JK Rowling apologises for explicit ‘TERF’ response to child’s illustration

JK Rowling has addressed a tweet she sent in which she pasted a string of text about the assault of Maria Maclaughlin.

The Harry Potter author has been sharing artwork from kids for her upcoming children’s book Ickabog, over the last few days.

Taking to Twitter on Friday (29 May), the 54-year-old quote-tweeted a picture a nine-year-old drew of the character – sent in by their mum.

However, when responding to the photo, she appeared to add a sentence from a message about transgender activist Tara Wolf, who assaulted Maria in 2018.

The text she pasted misgendered Tara, referring to her as ‘he’ – and was taken down shortly after.

‘I love this truly fabulous Ickabog, with its bat ears, mismatched eyes and terrifying bloodstained teeth!’ it read.

‘In court, Wolf claimed the Facebook post in which he’d said he wanted to “f**k up some TERFS” was just “bravado”.’

After taking the tweet down, she followed it up with: ‘(Sorry about the random and totally unconnected sentence that made its way in there. I accidentally pasted in part of a very un-Ickaboggish message I’d just received).’

In a string of posts the author later insisted she ‘didn’t mean’ to post the quote – while explaining she was ‘not ashamed’ of reading about the case.

‘I’m going to say this once and I’m going to say it calmly and politely,’ she said. 

‘I certainly didn’t mean to paste a quotation from a message about the assault of Maria Maclaughlin into a tweet to a child, especially given the language used by the person convicted of the crime 1/2.

‘However, I am not – as many of the people now swarming into my mentions seem to think – ashamed of reading about the assault. 

‘You should know by now that accusations of thought crime leave me cold. Take your censorship and authoritarianism elsewhere. They don’t work on me.’

Rowling made headlines last year when she defended researcher Maya Forstater – who was sacked for tweeting that transgender women can’t change their biological sex.

In a message on the social media platform that disappointed many fans. the Lethal White writer penned: ’Dress however you please. Call yourself whatever you like. Sleep with any consenting adult who’ll have you. Live your best life in peace and security.

‘But force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real?’

Many followers criticised this and branded her a ‘TERF’ (trans exclusionary radical feminist) for her defence of Forstater, who wrote that ‘men cannot change into women’.

Back in March, 2018, she also faced backlash for liking a post calling trans women ‘men in dresses’ – with her rep telling Metro.co.uk at the time that it was an accident.

‘I’m afraid J.K. Rowling had a clumsy and middle-aged moment and this is not the first time she has favourited by holding her phone incorrectly,’ they said.

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