J.K. Rowling Is Back on Her Bullshit

The world's most famous TERF is at it again.

Photo by Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images

It is my grim duty to report that J.K. Rowling—author, bad-movie-writer¹, rich person, and, of course, winner of multiple Transphobe of the Year awards—is, as the hepcats say, at it again.

“Oh god,” you may be thinking, “what stupid TERF-y tweet did she do this time?” Fear not. Rowling’s latest escapade centers around work she has actually given plenty of considered thought² to, in the form of The Ink Black Heart, the new, 1,024-page (!!!)³ entry in the Cormoran Strike mystery series, which she writes under the pen name Robert Galbraith.

The earlier books in the Strike series were perfectly fine, if not particularly dazzling—slightly-too-convoluted mysteries wrapped around two appealing lead characters and buoyed by Rowling’s page-turner skills.⁴ But, as Rowling has burrowed ever-deeper into her role as a key leader of the TERF cult, she has been unable to keep her transphobic bullshit out of her work.⁵ Her last Strike book, Troubled Blood, was widely panned because, according to the reviews, she decided to foreground all of her fun ideas about how trans people are evil blood-sucking monsters threatening the lives of every pure and innocent cis woman in the land.

Another kind of person might react to this widespread rejection of their work by going in a different direction. But not our Joanne! Early reviews of The Ink Black Heart, which comes out on Tuesday, are in, and they indicate that she is very committed to her newfound vibe.