Harry Potter novelist JK Rowling has always been the controversy's favourite child, either due to her comments on transgender issues or detransitioning of the self, but this time, the author has garnered by social media backlash over her latest Strike novel which features a cisgender man who wears dresses and kills women.
The author, 55, under her pseudonym Robert Galbraith, has penned a book called "Troubled Blood" that is the latest installment in her Cormoran Strike detective series.
A day before the book's release, fans and foes lambasted Rowling, who has previously made a slew of controversial comments about the trans community, and declared her "dead" by sending #RIPJKRowling to the top of the Twitter trending charts.
#RIPJKRowling is pretty much an indication of how sick society can get. It's also a pretty good identifier of people suffering a psychotic break from spending too much time on Twitter.
— MazzMcK07 (@MazzMcK07) September 14, 2020
#RIPJKRowling why is this trending. You do know that this has actually happened. A man dressed up as a woman to kill victims. What the hell? Bandwagoners I swear.
— Dr. YaYa (@itisyaya) September 14, 2020
#RIPJKRowling she aint dead but her career is ? pic.twitter.com/45JReVZrRl
— daisy (@gxldenweasley) September 14, 2020
Finally, it seems that #RIPJKRowling is now trending. If you explore the comments under that hashtag, you will see many examples of this violent hatred towards women. Not the behaviour of feminists (often pacifist) or conservatives (often religious). https://t.co/BiCqrNeWYu
— LGB Conservatives Worldwide (@ConservativeLGB) September 14, 2020
Love how this is trending because of a headline. Who says that her book will have anything to do with trans issues? #RIPJKRowling
— Ella (@ella_sketchin) September 14, 2020
Rowling's controversial novel
In "The Silkworm," the second novel in the series, Rowling portrays a trans character as being "unstable and aggressive."
"The meat of the book is the investigation into a cold case: the disappearance of GP Margot Bamborough in 1974, thought to have been a victim of Dennis Creed, a transvestite serial killer," wrote the Telegraph in a review of the novel.
"One wonders what critics of Rowling's stance on trans issues will make of a book whose moral seems to be: never trust a man in a dress," it added.
In June, Rowling defended past controversial transphobic comments in a lengthy essay, which also revealed that she was sexually assaulted as a young woman.
"I'm concerned about the huge explosion in young women wishing to transition and also about the increasing numbers who seem to be detransitioning (returning to their original sex), because they regret taking steps that have, in some cases, altered their bodies irrevocably, and taken away their fertility," she wrote.
She and 100 other writers and scholars also penned an essay calling for the end of cancel culture, citing an "intolerance of opposing views," in July.
