Daniel Radcliffe has been left ‘really sad’ by J.K. Rowling’s comments about trans people.
The author, 58, has frequently expressed her views that biological sex is more important than gender identity and that women’s spaces – such as changing rooms and prisons – should remain single-sex and not be open to trans-identified people.
Daniel, 34, who shot to fame playing Harry Potter in the movie adaptations of her beloved children’s books – does not agree with Rowling and has said he believes ‘trans women are women’.
He told The Atlantic: ‘It makes me really sad, ultimately, because I do look at the person that I met, the times that we met, and the books that she wrote, and the world that she created, and all of that is to me so deeply empathic.’
Daniel acknowledged the author – who he has hasn’t spoken to since she began voicing her opinions on trans issues – had played a key role in the path his life has taken, but insisted that doesn’t mean he ‘owes’ his beliefs to her.
Daniel Radcliffe has been left ‘really sad’ by J.K. Rowling’s comments about trans people (pictured in October 2023)
The author, 58, has frequently expressed her views that biological sex is more important than gender identity and that women’s spaces should remain single-sex (JK Rowling pictured in 2022)
Daniel, 34, who shot to fame playing Harry Potter in the movie adaptations of her beloved children’s books – does not agree with Rowling and has said he believes ‘trans women are women’ (L-R Radcliffe, Rowling, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson in 2004)
He said: ‘Jo, obviously Harry Potter would not have happened without her, so nothing in my life would have probably happened the way it is without that person. But that doesn’t mean that you owe the things you truly believe to someone else for your entire life.’
Last month, in response to the publication of the Cass review – which claimed, among other recommendations, there was no good evidence to promote puberty-blocking treatments for trans-identifying young people – Rowling insisted she wouldn’t forgive stars who had spoken out against her, including Daniel and his Harry Potter co-stars.
When one fan said they were ‘just waiting for Dan and Emma [Watson’ to offer a ‘very public apology’ knowing they’d be safe in the knowledge the author would forgive them, she wrote: ‘Not safe I’m afraid. Celebs who cosied up to a movement intent on eroding women’s hard-won rights and who used their platforms to cheer on the transitioning of minors can save their apologies for traumatised detransitioners and vulnerable women reliant on single sex spaces.’
In response, Daniel said: ‘I will continue to support the rights of all LGBTQ people, and have no further comment than that.’
The Kill Your Darlings actor has long been a supporter of the Trevor Project, an LGBTQ suicide-prevention hotline and crisis-intervention resource, and he felt he had to speak out against Rowling in the wake of her initial tweets in 2020 when she questioned the use of the phrase ‘people who menstruate’ in place of ‘women’.
He said: ‘I’d worked with the Trevor Project for 12 years and it would have seemed like, I don’t know, immense cowardice to me to not say something.
‘I wanted to try and help people that had been negatively affected by the comments.
‘And to say that if those are Jo’s views, then they are not the views of everybody associated with the Potter franchise.’
Daniel said: ‘It makes me really sad, ultimately, because I do look at the person that I met, the times that we met, and the books that she wrote, and the world that she created, and all of that is to me so deeply empathic’
Daniel acknowledged the author – who he has hasn’t spoken to since she began voicing her opinions on trans issues – had played a key role in the path his life has taken, but insisted that doesn’t mean he ‘owes’ his beliefs to her (Rowling pictured in December 2023)
He said: ‘Jo, obviously Harry Potter would not have happened without her, so nothing in my life would have probably happened the way it is without that person. But that doesn’t mean that you owe the things you truly believe to someone else for your entire life’
The Kill Your Darlings actor has long been a supporter of the Trevor Project, an LGBTQ suicide-prevention hotline and crisis-intervention resource (pictured in 2001)
In a series of tweets after following the Cass report’s publication, Rowling wrote: ‘Over the last four years, Hilary Cass has conducted the most robust review of the medical evidence for transitioning children that’s ever been conducted. Mere hours after it was released to the press and public, committed ideologues are doubling down.
‘These are people who’ve deemed opponents ‘far-right’ for wanting to know there are proper checks and balances in place before autistic, gay and abused kids – groups that are all overrepresented at gender clinics – are left sterilised, inorgasmic, lifelong patients.
‘I understand that the review’s conclusions will have come as a seismic shock to those who’ve hounded and demonised whistleblowers and smeared opponents as bigots and transphobes, but trying to discredit Hilary Cass’s work isn’t merely misguided. It’s actively malign.
‘Even if you don’t feel ashamed of cheerleading for what now looks like severe medical malpractice, even if you don’t want to accept that you might have been wrong, where’s your sense of self-preservation? The bandwagon you hopped on so gladly is hurtling towards a cliff.
‘And if I sound angry, it’s because I’m bloody angry. I read Cass this morning and my anger’s been mounting all day. Kids have been irreversibly harmed, and thousands are complicit, not just medics, but the celebrity mouthpieces, unquestioning media and cynical corporations.
‘The consequences of this scandal will play out for decades. You cheered it on. You did all you could to impede and misrepresent research. You tried to bully people out of their jobs for opposing you. Young people have been experimented on, left infertile and in pain.
