JK Rowling blasts Lisa Nandy in women’s rights row

J.K. Rowling has blasted Lisa Nandy for her views on trans issues after the MP posted a tweet with a video of her speech to Labour conference about women’s rights.

The Shadow Secretary of State for International Development said she wanted to ’embolden and empower women and girls in every part of the world.’

But the furious Harry Potter author hit back, accusing her of being ‘one of the biggest reasons’ why many women don’t trust Labour to ‘defend their rights.’

The gender-critical writer pointed to the Labour MP’s views on sending trans women rapists to female-only prisons, and how she had signed a  pledge which described Women’s Place UK – an organisation that campaigns to prevent biological men from entering places such as women’s rape refuges – as a ‘trans-exclusionist hate group’.

She wrote: ‘You said rapists should be transferred to women’s prisons if they self-identify as women. 

‘You called Women’s Place UK a hate group. 

‘Given that you’re one of the biggest reasons many women on the left no longer trust Labour to defend their rights, do you stand by those comments?’ 

Ms Nandy was asked at a 2020 campaign rally whether violent male sexual offenders who transition should be allowed to serve their sentence in a jail assigned to prisoners of their new gender.

At the time she told the audience: ‘I believe fundamentally in people’s right to self-ID. 

‘I believe the Gender Recognition Act strikes the wrong balance in relation to that.

‘I think that crimes that are recorded should be recorded as that person wishes, having gone through that process, received support and self-identified.

‘I think trans women are women, I think trans men are men, so I think they should be accommodated in a prison of their choosing.’

This week Ms Nandy posted a video of her Labour party conference speech on X, formerly Twitter, where she said her absolute priority will be to embolden and empower women in every part of the world. 

‘In 2023, that 130million girls are still denied the right to education, and women hold just 25 per cent of parliamentary seats worldwide and one in three of us endures physical or sexual violence at least once in our lifetime is not inevitable,’ she said. 

‘So we will stand with the women who are changing the world and put them at the heart of everything that we do. 

‘With the women in Ghana and Bangladesh who against all odds, are becoming engineers and innovators, transforming their countries.

‘And with the brave women from Belarus to Afghanistan who are rising up to demand not just rights but political power. Let the message from this hall ring loud and clear.’

But she was questioned by Ms Rowling and floods of other followers over her previously voiced views on transgender women’s rights to serve in female prisons. 

‘You need to be clear about what a woman is before anyone will believe you on this,’ one critic said.

Another wrote: ‘You have decided — without checking if that was OK with any of the rest of us — that men are women if they say they are. Which means you’ve already given away all our rights to all men who want them. Your priority is men.’

Ms Rowling has been highly critical of the SNP’s Gender Recognition Bill, warning that ‘all a man needs to ‘become a woman’ is to say he’s one’. 

Critics said the Bryson case had highlighted dangers posed by the Bill to women’s safety.

Isla Bryson raped two women while living as a man, and began transitioning from male to female in 2020, after she was charged with the two sex attacks.

The former DJ’s estranged wife Shonna Graham has dismissed her husband’s transition as a ‘sham’ and told the Mail back in January that Bryson was ‘bullsh***ing the authorities’ to avoid a men’s prison.

The case enraged opponents to Ms Sturgeon’s Gender Recognition Reform (GRR) Bill, who said it demonstrated the potential risks of allowing gender self-identification without the need for medical evidence or diagnosis.

Earlier this year JK Rowling revealed friends ‘begged’ her not to voice her opinions on transgender issues.

The multimillionaire Harry Potter author said she was warned not to get involved in the controversy due to the backlash she would face.

However, she said she felt women were being ‘shut down’ and could not have lived with herself if she didn’t speak out.

Rowling has endured a backlash after voicing concerns that dismissing biological sex in favour of focusing on gender identity would harm women’s rights.

She first aired her views in 2019 when she tweeted her backing for Maya Forstater, a tax expert who was sacked for tweeting that ‘men cannot become women’.