Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling criticized Sky News on X (formerly known as Twitter) after the British television news channel shared a story about a 26-year-old being jailed for murder and referred to her as a "woman" instead of as a "transgender woman."
Scarlet Blake was sentenced to life imprisonment after murdering a man four months after she live-streamed a video that showed her killing a cat and placing it in a blender. Blake’s crime was seemingly inspired by Netflix’s docu-series “Don’t F*** With Cats,” which centers around a man named Luka Magnotta, who kills kittens before filming a murder.
Highlights
- J.K. Rowling disagrees with Sky News referring to Scarlet Blake, a trans murderer, as a "woman".
- The writer criticized Sky News for not specifying "transgender woman" in crime reporting.
- "Crime statistics are rendered useless if violent and sexual attacks committed by men are recorded as female crimes," she wrote.
Image credits: Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency
Prosecutors said Blake had a "fixation with violence" and found the victim, 30-year-old Jorge Martin Carreno, while searching the streets of Oxford looking for someone to kill in the early hours of 25 July 2021.
The BBC reports that Blake, who identifies as transgender, will serve a life sentence in a men’s prison.
Sky News reported on the crime with the following tweet: “BREAKING: A woman who filmed herself killing a cat before putting the animal in a blender has been jailed for life for murdering a man four months later.”
The best-selling author reposted the message, writing to her 14 million followers, “I'm so sick of this sh*t. This is not a woman. These are #NotOurCrimes.”
The Harry Potter author disagreed with referring to trans killer Scarlet Blake as a woman
Image credits: jk_rowling
Blake, formerly known as Alice Wang, arrived in the UK from China when she was nine years old and came out to her parents when she was twelve. She said it “made my father really unhappy and my mother as well” and “caused a large emotional rift,” according to the BBC.
Jurors were told that the killer had an “extreme interest in death and… harm” that “went beyond mere fantasy.”
Rowling continued her rant by re-sharing a post from The Guardian writer Louise Tickle, who criticized the English newspaper for also not identifying Blake as a transgender woman in its coverage of the verdict, which she thought “deceiving.”
The Harry Potter author said that she agreed with “every single word” of Tickle’s post.
She also suggested that Blake should serve her sentence in a men's prison
Image credits: jk_rowling
An X user then responded to Rowling’s comments about Blake, writing, “What a weird thing to complain about. As if there aren’t plenty of cis women that have committed horrible crimes. What does it matter how the person identifies?”
The term “cis,” short for “cisgender,” describes someone whose internal sense of gender corresponds with the sex the person was identified as having at birth.
In a separate post, the Gloucestershire-born writer shared a screenshot of the user’s comment and responded, “1. Crime statistics are rendered useless if violent and sexual attacks committed by men are recorded as female crimes.
“2. Activists are already clamouring for this sadistic killer to be incarcerated in a women's prison.
“3. Ideologically-driven misinformation is not journalism.”
Scarlet Blake, 26, who had filmed herself killing a cat, has been jailed for life for murdering a man four months later
Image credits: Thames Valley Police
She also re-tweeted a message that read, “Scarlet Blake is the latest in a long line of violent men who claim 'women's identities' before or after committing a serious offence. He is, and remains a man, no matter what he calls himself.”
Rowling’s comments about the transgender community, widely labeled “anti-trans” by the public (including many of her readers), are frequently met with backlash on social media.
Her first case of controversy with the LGBTQ+ community dates back to June 2020 when she tweeted, among other things, “If sex isn’t real, there’s no same-sex attraction. If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased.”
The mother of three has previously suggested that transgender women like Blake “retain male patterns of criminality,” which makes them likelier than cisgender women to assault someone in a women’s locker room or shelter.
In October, the 58-year-old writer claimed that she would “happily” go to jail in order to keep misgendering people.
In October, the 58-year-old writer claimed that she would “happily” go to jail in order to keep misgendering people.
She wrote: “I’ll happily do two years if the alternative is compelled speech and forced denial of the reality and importance of sex.
“Bring on the court case, I say. It’ll be more fun than I’ve ever had on a red carpet.”
The body of the victim, 30-year-old Jorge Martin Carreno, was found in the River Cherwell at Parson's Pleasure in July 2021
Image credits: Thames Valley Polic
Tia Latham, an intersex woman with a transgender experience, has described Rowling’s comments as “detrimental” to the trans community.
“It plays into many misinformed views that have been curated by people in positions of power to sensationalize, hyper-sexualize, and attack some of the most vulnerable people in society,” the LGBTQ+ activist and television personality told Bored Panda.
“JK Rowling is obsessed with trans people and won’t stop attacking us,” she continued. “She should have her OBE revoked by the King seeing as she represents hate.”
“As someone who grew up reading and loving her books, seeing her attack my community at every opportunity she gets is devastating.”
The activist, who has over 54,000 followers on Instagram, explained that Rowling’s anti-trans tirades exacerbate the state of marginalization of the transgender community.
“There has been a drastic shift in attitudes towards trans people, and unfortunately, it’s for the worst,” she said.
Transgender people are over four times more likely than cisgender people to experience violent victimization, including rape, sexual assault, and aggravated or simple assault, according to a study by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law.
Many people disagreed with Rowling's anti-trans comments
