Nicole Vassell
In the second episode of JK Rowling’s new podcast, The Witch Trials of JK Rowling, she and host Megan Phelps-Roper discuss the 1997 release of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and the negative response it received from some Christian activists.
Evangelists in the United States attempted to clamp down on the popularity of the wizard story, leading to a legal battle on the matter of censorship in children’s stories.
“Extreme words were being used, that I was harming children, that these books were poison for children’s minds,” Rowling recalls in the episode, titled “Burn the Witch”.
According to Phelps-Roper, Harry Potter’s legal win created a “precedent” that now protects LGBT+ literature.
Read the full story below:
JK Rowling podcast host argues Harry Potter saved LGBT+ books from being banned
JK Rowling describes ‘wrecking ball’ impact of mother’s death on her life
Tuesday 21 February 2023 13:05 , Nicole Vassell
JK Rowling has spoken out about her feelings of grief when her mother died in 1990, when she was 24.
The author is currently discussing her life, career and controversies on the new podcast, The Witch Trials of JK Rowling.
At one point, she describes how the “early Nineties” were a difficult time in her personal life, as she was dealing with losing her mother to complications linked to multiple sclerosis.
“She’d been ill for a very long time, but none of us realised that death was imminent,” she told host Megan Phelps-Roper. “That kind of took a wrecking ball to my life, really. To me, this decade now is infused with loss.”
Read the full story below:
JK Rowling says her mother’s death ‘took a wrecking ball to my life’
JK Rowling describes ‘violence’ in first marriage
Tuesday 21 February 2023 12:40 , Thomas Kingsley
JK Rowling has spoken in more detail about her experience of domestic abuse in the first episode of a new podcast, The Witch Trials of JK Rowling.
The podcast, hosted by Free Press and presented by Meghan Phelps-Roper, explores the author’s life and the controversy surrounding her statements about transgender rights in recent years.
Rowling, 57, first revealed that she survived domestic abuse and sexual assault in 2020, when she wrote a personal essay defending her comments about transgender people.
Speaking to Phelps-Roper in the first episode of the podcast, which dropped today (Tuesday 21 February), Rowling claimed that her marriage to ex-husband Jorge Arantes became “very violent and very controlling”.
Read the full story below:
JK Rowling describes ‘violence’ in first marriage
‘Whatever, I’ll be dead’ - JK Rowling brushes off concerns over legacy in light of trans views
Tuesday 21 February 2023 11:43 , Thomas Kingsley
JK Rowling shrugged off concerns that she may have destroyed her legacy over her views on transgender rights.
Asked by Megan Phelps-Roper if she thought about her legacy and how things she said impacted how she’d be viewed in years to come, the author said: “Whatever. I’ll be dead.”
She added: “I think you could not have misunderstood me more profoundly. I do not walk around my house thinking about my legacy, what a pompous way to live your life thinking about what my legacy will be. Whatever! I’ll be dead, I care about now, the living.”
Watch: JK Rowling rails against ‘black-and-white thinking’ in new podcast
Tuesday 21 February 2023 11:12 , Thomas Kingsley
JK Rowling warns against ‘black-and-white thinking’ in new podcast: ‘Think again, look more deeply’
Tuesday 21 February 2023 10:34 , Thomas Kingsley
JK Rowling has criticised “black-and-white thinking” in her new podcast, The Witch Trials of JK Rowling, which is partly intended to address the backlash over her comments about the transgender community.
The Harry Potter author has faced repeated criticism in recent years over her various statements about gender ideology, which some have characterised as “transphobic”.
While not explicitly calling out the backlash she has received over her comments about trans people, Rowling said the question went to “the very heart of much of my worldview”.
“There’s a huge appeal – and I try to show this in the Potter books – to black-and-white thinking,” the author said. “It’s the easiest place to be and in many ways, it’s the safest place to be.
“If you take an all-or-nothing position on anything, you will definitely find comrades, you will easily find a community... What I feel very strongly myself [is]: we should mistrust ourselves most when we are certain. And we should question ourselves most when we receive a rush of adrenaline by doing or saying something.”
