Hoping to Gain Support of the Trans Community, New York Times Publishes One Paragraph Critical of J.K. Rowling

By Daniel Altzman ‘24
Shortly after the publication of journalist Pamela Paul’s controversial New York Times article, “In Defense of J.K. Rowling” that defended “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling for past transphobic statements. This controversy caused a great deal of controversy and division in the “Harry Potter” fan community, many members of which now do not intend to financially support the franchise’s author. Now, the New York Times is attempting to regain support from the trans community aftering publishing the offensive article.

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Animosity towards Rowling has risen as attacks on trans individuals have increased in recent years. Despite this, Paul defended Rowling’s views in her article, writing how the backlash against Rowling was “dumb and me no like happy people,” in turn causing massive pushback from the trans and LGBTQ+ communities. In response, the New York Times published a one paragraph apology and critique of Rowling, claiming that the newspaper “did not think to harm anyone,” and that they truly understand the struggle because, “one of our employees is gay.” They further claimed that the article was only published to “show both sides of the argument on whether or not trans people deserve any rights at all.”
The paragraph, being made of three sentences small enough to fit in a shot glass, provides Rowling’s claims in an attempt to take a fair and unbiased point of view while providing facts to the people. 
    The entire apology message was a whopping one paragraph long with the title, “An Apology to the Trans Community and All Who We May Have Offended,” and has since come under fire for being only a few sentences long. While some see this apology as the publication taking accountability, many trans activists see it as the opposite. One person interviewed who identifies as a “rational centrist” described the situation as unnecessary and said, “the apology should be more than enough and, in my opinion, cancel culture has gone too far for making people apologize for wanting to discriminate in the first place.” 
Others interviewed, specifically those in the trans community, were seemingly even more upset. One trans woman, Jamie Aren, said, “That's it? You’d think they would make it more than a centimeter long. What rational person would think this is serious in any way?” After taking another look at the article, Aren continued, saying “Honestly a full paragraph of trying to take accountability is too much for most people to handle, so we should be very proud of them.”
“That’s it?” said an anonymous prominent trans activist. “It took longer to read this than it took to write it.” Others, such as the same “rational centrist,” supported the apology, saying “This was more than enough. Trans people should really stop forcing media to publish what they want.”