Author JK Rowling is facing criticism for posting an upskirt image of a transgender woman last weekend while demanding that the trans woman debate her.
Rowling wrote post after post on X on July 11, demanding that trans writer Freda Wallace debate her after Wallace called Rowling an “idiot.” Rowling repeatedly deadnamed and misgendered Wallace.
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“[Deadname] still has me blocked, so I rebut his opening statement thus: I am not an idiot,” Rowling wrote in the first of at least eight posts about debating Wallace that day.
“Again, could anyone who’s not blocked by [deadname] please reassure him that I really do want a debate, on any subject he likes,” Rowling asked her millions of followers.
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It appears that Wallace did not un-block and debate Rowling, so Rowling posted a picture of Wallace sitting with one leg crossed over the other in a miniskirt and fishnet stockings. The picture is taken from slightly below Wallace and shows some of Wallace’s upper thigh that wasn’t covered by the stockings.
“Sadly, [deadname] is refusing to debate me,” Rowling wrote, posting the picture. “To prove I have no hard feelings, and that [deadname] does engage with some lucky women, here’s a picture of him debating [Helen Joyce]. I hear he left an indelible impression on the audience. And the chair.”
In the replies, Rowling’s supporters were saying that the bit of visible thigh was actually a scrotum, which, to this journalist at least, it clearly was not.
PinkNews identified the picture as coming from a debate hosted by the Institute of Economic Affairs in 2023 on the topic: “Does transgender ideology threaten liberal values?” The debate topic used the phrase “transgender ideology” in order to pit the audience against trans rights from the start, since being transgender is an identity, not an ideology. That trans people exist is a value-neutral fact. Presenting trans identity—and not trans rights or legal protections—as an ideological debate is a right-wing rhetorical strategy intended to make it seem like being trans is a choice, much like how gay people’s identities are discussed as a “preference” or “lifestyle” by conservatives.
“Would you ever post a photo like this of a cis woman?” one person responded to Rowling. “What would you think of a man who posted a photo like this of any woman? So what makes you think it OK to post this photo of a trans woman?”
Rowling replied that Wallace is “a paraphilic exhibitionist who was having the time of his life” without proof. Rowling, like many trans-exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs), often calls trans women men with sexual perversions as an insult, and apparently, here she thought it was warranted since Wallace wouldn’t debate her.
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