Handprints on the streets of Edinburgh honouring Harry Potter author Joanne ‘JK’ Rowling have been vandalised following her comments against the “medicalisation” of trans kids.
The handprints were laid down on the streets of the Scottish capital after receiving its Edinburgh award in 2008, alongside those of other Scottish worthies such as Olympic cycling legend Sir Chris Hoy.
Rowling’s handprints — and only Rowling’s handprints — had been smeared over with blood-red paint, with the multicoloured transgender flag planted beside it, the Telegraph reports.
Rowling, once a darling of left-progressives for her massive donations to the Labour Party, calls to re-run the 2016 EU referendum, and claims that her fictional villain Lord Voldemort was “nowhere near as bad” as U.S. President Donald Trump, has lately fallen foul of them for her insistence that biological sex has an importance beyond mere gender identity, and for expressing concerns about supposedly transgender children being “shunted towards hormones and surgery”.
“Many health professionals are concerned that young people struggling with their mental health are being shunted towards hormones and surgery when this may not be in their best interests,” she wrote in a lengthy Twitter thread.
“Many, myself included, believe we are watching a new kind of conversion therapy for young gay people, who are being set on a lifelong path of medicalisation that may result in the loss of their fertility and/or full sexual function,” she added.
The author also recently added her signature to a letter denouncing cancel culture and stressing the need for “the free exchange of information and ideas” — although some of the other would-be free speech warriors withdrew their signatures after they discovered her name had appeared alongside theirs.
“I did not know who else had signed that letter. I thought I was endorsing a well meaning, if vague, message against internet shaming,” pleaded author Jennifer Finney Boylan.
“The consequences are mine to bear. I am so sorry.”
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.