We’ve known for a while that JK Rowling harbours some anti-trans views but things escalated big time when she, without prompting, shared some horrendously outdated transphobic tweets recently. But for every bad take there’s a remedy, and Daniel Radcliffe has issued a statement in rebuke against JK Rowling’s anti-trans remarks that’s both classy in how he addresses the Harry Potter author while defending the transgender and nonbinary communities.
The GOAT team dive right into the whole JK Rowling anti-trans debacle on ‘It’s Been A Big Day For…’ below:
In a thoughtful rebuttal for The Trevor Project, Daniel Radcliffe starts by acknowledging how people may “paint” his statement as some sort of feud between JK Rowling and immediately quashes that notion by saying how grateful he is to her for Harry Potter and leaves it at that without commenting on or condemning her anti-trans remarks or transgender stance.
Instead, Daniel diverts all the attention towards supporting the transgender and nonbinary community, writing “transgender women are women” and that “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 [J.K. Rowling] or I.”
But perhaps the best part of Daniel Radcliffe’s statement was admitting he’s “still learning how to be a better ally” to the transgender and nonbinary communities before imploring others to do the same by linking to some great Trevor Project information on how to do just that.
Daniel concludes his statement with a powerful bit apologising to people who may “feel that their experience of the [Harry Potter] books has been tarnished or diminished” due to JK Rowling’s remarks, but hopes that they “don’t entirely lose what was valuable in [those] stories to [them]” and that the lessons they learned from the books will hopefully not be tainted “too much” by what was said.
It’s no secret that Daniel Radcliffe is a pretty upstanding chap, but his Trevor Project statement defending the transgender and nonbinary community without condemning JK Rowling for her anti-trans remarks is just pure class. During a time when celebs are being problematic, it’s nice to know that Daniel is still a good egg.
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