Daniel Radcliffe responds to JK Rowling's comments: Transgender women are women

Rowling faced backlash over the weekend for making anti-trans comments on Twitter
Daniel Radcliffe responds to JK Rowling's comments: Transgender women are women

Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe has criticised the controversial comments from author JK Rowling about trans women. In an article published for the LGBTQ youth nonprofit The Trevor Project, Radcliffe said he felt "compelled to say something at this moment."

"Transgender women are women," Radcliffe wrote. "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 Jo or I."

Rowling faced backlash over the weekend for making anti-trans comments on Twitter. She criticised an opinion piece that used the phrase “people who menstruate” and posited that discussion of gender identity invalidates biological sex.

"'People who menstruate.' I'm sure there used to be a word for those people," Rowling tweeted Saturday evening. "Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?"

Rowling later came up with an additional series of tweets defending and explain her earlier statement, which had gone viral by then. 

Radcliffe, in his piece, noted that 78 per cent of transgender and nonbinary youth have reported that they have been discriminated against due to their gender identity. “It’s clear that we need to do more to support these people, not invalidate their identities, and not cause further harm,” he wrote.

The actor also apologised to fans for Rowling's remarks, particularly if they negatively impacted the way people associate with the Harry Potter series.

"If these books taught you that love is the strongest force in the universe, capable of overcoming anything; if they taught you that strength is found in diversity, and that dogmatic ideas of pureness lead to the oppression of vulnerable groups; if you believe that a particular character is trans, nonbinary, or gender fluid, or that they are gay or bisexual; if you found anything in these stories that resonated with you and helped you at any time in your life — then that is between you and the book that you read, and it is sacred,” Radcliffe wrote.

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