Hagrid Actor Defends J.K. Rowling's Controversial Stance on Transgender Identities

"There's a whole Twitter generation of people who hang around waiting to be offended"

BY Allie GregoryPublished Sep 15, 2020

Basically every single Harry Potter cast member may have denounced the transphobic views of author J.K. Rowling following her summer-long tirade against transgender and gender-nonconforming people — but now, she has at least one of the actors on her side.

Robbie Coltrane — the actor who played Hagrid in the adapted children's movie series — has come to the defence of his old pal Jo, claiming that her many, many, harmful remarks aren't as bad as people have been making them out to be.

"I don't think what she said was offensive really. I don't know why but there's a whole Twitter generation of people who hang around waiting to be offended," he said in an interview with Radio Times [via NME].

"They wouldn't have won the war, would they? That's me talking like a grumpy old man, but you just think, 'Oh, get over yourself. Wise up, stand up straight and carry on,'" he continued. "I don't want to get involved in all of that because of all the hate mail and all that shit, which I don't need at my time of life."

Coltrane's remarks come just one day following Rowling's latest controversy, as a recent review of Troubled Bloodher upcoming novel under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith (perhaps not coincidentally the same name as a 1950s gay conversion therapist), revealed that the book's antagonist is a killer cis man who dresses up as a woman to lure victims.

Prior to that review, Rowling alienated two of her fan clubs for her problematic response to the use of inclusive language in an article about support in the era of COVID-19 for people menstruate, in which she insinuated such language erases the "concept of sex" and thus removes "the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives."

Shortly after that, Rowling also went on a 3,800-word rant, complaining about being "cancelled" for her TERF status — during Pride Month, of all times. Later, she compared hormone treatment to "conversion therapy for young gay people."  

Over the weekend, a billboard showing support for Rowling popped up in East Vancouver. The sign, which read "I [heart] J.K. Rowling," was covered up less than 24 hours after it was erected and deemed "hateful" by City Councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung. 

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