Last updated on March 8th, 2024 at 09:53 am
Author JK Rowling has voiced her concerns over classifying a transgender cat killer and convicted murderer as a woman. Rowling responded to a Sky News report on the case of Scarlet Blake, a transgender woman sentenced for murdering Jorge Martin Carreno in 2021. Blake also confessed to a separate incident of animal cruelty.
Rowling argued that crime statistics become meaningless if offences committed by men are recorded as crimes by women. She insisted that Blake is not a woman, and the crimes should not be attributed to women.
Blake’s acts were described as “barbaric and chilling” by Jon Capps of the Thames Valley Police. He had not only killed Carreno, but the court also heard that he had taken “grotesque pleasure” in dismembering a cat, a shocking spectacle that he also live-streamed.
Rowling has frequently been the center of controversy for her opinions on transgender issues. She initially expressed her views in 2019 through her support for Maya Forstater, who lost her employment for tweets suggesting people could not alter their biological sex. Daniel Radcliffe, the lead character in the ‘Harry Potter’ film series, expressed his disagreement with Rowling, stating: “Transgender women are women.”
Rowling, however, maintains her stance and believes that close scrutiny should be placed on what she sees as questionable cultural movements. She acknowledged that her viewpoints would upset some people but confessed that she found the methods and ideas behind recent transgender debates to be quite disturbing.