J.K. Rowling appears in an essay collection featuring contributions from so-called 'gender critical' writers, in which she shares that her loved ones had pleaded with her to keep her polarising views on transgender women to herself.

She also hits out at her hypocritical critics. J.K.

Rowling has revealed in a new book of essays that her loved ones had tried to persuade her to keep her views on transgender women to herself. The Harry Potter author has contributed to an essay collection, "The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht", and in an extract published in The Times said that “people around me, including some I love, were begging me not to speak.” “So I watched from the sidelines as women with everything to lose rallied, in Scotland and across the UK, to defend their rights.

My guilt that I wasn’t standing with them was with me daily, like a chronic pain.” Rowling has caused repeated controversy with her stance on trans rights, having shared numerous statements condemned as transphobic stemming back to 2020. She has been met with strong backlash in recent years over her claims that trans women “are not women” and her statemennt that she would than refer to a trans person by their preferred pronouns.

In the extract from "The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht" – a title which refers to a slogan used by so-called ‘gender critical’ activists in Scotland - Rowling also hits out at the double standards of friends who have rushed to criticise her views on transgender right.