Britain’s incoming left-wing government has appointed a new minister for women, but Harry Potter creator and now powerful women’s advocate J.K. Rowling has been quick to point out the politician isn’t sure what a woman even is.
Downing Street, now the bailiwick of left-wing lawyer-Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, announced the appointment of Anneliese Dodds to be Minister of State for Women and Equalities, as well as a Minister of State for Development, on Monday. Dodds has previously made clear she would make transgenderism a priority in government, saying the subject needs “reform and leadership”.
J.K. Rowling, once a darling of the British left for her rags-to-riches backstory and — crucially — her having used state benefits to survive while writing the first Harry Potter book, has now been wholesale abandoned and cancelled for her traditional views on sex. Drawing attention to Dodds’ approach to gender, Rowling quoted her own words without immediate further comment, noting she had said in a BBC interview in 2022:
I have to say that there are different definitions legally around what a woman actually is. I mean you look at the definition within the Equality Act and I think it just says someone who is adult and female, I think, but then doesn’t say how you define either of those things. I mean that’s then… you’ve got the biological definition, the legal definition, all of this kind of thing… it does depend what the context is, surely. You know there are people who have decided to…that they have to make that transition.
Following up later, Rowling called Dodds’ position “nonsensical” and reflected: “Naively, I thought it was our lawmakers’ job to resolve complexities, not add to the confusion.”
The inability of key Labour figures — who now control the British government after last week’s general election — has been a strong undercurrent of recent political debate in the United Kingdom, particularly given the inability of the former Conservative Government to make any meaningful progress on the matter while in power.
J.K. Rowling, who has been very firm on protecting the rights of women to have their private spaces not invaded by men claiming to be women, said last month Labour had “abandoned” women to appease its woke base on the transgender question. The lifelong Labour supporter, who had been an ally and mega-donor of the left-wing party earlier this century during the Prime Minister Gordon Brown era, appeared to back the Communist Party of Britain this past election instead.