Transphobic billionaire Harry Potter author JK Rowling compared herself to convicted rapist and championship boxer Mike Tyson while threatening critics who dare to publicly criticize her on social media.
“If you walked up to Mike Tyson in a bar and punched him in the face, I doubt ‘you can’t hit back because I’m so puny!’ would save you from consequences,” she wrote in an August 20 X post. “Same on X. If you want to punch me in public but don’t want to risk a brain injury in return, stick to your own weight class.”
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Tyson was convicted of rape in 1992 for the alleged 1991 rape of 18-year-old Desiree Washington. Tyson was 25 years old at the time of the alleged sexual assault. He was subsequently sentenced to six years in prison, though he only served three years before his release.
Rowling’s identifying with an infamous convicted rapist is notable considering that she opposes allowing adult trans women into sex-segregated spaces like women’s restrooms, prisons, and abuse shelters, arguing this could let in “any and all men who wish to come inside” and possibly harm women.
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X commenter, @JeannaBeanGood, replied to Rowling, “When YOU are the one throwing the first punch on a smaller, marginalized group of people to the point they are forced to defend themselves. Don’t play the victim card when someone punches back. You ARE the bully in these scenarios, don’t forget that.”
J.K. Rowling uses her fortune to fund anti-trans legal attacks
Rowling has used her vast wealth, mostly accumulated through the success of her Harry Potter franchise and its many multimedia spinoffs, to personally fund legal cases aimed at diminishing rights and protections for transgender women in the U.K. and Ireland.
A spokesperson for Rowling confirmed that the author’s JK Rowling Women’s Fund (JKRWF) has been quietly operating since late 2024, managing “her ongoing financial support for legal cases involving women’s and girls’ sex-based rights.”
The fund is just her latest effort to end trans women’s rights in the U.K. In February 2024, she pledged a £70,000 (about $89,000) to For Women Scotland (FWS), the anti-trans organization behind the legal challenge that resulted in the U.K. Supreme Court’s ruling that excluded trans women from the country’s law prohibiting sex-based discrimination.
Since late 2024, she has also used JKRWF to offer financial legal support to cisgender women who “have lost their livelihoods or are facing tribunals” due to their anti-trans beliefs, as well as individuals and organizations that are “being forced to comply with unreasonable inclusion policies regarding single sex spaces and services, or female-only clubs and events” or “are challenging legislation which takes away the freedoms or protections [cisgender] women are entitled to.”
Rowling will serve as an executive producer for HBO’s Harry Potter series. Casey Bloys, HBO’s gay CEO, has repeatedly dismissed concerns about her toxic transphobia, saying that Rowling is “entitled” to “her personal political views,” ading, “If you want to debate her, you can go on Twitter.”
According to The Guardian, the Harry Potter franchise is worth an estimated $25 billion. In a May 28 Bluesky post, British barrister Jolyon Maugham wondered how much of Rowling’s fortune would be spent “oppressing a minoritised group she doesn’t like.”
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