J.K. Rowling’s New Book Is Reportedly About A Man Who Wears Dresses To Murder Women

The author has faced backlash after a reviewer said the moral of her book “Troubled Blood” is to “never trust a man in a dress.”
LOADINGERROR LOADING

J.K. Rowling is apparently dissatisfied with merely sharing her transphobic views on Twitter and in 3,600-word essays.

According to an early review in The Telegraph, “Troubled Blood,” the fifth installment in her Cormoran Strike series written under her pseudonym Robert Galbraith, is about a cold case from 1974 that involves “a transvestite serial killer.”

“One wonders what critics of Rowling’s stance on trans issues will make of a book whose moral seems to be: never trust a man in a dress,” the reviewer wrote of the book that comes out Tuesday.

HuffPost reached out to Rowling’s publishers and management for comment but did not receive an immediate response.

Critics of the “Harry Potter” author’s controversial opinions slammed her on Twitter, causing the hashtag #RIPJKRowling to trend Monday.

This apparently isn’t the first time Rowling’s anti-trans views have made their way into this particular series, according to trans journalist Katelyn Burns, who reviewed a passage from “The Silkworm,” the second Cormoran Strike book, for the them platform in 2018.

According to Burns, there is a woman in “The Silkworm” named Pippa who stalks Strike, the book’s titular detective. Apparently Pippa — whom Rowling describes as “unstable and aggressive” — follows Strike to his office to stab him, but Strike traps her. Pippa is then revealed to be a trans woman after Strike checks her ID and notes her Adam’s apple and hands. In the passage, Strike also threatens Pippa at one point by telling her that prison “won’t be fun for you… Not pre-op.”

In June, Rowling also published a series of anti-trans tweets in which she argued that only cis women menstruate and suggested that the very idea of gender identity invalidates her experience as a cisgender woman.

As a result, GLAAD, Harry Potter fan groups “MuggleNet” and “The Leaky Cauldron,” and stars of the “Harry Potter” franchise, including Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson, publicly condemned Rowling.

Rowling, however, didn’t back down. Instead, she defended her stance in a 3,600-word essay and said her experience as a survivor of sexual assault influenced her views.

“When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman ― and, as I’ve said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones ― then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside,” she wrote. “That is the simple truth.”

Popular in the Community

Close

What's Hot