Please note the following story contains discussion of the Holocaust and anti-trans bias.
J.K. Rowling has threatened legal action against an X user who accused her of being “a Holocaust denier.”
On March 13, Rowling shared a screenshot of a post seemingly directed at her that read, “The Nazis burnt books on trans healthcare and research, why are you so desperate to uphold their ideology around gender?”
It’s likely that the initial post was referring to when the library from the Institute of Sexology was burned by the Nazis in May 1933 as part of one of the most famous book burnings in history. The Institute, which was forced to close by the Nazis, was renowned for its work on transgender people and has been thought of as the first transgender clinic.
Amid the controversy stemming from Rowling’s words, Jewish journalist Rivkah Brown tweeted saying that Rowling “is a Holocaust denier.” Rowling then quote-tweeted the now-deleted post, writing, “This, from @rivkahbrown, a journalist who wrote a tweet celebrating the Hamas attack of October 7th and was forced to apologise for it, is staggering. I'd be delighted to meet you in court, Rivkah, to discuss holocaust denial.”
A source familiar with the incident told BuzzFeed that Rowling’s lawyers contacted Brown after her post had been deleted and requested that she further publicly apologize. The source further alleged that the lawyers required Brown to change her initial phrasing of the apology to omit that Brown’s grandparents were Holocaust survivors. The source cited Rowling’s wealth as a reason why the matter was not further pursued from Brown’s side.
