JK Rowling said “I’d march with you if you were discriminated against on the basis of being trans.” With #BanConversionTherapy protests taking place across the UK and Ireland yesterday the LGBTQIA+ community are asking Where was JK Rowling?

The LGBTQIA+ community have stepped forwards as one to oppose the Government’s decision to exclude trans people from the conversion therapy ban. Over 100 groups pulled out of the #SafeToBeMe2022 conference which has since been cancelled. A petition has been circling and acheived 100,000 signatures in 4 days and protest action took place in Dublin, Belfast and London; with the Downing Street protest in particular seeing 3000 attendees.

JK Rowling has begun trending on Twitter in the aftermath of the protest as trans people in particular remember that in June 2020 JK Rowling posted the following tweet;

“I respect every trans person’s right to live any way that feels authentic and comfortable to them. 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.”

A tweet which has been used to dismiss criticism of transhobia from the children’s author. So when the Government announced its plans to discriminate against transgender people on the basis of being transgender. With regards to a conversion therapy ban which seeks to make it illegal to stop LGBTQIA+ people living any way that feels authentic and comfortable to us. We wondered, would JK Rowling finally march with us? Would she finally show us what a true trans ally she is and always has been?

Would she bollocks!

Instead JK Rowling spent the day hanging out with dedicated anti-trans activists, including the group known as “Get The L Out” a group of anti-trans lesbians whose home page very literally says they “stand against transgenderism”. They were also cited in the infamous BBC article that attempted to frame transgender women as rapists, they are the ones who did the survey and still only got half of their userbase to agree with the premise!

Other attendees of the wine-soaked event include Maya Forstater, Rosie Duffield and Allison Bailey. It appears as though while trans people were marching for equality and to not have the gender identity tortured out of us, JK Rowling was instead hobnobbing it up with anti-trans activists.

And honestly, we all expected this. She signalled her transphobia, got annoyed when people didn’t like it and then proceeded to make out like eveyone else was being unreasonable when she literally joined a hate campaign. I’m glad there is no mistaking her position any longer.

She won’t march with you, she would rather raise a glass to the reasons there’s a march at all.