J.K. Rowling’s rampant transphobia makes Daniel Radcliffe "really sad"

As we’ve witnessed, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling’s anti-transgender agenda has gone beyond political belief into a full-blown obsession. She posts about gender ideology debates near-daily on Twitter/X, lending her considerable capital (both social and financial) to causes championed by trans-exclusionary radical feminists. This reflects not only on Rowling, but on the entire Wizarding World empire she’s built, including its original stars, like Daniel Radcliffe.

Recently nominated for a Tony Award for his performance in Merrily We Roll Along on Broadway, Radcliffe tells The Atlantic that he currently has no contact with Rowling. “It makes me really sad, ultimately,” he shares, “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.” In fact, during his time making the blockbusters and becoming an advocate for the LGBTQ+ organization The Trevor Project, “I did have a realization of a connection to Harry Potter and this stuff,” Radcliffe explains. “A lot of people found some solace in those books and films who were dealing with feeling closeted or rejected by their family or living with a secret.”

When Rowling initially began sharing her transgender skepticism publically in 2020, Radcliffe released his own statement through the Trevor Project distancing himself from her views. “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. I wanted to try and help people that had been negatively affected by the comments,” he says now. “And to say that if those are Jo’s views, then they are not the views of everybody associated with the Potter franchise.”

All three of the series’ main stars (Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint) have voiced their support for the trans community. In response to a fan’s post last month, Rowling said (via People) that she wouldn’t accept an apology from or forgive Radcliffe and Watson for their remarks: “Celebs who cosied up to a movement intent on eroding women’s hard-won rights and who used their platforms to cheer on the transitioning of minors can save their apologies for traumatised detransitioners and vulnerable women reliant on single sex spaces.”

“I will continue to support the rights of all LGBTQ people, and have no further comment than that,” Radcliffe says on the subject. However, of the general phenomenon that pit the actors against the author, he observes, “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.”

In his original Trevor Project statement, Radcliffe specifically noted that “certain press outlets will probably want to paint this as in-fighting between J. K. Rowling and myself, but that is really not what this is about, nor is it what’s important right now.” Unfortunately, Rowling’s extremely high profile warps a civil rights issue for trans people into a he-said she-said between two cisgender celebrities. To his credit, Radcliffe remains undaunted by this “feud,” such as it is. “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,” he says. “But that doesn’t mean that you owe the things you truly believe to someone else for your entire life.”