J.K. Rowling said she doesn’t care about how she will be remembered for prosperity.
The bestselling British author known for the “Harry Potter” books and for her comments about transgender women — widely seen as unapologetically transphobic — said in a new podcast that she’s not really concerned about how future generations will view her.
“I do not walk around my house thinking about my legacy,” the controversial 57-year-old said in the first episode of “The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling,” out Tuesday.
“You know, what a pompous way to live your life, walking around thinking, ‘What will my legacy be?’ Whatever, I’ll be dead. I care about now. I care about the living,” she added.
The seven-part podcast is based on conversations Rowling had with Megan Phelps-Roper, a former member of the wildly anti-LGBTQ Westboro Baptist Church, who “left a life of religious extremism in 2012″ and who has denounced the church’s hateful homophobic rhetoric.
Phelps-Roper reached out to the author hoping “to understand her perspective” regarding controversies surrounding the author and the backlash she has received over her positions — especially on transgender issues.
Rowling rejects accusations of transphobia, but for the past three years, she has angered LGBTQ advocates for consistently sharing anti-trans views with her 14 million Twitter followers.
Rowling has expressed support for an anti-transgender researcher who was fired for tweeting that “men cannot change into women;” has “liked” several tweets with clear anti-transgender sentiments; promoted a fiercely anti-trans online store; and criticized the leader of the Labor Party in the U.K. for saying “trans women are women.”
She has been denounced as transphobic by LGBTQ rights organizations across the world. Celebrities such as “Harry Potter” star Daniel Radcliffe and Broadway great Anthony Rapp have spoken out against her. She was even condemned by the governing body of the recently renamed Quadball, a real-life sport inspired by Quidditch, a game played in the “Potter” universe.
Last Thursday, a day after The New York Times received two letters criticizing its recent transgender coverage, the paper published an opinion piece titled “In Defense of J.K. Rowling.” Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, called out the piece on Twitter. “Another transphobic column by one of their most consistently anti-transgender opinion writers is published to defend one of the most famous transphobic writers in the world,” she wrote.
Hosted by Phelps-Roper, “The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling” is produced by The Free Press, a media company founded by former opinion editor for The New York Times Bari Weiss.
Weiss is described by some transgender rights advocates as a “key figure in promoting and platforming gender-critical and anti-transgender views.”
According to The Free Press, the podcast is an “audio documentary that examines some of the most contentious conflicts of our time through the life and career of the world’s most successful author.”
Its first two episodes premiered on Tuesday. The remaining five will be released in weekly installments.
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