Author J.K. Rowling has fallen silent on her usually busy X (formerly Twitter) feed, after Olympic gold medalist boxer Imane Khelif filed a legal complaint in France for alleged cyber harassment over statements regarding her gender.
On August 9, lawyers for Khelif filed a lawsuit with a special unit of the public prosecutor’s office in Paris, stemming from false statements that spread online about her gender after the Algerian boxer defeated Italy’s Angela Carini in her first fight of the 2024 Olympic Games. Carini pulled out 46 seconds into the bout and told reporters afterwards that she had “never felt a punch like this.”
Rowling is using her considerable clout to drum up hatred of trans people. She might not be wielding the bat, but she helps embolden those who do. It’s essentially stochastic terrorism. To my knowledge, Card has not gone nearly as far off the deep end in this respect.