Harry Potter author and virulent transphobe JK Rowling apparently was not swayed by the cyberbullying lawsuit filed against her by Algerian Olympic boxer Imane Khelif after she baselessly accused Khelif of being trans.
Now Rowling has once again resumed her favorite pastime of attacking trans people for no reason, this time she set her sights on Italian Paralympic sprinter Valentina Petrillo, who is transgender and visually impaired.
Petrillo recently opened up to the press about enduring Rowling's branding of her as an "out and proud cheat," and her response is frankly a master class in shade.
In an interview with UK newspaper The Times, Petrillo openly celebrated the fact that she's attracted so much of Rowling's attention despite not really knowing much about the writer.
“I’m flattered that Rowling is talking about me. I’ve never even read 'Harry Potter.' I’m told she wrote it but I didn’t read it."
She then mocked the approach to gender found in Rowling's own iconic works.
"I was told that she wrote about a sport where there is no gender. So, I was expecting different behavior from Rowling."
Petrillo's comments come after Rowling bloviated at length about Petrillo in a thread on X, in which she sarcastically wrote:
“The cheat community has never had this kind of visibility. Out and proud cheats like Petrillo prove the era of cheat-shaming is over. What a role model. I say we give [disgraced cyclist] Lance Armstrong his medals back and move on. #Cheats #NoShame.”
In a follow-up post, Rowling went on to play her favorite game in which she pretends to have no problem with MOST transgender people, just the ones she deems to be supposedly fraudulent women using their gender to cheat her and other women out of, in this case, *checks notes* Paralympic titles she didn't even win.
“Stereotypes are simplistic/prejudiced blanket assumptions about a demographic that don’t correlate with the facts. I know all trans people aren’t cheats."
"However, knowing you have an unfair advantage and exploiting it anyway is pretty much the textbook definition of cheating.”
And using your power as a world-famous billionaire cultural figure to repeatedly attack people who've done absolutely nothing to you is pretty much the textbook definition of deranged, debilitating insecurity.
On social media, many people applauded Petrillo for speaking out against Rowling.
Petrillo also noted to The Times that, contrary to Rowling's seeming obsession with her gender, her fellow Paralympians have welcomed her with open arms and she's never felt so accepted as she has in the Olympic Village.
@jaketapoer/Bluesky
@BillAckman/Twitter