JK Rowling slams 'misogynistic' Billy Bragg tweet in trans row

JK Rowling slams Billy Bragg’s tweet as ‘homophobic and misogynistic’ for saying lesbians have a sensibility ‘at odds with their biological reality’ amid Kathleen Stock transgender row

• JK Rowling accused Billy Bragg of homophobia and misogyny in trans row
• He compared Kathleen Stock’s experience to that of a trans woman on C4 doc

JK Rowling has slammed musician Billy Bragg as ‘homophobic and misogynistic’ after he said that lesbians have ‘sensibility at odds with their biological reality’.

This comes amid a row over gender-critical academic Kathleen Stock’s speech at the Oxford Union on Tuesday which saw trans rights protesters disrupt it after five minutes.

Professor Stock gave the address at the debating club which caused an argument over free speech as activists labelling her ‘transphobic and trans-exclusionary’ and tried to get the event cancelled.

About five minutes into the event, two activists emerged from the audience waving rainbow flags and threw leaflets before security pulled the pair out. Another student glued themselves to the floor in front of Prof Stock.

Billy Bragg, 65, waded into the debate yesterday on Twitter, comparing Kathleen Stock’s experiences as a lesbian to a trans woman featured on Channel 4 documentary Gender Wars.

JK Rowling (pictured) has slammed musician Billy Bragg as ‘homophobic and misogynistic’ after he said that lesbians have ‘sensibility at odds with their biological reality’

Billy Bragg (pictured), 65, compared gender-critical academic Kathleen Stock’s experiences as a lesbian to a trans woman featured on Channel 4 documentary Gender Wars

He wrote: ‘Watching the Gender Wars doc last night, I was struck by the similarity between the experiences of Kathleen Stock and the trans woman Katy Jon Went. Both testified how they had struggled with their designated sexuality and gender. 

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‘Went sought a number of therapies to avoid changing her body, but only when as a last resort she transitioned did she find instant relief. Likewise Stock spoke of how coming out as a lesbian made her comfortable with herself “I felt like a different person”.’

A Twitter user asked if Bragg was confusing preferences with external facts, to which Bragg replied: ‘But the issue here is not objects, it’s feelings. If Dr Stock says she feels she is a lesbian we believe her.

‘Why then do we not believe a trans woman when she says she feels like a woman? Both are responding to a sensibility at odds with their biological reality.’

But Harry Potter author JK Rowling, 57, responded with fury tweeting: ‘Saying lesbians have ‘a sensibility at odds with their biological reality’ may be the most homophobic and misogynist thing @billybragg’s tweeted yet, which is a high bar.

‘But in answer to your question, Billy: If a man can be a woman, there’s no such thing as a woman.’

When a fan asked Rowling to expand on her criticism of Bragg, she added: ‘When a man asserts that lesbianism is “a sensibility at odds with women’s biological reality”, what does that say about his view of women’s bodies?

‘That the “biological reality” of the female body is dependent on its owner having sex with men? Are we less real, or less female, if men aren’t reaping sexual pleasure from our bodies?

‘That’s profoundly offensive to any woman who hasn’t signed up to the idea that women aren’t definable except by the most regressive stereotypes ever seen outside a Busby Berkley musical. (I suspect, though, that Bragg couldn’t really explain what he was saying. He just thought it sounded clever and pressed send.)’

After criticism from Rowling, Bragg too elaborated on his take, writing: ‘I was debating Dr Stock’s claim that laws for trans people are based on “something intangible that no one can see”

‘If being a lesbian is tangible, as we have rightly made laws protecting their rights, what is it about being trans that makes it intangible?’

Professor Kathleen Stock (pictured) gave an address at the Oxford Union on Tuesday which was subject to which caused an argument over free speech as activists labelling her ‘transphobic and trans-exclusionary’ and tried to get the event cancelled.

This is not the first time Rowling and Bragg have got into a war of words over trans rights over Twitter.

In October last year, the author claimed ‘bearded men’ are defining what a woman is and suggested he is ‘throwing [his] support behind rape and death threats’ after Graham Norton slammed people who claim to have been ‘cancelled’ despite having a large platform.

Bragg retweeted a video of the interview and said Norton was ‘really good’ on cancel culture ‘and JK Rowling’.

The author, 57, saw the tweet and attacked the singer, saying she was ‘enjoying the recent spate of bearded men stepping confidently onto their soapboxes to define what a woman is and throw their support behind rape and death threats’.

But Bragg did not define what a woman was at any point in his initial tweet, and simply supported Norton’s suggestion that people discuss trans issues with the parents of trans children or doctors and psychologists instead of referring to celebrity viewpoints.

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