Daniel Radcliffe doubles down on LGBTQ+ support after “sad” JK Rowling backlash

Daniel Radcliffe has reaffirmed his LGBTQ+ stance surrounding the backlash aimed at Harry Potter author JK Rowling.

After years of public commentary surrounding Rowling, the Harry Potter star has once again addressed the history of anti-trans allegations aimed at the author.

In June 2020, Rowling released several tweets which were seen as anti-trans (an accusation which she has denied over the years), including one notable example in which she addressed the term: “People who menstruate.” A few days later, Radcliffe, who has been an advocate for the Trevor Project — an LGBTQ suicide-prevention hotline and crisis-intervention resource — since 2009, released a statement via the organization.

In it, he wrote: “Transgender women are women. Any statement to the contrary erases the identity and dignity of transgender people and goes against all advice given by professional health care associations who have far more expertise on this subject matter than either Jo or I.”

Now, in a recent interview with The Atlantic, Radcliffe has doubled down on his stance. “I’d worked with the Trevor Project for 12 years and it would have seemed like, I don’t know, immense cowardice to me to not say something,” he said of the original statement.

“I wanted to try and help people that had been negatively affected by the comments. And to say that if those are Jo’s views, then they are not the views of everybody associated with the Potter franchise.

“It makes me really sad, ultimately, because I do look at the person that I met, the times that we met, and the books that she wrote, and the world that she created, and all of that is to me so deeply empathic.”

Radcliffe also noted the media’s coverage of his response to Rowling, as well as Rupert Grint and Emma Watson’s support of the trans community. “There’s a version of ‘Are these three kids ungrateful brats?’ that people have always wanted to write, and they were finally able to. So, good for them, I guess,” he said.

“Jo, obviously Harry Potter would not have happened without her, so nothing in my life would have probably happened the way it is without that person. But that doesn’t mean that you owe the things you truly believe to someone else for your entire life.”

The ongoing conversation regarding Rowling has undoubtedly become associated with the Harry Potter franchise, with Radcliffe even addressing fans directly in his 2020 statement.

“To all the people who now feel that their experience of the books has been tarnished or diminished, I am deeply sorry for the pain these comments have caused you,” he wrote. “I really hope that you don’t entirely lose what was valuable in these stories to you.”