Article Chris Columbus doesn’t understand why he disagrees with JK Rowling
Article Chris Columbus doesn’t understand why he disagrees with JK Rowling
Sep 2 2025, 2:13 PM
https://unherd.com/newsroom/chris-columbus-doesnt-understand-why-he-disagrees-with-jk-rowling/
Quote:Chris Columbus, who directed two of the Harry Potter films, wants you to know he doesn’t agree with J.K. Rowling on trans issues. Which trans issues, one may ask? Indeed, Rowling has asked this herself. Is Columbus desperate to keep male rapists in women’s prisons? Does he hate thinking of lesbians never experiencing the joys of the male penis? Is he a fan of breast binders and mastectomies for traumatised teenage girls?
Well, he’s not going to say. He just wants everyone to know that Rowling’s questioning of all of these things and more makes him “really sad”.
In fairness, Columbus is only one of a long list of people with professional links to Rowling — including Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Stephen Fry — who keep declaring how much they disagree with her without ever stating why. They might produce some waffle about kindness, but at no point do they explain why their position should be considered the kind one.
This is a common feature of the “trans debate”. Even Judith Butler, supposed high priestess of gender wisdom, can’t muster a single argument against the women she denounces as Terfs. The entirety of her attack on British feminism in her 2024 book Who’s Afraid of Gender? amounts to smearing feminists as Right-wing, misunderstanding the concept of biological essentialism, and not showing any signs of having read a gender-critical text to the end. Then again, she doesn’t have to. After all, she’s on the “right” side.
How did it come to this? Columbus et al. aren’t necessarily stupid — that the feminist case against gender self-ID is distinct from the conservative one is hardly difficult to grasp. Both trans activists and their Right-wing opponents are happy to define women using regressive stereotypes; they merely disagree on whether a regressive stereotype should be born with a vagina. Yet rather than engage with women such as Rowling, who rejects both positions in favour of centring female subjectivity, many in the arts and academia have chosen to pretend the feminist position simply does not exist.
The double standard is staggering. One thing that the past decade’s “gender wars” have thrown into sharp relief is the difference between those who get their views by thinking through an issue and making a choice, and those who simply self-ID into being a member of Team Progressive. From a distance, if you didn’t think very hard about it, trans activism could look a bit like the fight for gay liberation. After all, it seemed to annoy the very people who’d get annoyed about the latter. It’s therefore incredibly ironic that so many people who claim to want an end to binaries have found themselves supporting a misogynistic, homophobic movement because they can’t conceive of there being more than two sides.
It is much easier to don a “Protect the dolls” t-shirt than to answer any of the following questions: what’s the difference between a trans woman and a man who says he’s a woman? How do you conflate sex and gender without reinforcing sexism? How is gender diversity promoted by telling gender non-conforming children they’re actually the opposite sex?
Discussion on Vexxed.
Kozlik's regular member account. 🍀🐐
UnHerd, September 2 2025.
https://unherd.com/newsroom/chris-columbus-doesnt-understand-why-he-disagrees-with-jk-rowling/
Quote:Chris Columbus, who directed two of the Harry Potter films, wants you to know he doesn’t agree with J.K. Rowling on trans issues. Which trans issues, one may ask? Indeed, Rowling has asked this herself. Is Columbus desperate to keep male rapists in women’s prisons? Does he hate thinking of lesbians never experiencing the joys of the male penis? Is he a fan of breast binders and mastectomies for traumatised teenage girls?
Well, he’s not going to say. He just wants everyone to know that Rowling’s questioning of all of these things and more makes him “really sad”.
In fairness, Columbus is only one of a long list of people with professional links to Rowling — including Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Stephen Fry — who keep declaring how much they disagree with her without ever stating why. They might produce some waffle about kindness, but at no point do they explain why their position should be considered the kind one.
This is a common feature of the “trans debate”. Even Judith Butler, supposed high priestess of gender wisdom, can’t muster a single argument against the women she denounces as Terfs. The entirety of her attack on British feminism in her 2024 book Who’s Afraid of Gender? amounts to smearing feminists as Right-wing, misunderstanding the concept of biological essentialism, and not showing any signs of having read a gender-critical text to the end. Then again, she doesn’t have to. After all, she’s on the “right” side.
How did it come to this? Columbus et al. aren’t necessarily stupid — that the feminist case against gender self-ID is distinct from the conservative one is hardly difficult to grasp. Both trans activists and their Right-wing opponents are happy to define women using regressive stereotypes; they merely disagree on whether a regressive stereotype should be born with a vagina. Yet rather than engage with women such as Rowling, who rejects both positions in favour of centring female subjectivity, many in the arts and academia have chosen to pretend the feminist position simply does not exist.
The double standard is staggering. One thing that the past decade’s “gender wars” have thrown into sharp relief is the difference between those who get their views by thinking through an issue and making a choice, and those who simply self-ID into being a member of Team Progressive. From a distance, if you didn’t think very hard about it, trans activism could look a bit like the fight for gay liberation. After all, it seemed to annoy the very people who’d get annoyed about the latter. It’s therefore incredibly ironic that so many people who claim to want an end to binaries have found themselves supporting a misogynistic, homophobic movement because they can’t conceive of there being more than two sides.
It is much easier to don a “Protect the dolls” t-shirt than to answer any of the following questions: what’s the difference between a trans woman and a man who says he’s a woman? How do you conflate sex and gender without reinforcing sexism? How is gender diversity promoted by telling gender non-conforming children they’re actually the opposite sex?
Discussion on Vexxed.
Kozlik's regular member account. 🍀🐐