JK Rowling raises concerns over trans hormones, calls it 'new form of gay conversion therapy'
Author J.K. Rowling has continued to raise concerns about transgender activism, particularly the promotion of experimental puberty blockers prescribed to minors, for which she was recently accused of attacking people who take medication to aid their mental health.
The bestselling writer voiced her frustrations on Twitter Sunday, where she said she's "ignored fake tweets attributed to me and RTed widely. I've ignored porn tweeted at children on a thread about their art. I've ignored death and rape threats. I'm not going to ignore this," she added, referring to accusations that she described people who take medication for their mental health as "lazy."
The online harassment Rowling has endured in recent days stems from her criticisms of transgender ideology.
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"When you lie about what I believe about mental health medication and when you misrepresent the views of a trans woman for whom I feel nothing but admiration and solidarity, you cross a line," Rowling added in the tweet-thread on Tuesday.
"I’ve written and spoken about my own mental health challenges, which include OCD, depression and anxiety. I did so recently in my essay ‘TERF Wars.’ I’ve taken anti-depressants in the past and they helped me."
Rowling's 4,000-word essay "TERF Wars" was published on June 10 on her website where she articulated her perspective on the dangers transgenderism poses to women and their rights. TERF stands for trans-exclusionary radical feminist and is considered a derogatory slur.
The author further explained in her posts that she believes modern gender-transitioning amounts to a new kind of gay conversion therapy that might cause sterility and the loss of their full sexual function, pointing to a recent BBC documentary scrutinizing the Tavistock clinic in London where whistleblowers spoke about how such transitions were driven by homophobia.
"The long-term health risks of cross-sex hormones have now been tracked over a lengthy period. These side-effects are often minimized or denied by trans activists," Rowling continued, linking to a February 2019 News-Medical.net article about an American Heart Association study on hormone use that revealed an elevated risk of cardiac problems such as heart attacks, strokes, and blood clots.
Rowling also highlighted the words of Oxford University professor of medicine Carl Henegan who has called the off-label use of puberty-blocking drugs on minors an "unregulated live experiment on children."
In response to Benjamin Cohen, CEO of the LGBT media outlet Pink News, who dismissed her concerns as uninformed on Sunday, Rowling added Tuesday: "I'm a world expert on being talked over, lied about and defined by misogynists, on being instructed to centre everyone but my own demographic in my activism and on being denied credit for my own achievements by envious men. In other words, I'm a woman."
The renowned British author has faced an intense media backlash in recent weeks due to her comments, including from "Harry Potter" film stars Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson.
Her words about the controversial medical practices come as England's National Health Service updated its guidelines on the medicalization of gender dysphoria, shifting away from having previously claimed that puberty blockers were reversible. The revised NHS guidelines now say that the long-term side effects of the drugs remain unknown and also lists several risk factors.
Meanwhile, an ongoing lawsuit against the Tavistock clinic, in which detransitioner (a formerly trans-identified person) Keira Bell is a claimant, alleges that gender-confused children were being rushed into hormonal and surgical transitions without an adequate explanation of the permanent effects on their bodies.
