J.K. Rowling’s new essay says her views have not changed. Here’s what she says has
Rowling’s update to her 2020 essay describes her Women’s Fund and calls contemporary trans activism ‘elitist’, while restating her position on trans people’s rights.
J.K. Rowling published an update to her 2020 essay on sex and gender on 21 October 2026, saying her views have not changed but her involvement has grown. Variety reported the new essay, in which the author describes funding legal support for women in the UK and Ireland and calls contemporary trans activism ‘elitist’.
‘My views haven’t changed,’ Rowling writes, adding that ‘the landscape certainly has’. She says the shift in her own role from argument to practical work prompted the update, six years after her earlier essay.
What Rowling says she is doing now
Rowling says she founded and funds the J.K. Rowling Women’s Fund, which offers financial support to women in the UK and Ireland seeking to protect their rights through the courts. She also says she founded and funds Beira’s Place, a women-only rape crisis centre in Edinburgh. Both are examples she gives of how her involvement has moved beyond writing about the issue.
In the essay, Rowling says the fund has seen a marked drop in applications involving private corporations. She interprets that as a sign that businesses are broadly seeking to comply with the UK Supreme Court’s 2025 ruling on the meaning of ‘woman’ in equality legislation. She argues that state-run institutions remain more resistant. Those assessments are hers; the essay does not establish how widely institutions have changed their practices.
What she said about trans activism and rights
Rowling calls 21st-century trans activism ‘elitist’ and argues that its ideas have gained influence in cultural, political and state-run institutions. She contrasts that account with earlier civil, gay and women’s rights campaigns, which she describes as grassroots movements challenging powerful institutions. Her characterisation of the movement is an argument in the essay, not a finding about everyone involved in it.
The essay also acknowledges that vulnerable trans people exist. Rowling says they should not be denied housing, employment, human rights or personal safety. She says she has received death threats since speaking out; the account and its details are not independently established here.
Rowling says she intends to continue funding legal assistance and supporting female-delivered rape support in her area. Her new essay therefore sets out both a continuing public position and the work she says she will keep backing after the 2025 court ruling.
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Sources and context
- J.K. Rowling Claims Trans Activism in the 21st Century Is ‘Elitist,’ Pens Essay Defending Her Views: They ‘Haven’t Changed’ Despite ‘Death, Rape and Torture Threats’Variety
- An Update to My Essay of June 2020J.K. Rowling
AI-assisted article checked against the listed sources. NewsJaws did not conduct interviews or attend the reported events.