JK Rowling has locked horns with Boy George in a heated public row over the rights of transgender people and the safeguarding of women-only spaces, with the author referencing the singer’s past criminal conviction in her sharp rebuttal.
The feud erupted on X after Rowling was accused by a user of being “the person maybe most responsible for the push to take away trans rights”.
In response, Rowling asked: “Which rights have been taken away from trans people?”
The post prompted pop icon Boy George to weigh in, branding the Harry Potter author a “rich bored bully”.
That jibe triggered a forceful response from Rowling, who took aim at George’s past, writing: “I’ve never been given 15 months for handcuffing a man to a wall and beating him with a chain.”
Rowling’s remark referenced Boy George’s 2009 conviction for false imprisonment, in which the singer, real name George O’Dowd, was jailed after chaining a male escort to a wall and beating him with a chain.
A court described the incident as a “premeditated and callous” cocaine-fuelled attack.
The victim, Norwegian model Audun Carlsen, was left traumatised.
The row unfolded months after the UK Supreme Court ruled that biological sex – not gender identity – defines a woman in law, a landmark decision in a case supported by Rowling, who donated £70,000 to the campaign group For Women Scotland.
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Responding to George’s insult, Rowling issued a lengthy statement defending her views and rejecting accusations of privilege.
She penned: “There are many differences between us, George, but some are particularly relevant to this debate. You’re a man and I’m a woman… I believe in freedom of speech and belief.”
“You yourself have been convicted of violent assault.
“The overwhelming number of people who commit crimes of violence are male, just like you.
“That’s why I don’t want to see men identifying into women’s prison cells or any of the spaces mentioned above.”
The author, who has become a prominent advocate for single-sex spaces for women, added: “Not all men are violent or predatory, but enough are to make safeguarding necessary.”
She also took aim at what she sees as conformity in the entertainment world, slamming those in the industry for echoing a similar narrative.
“As we both know, the safe, fashionable thing in the arts world right now is to do exactly what you’re doing: parrot ‘TWAW’ [trans women are women] and sneer at the unenlightened plebs who think sex is important and matters.”
Rowling concluded her response with a direct message to Boy George: “For a man who was once all about non-conformity, George, you couldn’t have become more predictably or more tediously conformist.”
The spat adds to Rowling’s long-standing and polarising involvement in the gender identity debate, which has seen her both widely praised and fiercely criticised.