Daniel Radcliffe once again clapped back at JK Rowling’s transphobia

Daniel Radcliffe has always been a staunch supporter of LGBTQ+ rights — even in the face of JK Rowling’s blatant transphobia. She came for the Harry Potter actor’s views earlier this month, and in a new interview, Radcliffe’s given his rebuttal.

In early April, Rowling posted on X that she would never forgive Radcliffe (or his Harry Potter co-star Emma Watson) for supporting trans rights. “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,” she wrote.

Now, in an interview with The Atlantic, Radcliffe responded to Rowling’s statement by staying focused on what matters: “I will continue to support the rights of all LGBTQ people, and have no further comment than that,” he said.

Though Radcliffe said he has no further comment, that was far from his only quote in the interview addressing the topic of Rowling and queer rights.

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When it comes to Rowling’s transphobic views, Radcliffe 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.”

And to those who’d call him ungrateful for opposing the views of the woman who arguably launched his acting career, Radcliffe said that though he’s grateful for the opportunities she gave him, that doesn’t mean he has to agree with her views.

“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,” Radcliffe said. “But that doesn’t mean that you owe the things you truly believe to someone else for your entire life.”

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Radcliffe also shared why he stood up for LGBTQ+ rights in the first place, including his long-time partnership with suicide-prevention hotline the Trevor Project. 

“If there was any value in a famous straight young actor who was from this film series that could be useful in the fight against people killing themselves, then I was just very keen to be a part of that,” he said. 

Getting involved with the Trevor Project also helped Radcliffe connect the dots on why Harry Potter means so much to so many queer people: “I did have a realization of a connection to Harry Potter and this stuff. A lot of people found some solace in those books and films who were dealing with feeling closeted or rejected by their family or living with a secret,” he said.

That’s another reason Radcliffe will never back down when it comes to queer (and specifically trans) rights, no matter what Rowling believes.

“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,” Radcliffe said about speaking up after Rowling revealed her transphobia.

“I wanted to try and help people that had been negatively affected by the comments,” he continued. “And to say that if those are Jo’s views, then they are not the views of everybody associated with the Potter franchise.”

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