In an interview with Byline TV Wednesday night, transgender woman India Willoughby, a former contestant on “Celebrity Big Brother” and co-host of “Loose Women,” said she reported writer JK Rowling to the police from Northumbria.
Writer JK Rowling is accused of transphobia, archive photo
She accuses the author of the famous “Harry Potter” series of calling her “man”, although she is a woman, and that he frequently made malicious remarks about his gender, on the Internet, in an ongoing dispute, informs the Independent..
“JK Rowling has certainly committed a crime. I am legally a woman. She knows I'm a woman and she called me a man,” Willoughby said in the interview. “It's a protected characteristic and that's a breach of both the Equality Act and the Gender Recognition Act. She tweeted this to her 14 million followers.”
India Willoughby continued: “I reported JK Rowling to the police for what she said, which I don't know if it will be treated as a hate crime, malicious communications – but it's a borderline offense as far as I'm concerned“.
Asked by journalists about the situation, a spokesman for Northumbria Police offered the following statement: “On Monday, March 4, we received a complaint about a social media post. We are currently waiting to speak further with the complainant.”
After the airing of the interview in which India Rowling Willoughby stated that she had complained to him, JK Rowling made a post on X, formerly Twitter, saying that she had consulted a lawyer who assured her that “not only do I have a clear winnable case against India Willoughby for defamation, but that India's obsessive targeting of me over the last few years may reach the legal threshold for harassment“.
“I ignored this advice because I couldn't be bothered to give India the publicity it so badly wants. (…) However, we must all do our part to combat hate, so India will be happy to know that we have taken note of its homophobia, racism and humane stance on immigration. (…) I haven't forgotten India's shocking transphobia either. He seems to have overlooked that India previously called another transgender woman a man on this very site” – attacked the famous JK Rowling.
She went on to say that there is a right to personal opinion and philosophical beliefs on one issue or another are protected by law, recalling the Forstater ruling. “Surprisingly for such an eminent legal authority, he seems to have forgotten that the Forstater decision established that gender-critical views can be legally protected as a philosophical belief” – says the writer.
Maya Forstater won a case at the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) in 2021, where she succeeded in proving that gender-critical views were a philosophical belief protected under the Equality Act 2010.
India Willoughby versus JK Rowling
“To say that a transsexual person is male, knowing deliberately that person is female, and I am female, regardless of what JK Rowling says… (…) My birth certificate says female, my passport says my, on all my documents I am legally recognized as female, and the fact that JK Rowling deliberately, and that's the key word, misgendered me, even though she knew who I was, is extremely offensive.” India Willoughby said.
India Willoughby filed a complaint with the police, Facebook photo
“Aware as I am that it is a crime to lie to law enforcement, I will simply have to explain to the police that, in my opinion, India is a classic example of a male narcissist who lives in a state of perpetual rage for that he cannot force women to consider him at the value he places on himself” – concluded the bestseller author in her post.
JK Rowling's views have been criticized before
JK Rowling has come under fire in recent years for her views on the trans community, particularly trans women, which many have perceived as anti-trans. Her comments were criticized including by some of those who made “Harry Potter” famous, including Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint and Eddie Redmayne.
However, in a February 23 conference call, Warner Bros. Discovery's David Zaslav said executives recently met with JK Rowling about relaunching the “Harry Potter” series.
“I spent some real time with JK and her team. Both parties are simply excited to relaunch this franchise. Our conversations have been great and we couldn't be more excited for what lies ahead. We can't wait to share a decade of new stories with fans around the world on Max.” Zaslav said during the call.
