Recently, actor Daniel Radcliffe opened up to IndieWire to address his need to call out Harry Potter author JK Rowling in June of 2020 for her controversial tweets and opinions surrounding the transgender community.
Radcliffe shared:
"The reason I felt very, very much as though I needed to say something when I did was because, particularly since finishing 'Potter,' I've met so many queer and trans kids and young people who had a huge amount of identification with Potter on that."
"And so seeing them hurt on that day... I wanted them to know that not everybody in the franchise felt that way."
"And that was really important."
Radcliffe was referring to his response to Rowling's transphobic tweets regarding the phrase "people who menstruate:"
"Transgender women are women."
"Any statement to the contrary erases the identity and dignity of transgender people and goes against all advice given by professional health care associations who have for more expertise on this subject matter than either Jo or I."
Upon learning of Radcliffe's stance, columnist Judith Woods of the U.K.'s The Telegraph called him "the world's most ungrateful man" and a "33-year-old man child." Woods accused Radcliffe of attempting to "cancel" Rowling.
In her Telegraph piece, Woods refers to Rowling as Radcliffe's "creator" and claims that Radcliffe would not have a career without Rowling.
Many took to Twitter to call out Woods' piece, not only for her terminology but also for seemingly being unable to differentiate between the fictional character Harry Potter and Daniel Radcliffe himself.
Because of his involvement with The Trevor Project, Radcliffe said of his response to Rowling's tweets that he would not have been able to look himself in the mirror if he refrained from speaking out.
He added, "But it's not mine to guess what's going on in someone else's head."
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