JK Rowling responds after Nicola Sturgeon reflects on trans rights backlash

JK Rowling has responded after Nicola Sturgeon reflected on the abuse she received over trans rights while in office.

Sturgeon said the author’s “incendiary” comments about trans people had made it “impossible” to “illuminate the issues at the heart [of the debate]”.

In her upcoming memoir, Frankly, Sturgeon pinpointed a picture, posted on social media in 2022, of Rowling wearing a t-shirt – which branded the MSP for Glasgow Southside a “destroyer of women’s rights” – as the moment when “any hope of finding common ground disappeared”.

Sturgeon wrote: “I obviously don’t know what her intentions were but it seems blindingly obvious that a stunt like that was never going to elevate the debate or illuminate the issues at the heart of it.”

Rowling, who is well-known for “gender-critical” views, posted the picture on X/Twitter as part of campaign group For Women Scotland’s opposition to Sturgeon’s planned reforms to the devolved nation’s gender laws.

Approved by the Scottish parliament in December 2022, the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) bill would have made it easier for trans people to gain legal recognition of their gender. The following month it was blocked by the Conservative government at Westminster, in an unprecedented political move.

I stand in solidarity with @ForWomenScot and all women protesting and speaking outside the Scottish parliament. #NoToSelfID pic.twitter.com/5vZNaZu13H

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) October 6, 2022

Reminiscing on Rowling’s post, Sturgeon wrote that it was a turning point for her, where, as far as she was concerned, “rational debate” became impossible.

“To hear myself described as a destroyer of [women’s rights] wounds me deeply,” Sturgeon said, stating that she had never encountered the “type or intensity of vitriol” directed at her before, and claiming that while she was “fair game for robust and uncomfortable challenge”, the messages she received “went beyond that”.

Sturgeon, who will stand down an MSP at next year’s elections, claimed that the incident “resulted in more abuse, of a much-more-vile nature than I had ever encountered before. It made me feel less safe and more at risk of possible physical harm.”

She claimed it was “deeply ironic” that self-professed women’s rights groups subjected her to “this level of hatred and misogynistic abuse”.

Rowling appeared to respond to the claims made in Sturgeon’s book on Monday (11 August) by re-sharing a post from her X account from last month which read: “Calling all British newspapers: I am available to review Nicola Sturgeon’s memoir. No fee required as long as you don’t edit out the swear words.”

The author added in separate post on Tuesday (12 August): “Thank you for your many kind offers, of which there were a considerable amount. 

“Watch my website for my review of ‘Frankly’, the memoir of Scotland’s (checks notes) most persecuted, misunderstood, self-critical, open-to-debate, feminist-to-her-fingertips ex-First Minister.”

Elsewhere in Sturgeon’s memoir, the politician reflected the police investigation into SNP’s finances, having a miscarriage, and her sexuality.

Highlighting a conspiracy theory that alleged she had had a “torrid lesbian affair” with French diplomat Catherine Colonna, Sturgeon said she would normally ignore “wild stories from the darkest recesses of social media,” but that this one had seeped into her personal life.

Her family and friends began asking whether the rumours were true, with one neighbour saying they thought her now estranged husband, the then chief executive of the SNP, Peter Murrell, had a “right to know his wife was having an affair.”

Sturgeon responded by saying: “For many of those peddling it, ‘lesbian’ and ‘gay’ are meant as insults. However, while the fact I was being lied about got under my skin, the nature of the insult itself was water off a duck’s back.

“Long-term relationships with men have accounted for more than 30 years of my life but I have never considered sexuality, my own included, to be binary. Moreover, sexual relationships should be private matters.”

Frankly is due to be published on Thursday (14 August).