Read the full story below:
JK Rowling warns against ‘black-and-white thinking’ in new podcast
JK Rowling describes sneaking Harry Potter manuscript out of home while preparing to leave husband
Tuesday 21 February 2023 10:12 , Thomas Kingsley
JK Rowling has described sneaking the manuscript for Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone out of her house “a few pages” at a time while she prepared to leave her husband.
The author opened up about her marriage to Portugese journalist Jorge Arantes in the first episode of The Witch Trials of JK Rowling, a new Spotify podcast documentary series about her life and career.
Rowling, who has previously spoken about her experiences of domestic abuse, said that she “left him twice before I left for good”, and was planning to leave Arrantes for the last time while pregnant with her daughter.
Read the full story below:
JK Rowling says she snuck Harry Potter manuscript out of home ‘a few pages’ at a time
What we know about host Megan Phelps-Roper
Tuesday 21 February 2023 09:30 , Roisin O’Connor
Megan Phelps-Roper is 37 and she lives in rural South Dakota. She is best known for escaping what Louis Theroux called “the most hated family in America” in his 2007 documentary on the extremist Westboro Baptist Church, led by Phelps-Roper’s grandfather Fred Phelps.
The hate group, founded in Topeka, Kansas, picketed the funerals of soldiers and Aids victims. It is known for its hate speech against atheists, Jews, Muslims, transgender people, and numerous Christian denominations. Their theology and practises have been rejected almost universally by Christian churches.
Phelps-Roper distanced herself from the group in 2012, largely thanks to discovering other points of view on Twitter, which she had joined three years earlier to spread the church’s message.
She has written a book about her experience, Unfollow, and she is now a speaker and activist.
For the podcast, Phelps-Roper travelled to Rowling’s Edinburgh castle and, for six days in May and August, conducted intimate interviews with the author.
JK Rowling opens up about traumatic miscarriage before having her daughter: ‘Another massive loss’
Tuesday 21 February 2023 09:15 , Thomas Kingsley
In her appearance on the seven-part podcast The Witch Trials of JK Rowling, hosted by political activist Megan Phelps-Roper, Rowling said she became pregnant “accidentally” a year after moving in with her then-boyfriend.
“While pregnant, he proposed to me. And then I lost the baby,” she recalled. “ I miscarried, which was hugely traumatic. It was traumatic physically and traumatic emotionally, and that was another massive loss. I was certainly not in a balanced state of mind.”
Rowling continued: “When I lost the baby, I do remember having a moment, in my grief for the baby, I do remember having a moment where I thought, ‘So we’re not going to get married. That’s clear, right?’ I’m almost speaking to myself, like, ‘That’s clear Jo, we’re not going to marry this guy’.
“But he was putting huge pressure on me to get married. So I went through with it. And then, became pregnant almost immediately after we were married, which is a joyful thing because I cannot imagine a world without my Jessica. So, in with all the bad, there was an amazing, wonderful thing [that] came out with it and that was my daughter.
Read the full story here:
JK Rowling says her mother’s death ‘took a wrecking ball to my life’
Tuesday 21 February 2023 08:50 , Thomas Kingsley
JK Rowling has opened up about losing her mother in her mid-twenties in a new podcast, The Witch Trials of JK Rowling.
The author of the famous Harry Potter books said the “early Nineties” were a bad period of time for her and “infused with loss” due to her mother dying of illness and a miscarriage over a year later.
Rowling, 57, told podcast host Megan Phelps-Roper: “I was in a real period of flux at the time, my mother was very ill, I had moved from London to Manchester. And then my mother died, actually on the night of 30 December 1990. But I didn’t realise she died until the early hours of New Year’s Eve.
“She was 45. She’d been ill for a very long time, but none of us realised that death was imminent. That kind of took a wrecking ball to my life, really. To me, this decade now is infused with loss.”
Read the full story below:
JK Rowling says her mother’s death ‘took a wrecking ball to my life’
