The surrender of cultural institutions to transgender activism has attracted renewed criticism from one of the world’s most commercially successful writers. Taking to X, formerly Twitter, J.K. Rowling wrote
This makes me both sad and angry. An incredibly talented writer and a thoroughly decent human being (the two are by no means synonymous, as we know) traduced by tinpot tyrants without an ounce of his talent or integrity.
She was writing of the ‘pausing’ (self-cancellation) of this year’s Polari Prize, which the organisers temporarily abandoned amid pressure to exclude the longlisted writer John Boyne and his novella Earth. Byrne’s earlier thoughtcrimes involve support for Rowling and penning an apology to the writer and gender-critical activist Graham Linehan.
Tongue-in-cheek, Rowling proposed she create an annual award for bodies who have surrendered to the trans lobby, in the style of this year’s Polari Prize organisers. Other nominees could include the Edinburgh Fringe festival and the National Library of Scotland (NLS), both of which have fallen into line with the censorious demands of trans activists.
The NLS made itself eligible for the hypothetical award when it removed The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht—a collection of feminist essays, including one by Rowling, about the fight against the Scottish government’s gender self-ID laws—from a centenary display of nationally significant books.
