Activists call out JK Rowling with chalk messages outside Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

Trans people drew hundreds of chalk messages calling out JK Rowling during a showing of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

Messages urging Wizarding World fans to reconsider their relationship with the series covered the street corner outside the Palace Theatre in London on Sunday (4 January).

Activists holding trans flags wrote messages calling out the 60-year-old author’s actions and views on the trans community as theatre-goers queued up to watch a showing of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

One of the messages reads: “Spread love, not hate. Boycott Harry Potter.” Another reads: “Harry Potter tattoos have a higher regret rate than transition.”

Over the past few years, Rowling has faced widespread scrutiny for her repeated claims against the trans community, which include funding ‘gender-critical’ legal campaigns and promoting the false claim that trans women are a threat to cisgender women and girls.

Organised by the grassroots activist group DefundTransphobia, the demonstration called on fans of the fantasy series to confront how paying for tickets to the West End show will help financially support Rowling and, by extension, ‘gender-critical’ groups.

One message noted that Rowling has previously donated tends of thousands to For Women Scotland (FWS), a group whose actions led to the infamous Supreme Court ruling determining the 2010 Equality Act’s definition of a woman does not apply to trans women.

According to the West End Theatre, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child made a staggering £8.25 million in 2024 alone, with the majority of profits coming from ticket sales in London.

A portion of this money will contribute to Rowling’s already colossal wealth. Her net worth, as of 2021, was estimated to be at least £820 million ($1.1 billion).

In May last year, Rowling created the JK Rowling Women’s Fund (JKRWF), a private funding organisation designed to subsidise ‘gender-critical’ legal cases and campaigns.

The website claims to fund individuals or groups that are “fighting to retain women’s sex-based rights”, which amount to excluding trans people from using facilities that correspond with their lived gender-identity.

Among the chalk messages written outside the Palace Theatre on Sunday was one that reads: “This play funds hate.” Another reads: “There are better books.”

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