‘I thought the last tweet was going to be my last, but I just burst into tears. The #CassReview may be a watershed moment, but it comes too late for detransitioners who’ve written me heartbreaking letters of regret. Today’s not a triumph, it’s the laying bare of a tragedy.’
The report by Dr Cass, which was commissioned nearly four years ago, made a series of recommendations to overhaul NHS trans services to improve the care that children receive.
She found that there is a ‘lack of high-quality research’ on the effects of giving children puberty blockers and hormones, and recommended that NHS England establish its own research programme.
The report also called for the creation a separate service for those wanting to ‘de-transition’, where a gender transition is stopped or reversed, and recommended a ‘follow-through service’ for 17 to 25-year-olds to protect teenagers ‘falling off a cliff edge’ in care when they hit 17.
In a response to someone claiming Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson would be ‘safe in the knowledge that you will forgive them’ for clashing with her on the topic, the Harry Potter author wrote ‘not safe’
The Harry Potter author responded on X, formerly known as Twitter, to the publication of the Cass review on gender treatment
Dr Cass warned that her review had been hampered by how polarised the debate on trans care for children has become. She said medical professionals had been left ‘[too] afraid to openly discuss their views’.
The report found those who socially transition at an earlier age or before seeing a medical professional were ‘more likely to proceed to a medical pathway’.
She said ‘the importance of what happens in school’ cannot be over-estimated and said parents must not be excluded from conversations over their children’s welfare.
Unregulated private clinics were singled out for some of Dr Cass’s toughest criticism as she echoed GPs’ warnings over prescriptions issued by services based abroad.
The review said family doctors had ‘expressed concern about being pressurised to prescribe hormones after these have been initiated by private providers’.
Radcliffe has spoken out in the past to say adults are ‘condescending’ for expressing misgivings over gender transitioning in children.
Speaking in at a roundtable with six trans and non-binary children organised by LGBTQ suicide prevention charity The Trevor Project in 2023, the actor said: ‘there are also people who also have a slightly condescending but well-meaning attitude of, ‘people are young… and it is a huge decision.’
Daniel has previously called adults ‘condescending’ for expressing concerns over children transitioning. Pictured: The Harry Potter actor in New York on March 28, this year
Emma Watson has also expressed her opposition to JK Rowling’s views on trans issues (pictured in September 2023)
He asked the group of trans youths: ‘I would love to hear from all of you about why we can trust kids to tell us who they are.’
He added that there are ‘some people in the world who are not trying to engage in this conversation in any kind of good faith’.
Radcliffe said: ‘I think a lot of the time it’s just because people don’t know a young trans person so there’s just this theoretical idea about this in their head.’
The November before he had fired a thinly-veiled shot at Rowling by claiming young, queer and transgender fans of the franchise were upset by her stance.
His comments were a barbed reference to Miss Rowling’s tweets from June 2020 in which she ridiculed an article’s description of women as ‘people who menstruate’.
Responding to the online article’s headline, the Harry Potter creator then tweeted: ‘I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?’
In response at the time, Radcliffe hit out at the author, saying: ‘To all the people who now feel that their experience of the books has been tarnished or diminished, I am deeply sorry for the pain these comments have caused you’.
Referencing Ms Rowling’s comments, Radcliffe – who at the time stated ‘transgender women are women’ – said that he wanted to let members of the LGBT+ community know ‘not everybody in the franchise felt that way’.
He added: ‘The reason I felt very, very much as though I needed to say something when I did was because, particularly since finishing Potter, I’ve met so many queer and trans kids and young people who had a huge amount of identification with Potter on that.
‘And so seeing them hurt on that day I was like, I wanted them to know that not everybody in the franchise felt that way. And that was really important.’
Meanwhile Watson, who became famous after playing Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter film series, has previously spoken out on the trans debate.
Ms Watson wrote: ‘Trans people are who they say they are and deserve to live their lives without being constantly questioned or told they aren’t who they say they are.
‘I want my trans followers to know that I and so many other people around the world see you, respect you and love you for who you are.’
Their fellow co-star Rupert Grint has also previously spoken up, telling The Times in 2020: ‘I firmly stand with the trans community and echo the sentiments expressed by many of my peers.
‘Trans women are women. Trans men are men. We should all be entitled to live with love and without judgement.’
In March the following year, he explained his decision to voice his opposition to Ms Rowling’s comments saying that while he has ‘huge respect’ for the author, he can still disagree with her views.
Speaking to Esquire, he added: ‘I am hugely grateful [for] everything that she’s done. I think that she’s extremely talented, and I mean, clearly, her works are genius.’
Elaborating on his reasoning, he went on: ‘But yeah, I think also you can have huge respect for someone and still disagree with things like that…
‘Sometimes silence is even louder. I felt like I had to because I think it was important to. I mean, I don’t want to talk about all that… Generally, I’m not an authority on the subject.
‘Just out of kindness, and just respecting people. I think it’s a valuable group that I think needs standing up for.’
