The Onion
J.K. Rowling: “Tell me which genitals you have right now.”
“Why is your lawyer here? Are you preemptively suing us for defamation over this interview?”
J.K. Rowling: “Yes, because somehow I always come off as the bad guy when discussing this topic.”
“Name your favorite kind of transphobia, go!”
J.K. Rowling: “Threats. Wait, that was a trick question!”
“
J.K. Rowling: “Nah. That shit is behind a paywall, and I’m not wasting any money on that dogshit excuse for journalism.”
“Do you feel at all guilty to have disappointed some fans with your views?”
J.K. Rowling: “Hell no. Look, I wrote those books for kids 20 years ago. If you’re still into that shit, you’re a fuckin’ loser.”
“Don’t you find it hypocritical to publicly attack a marginalized community when your fortune and fame comes from books that champion a bullied outsider?”
J.K. Rowling: “Well, that’s fiction. I’d be very anti-Harry Potter if he were a real person.”
“Will you be silenced?”
J.K. Rowling: “No. I’m a middle-aged billionaire with access to the latest medical technologies. You’ll keep hearing from me for the next 350 years, at least.”
“Some activists have—”
J.K. Rowling: “Well, I never—look, if you’re going to spew hateful rhetoric at me, we’re going to terminate this interview right here and now. Christ, how low some journalists will stoop! We can continue, but you’re going to have to ask more respectable questions.”
“Would you tell us about a time that you were personally victimized by a trans person?”
J.K. Rowling: “Yes, I remember like it was yesterday: you see, I was advocating for their total annihilation and then a few of them said some mean words to me on the internet.”
“Why couldn’t you just take your billions of dollars and go away?”
J.K. Rowling: “And what, take all this hate out on my house staff? I already do that, and it doesn’t help.”
“Do you think you’ll recover from this?”
J.K. Rowling: “Eh, Leonardo da Vinci was a pedophile and he seems to be doing fine, reputation-wise. I think I’ll probably skate through.”
“Where does all of this lead?”
J.K. Rowling: “To the grave, as do all things.”
“Why are you such a huge fucking hateful dork?”
J.K. Rowling: “I prefer the term ‘fantastical bigot.’”
“How would you defend your books to those who call for boycotts of Harry Potter because of the detestable things you say online?”
J.K. Rowling: “I would say they are separate. I am something of a human being, whereas a book is a stack of word paper. Plus, I have a vagina, whereas a book has a penis.”
“Why were you absent from the
J.K. Rowling: “No, I was busy that day protesting a 13-year-old wearing a skirt.”
“Was it embarrassing when you used a pseudonym to see if people would like your work without the name J.K. Rowling attached, and it turns out that they didn’t like it at all, and then you had to reveal you were using a pseudonym to increase the sales?”
J.K. Rowling: “Yes, quite.”
“Do you have any words of encouragement for aspiring transphobes?”
J.K. Rowling: “Find the time in your day to practice transphobia every day, even if it’s for only 15 minutes.”
“What do you think about cisgender people who support trans people living as their preferred gender?”
J.K. Rowling: “They can all die, too.”
“Let’s talk about some other issues. Are you anti-abortion as well?”
J.K. Rowling: “Oh, not at all. In fact, in the books, the Gryffindor Seamus Finnigan is an aborted fetus, and he’s quite popular and a very proficient duelist.”
“Do you have anything you’d like to tell your fans?”
J.K. Rowling: “I just want to say that there are thousands of my fans, potentially millions, who spend time online debating why the wizards didn’t stop the Holocaust. Some of them defend the wizards and concoct all sorts of tortuous explanations for why the wizards didn’t stop the Holocaust. Many of them display a startling lack of actual historical knowledge, and most of them seem entirely unaware that expending so much energy even debating this kind of intercession of fiction into one of humanity’s worst atrocities is fairly grotesque on its face—so I’d just like to say, keep at it! You’re almost there!”
