The stars of Queer Eye stopped by Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen, where Jonathan Van Ness addressed J. K. Rowling’s anti-trans comments earlier this month. It isn’t the first time that the Harry Potter author shared transphobic comments on Twitter, where Daniel Radcliffe and Eddie Redmayne both spoke out against her — and now, JVN weighs in.
Cohen shared a question with Van Ness submitted by a fan named Lisa D: “You spoke out about J.K. Rowling’s anti-trans comments earlier this month. Can you speak to why her comments were so damaging and what people can do to help Black trans people?”
Van Ness commented that “J. K. Rowling has come out many times on the side of oppressing a trans person; siding with the idea of oppressing trans folk, and basically just questioning the validity of trans people’s gender identities.”
He continued, “Her fears around the idea of gender are rooted in white supremacy, and they have been for a really long time. Because her feminism is not intersectional, meaning that if you’re a trans woman, she does not believe that you deserve the same rights and protections that a cisgender woman does. So, she’s really hung up on the biology and really hung up on the binary of biology, which also really omits people who are intersex. The biology of sex is not binary, there are intersex folks. So, I think really in the meantime — because the Black Lives Matter movement is so important — but also Black trans people are extra targeted and extra marginalised. And to take this time, on a platform like J. K Rowling’s, to spread this kind of transphobic vitriol and sew this kind of discord, I just think it’s so disappointing. So, I think in the meantime, it’s about donating to The Okra Project, donating to the organisations that are doing the work on the ground to help people that really need it. It’s just disheartening to talk about J. K. Rowling when we’ve lost three Black trans lives in the last two weeks.”
