J.K. ROWLING, the famed author behind the “Harry Potter” franchise, is back in the news following a two-year-long saga about her views on the transgender community. While the writer has been under scrutiny by trans activists since 2019, this week she revealed that things have escalated into death threats. On Monday, Rowling, 55, retweeted a threat from a since-deleted Twitter account that said, “I wish you a very nice pipebomb in mailbox.” “To be fair, when you can’t get a woman sacked, arrested or dropped by her publisher, and canceling her only made her book sales go up, there’s really only one place to go,” she wrote. When a user asked if the threat was, in part, because of comments she made about the trans community, Rowling confirmed “yes.” “Hundreds of trans activists have threatened to beat, rape, assassinate and bomb me,” she said, saying that she’s since “realized that this movement poses no risk to women whatsoever.” The recent tweets are the latest in an ongoing series of offenses and defenses about her views on gender. In December 2019, Rowling gave public support to Maya Forstater, a U.K. woman who was fired for transphobic tweets after a judge ruled that her views were not protected under Britain’s antidiscrimination laws. In May 2020, Rowling made headlines again when she accidentally tweeted a message with an expletive that misgendered a trans woman named Tara Wolf. Wolf was convicted in 2017 of assaulting a woman she referred to as a TERF (“trans-exclusionary radical feminist”), which is a term used to describe anti-trans feminists or women who exclude trans women in conversations about women’s rights. Soon after, trans activists and allies began accusing her of being a TERF, many of them her loyal fans. Rowling followed up with a series of tweets defending her position. “I respect every trans person’s right to live any way that feels authentic and comfortable to them,” she added. “I’d march with you if you were discriminated against on the basis of being trans. At the same time, my life has been shaped by being female. I do not believe it’s hateful to say so.” The response from fans was extreme, and even included “Harry Potter” stars Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint and Eddie Redmayne chimed in — all of them denouncing her comments and supporting people to learn more about the trans movement. (SD-Agencies) | 