When I’ve written before about “concern trolling” (see Unmasking Concern Trolls, Nov. 16, 2024) I may as well have had Rowling in mind. On the face of it, she purports to be motivated by a concern that children are harmed by an environment (school, home, church, etc.) that “indulges” expressions of non-heteronormativity.

“Oh my gosh!” a reader may think. “I don’t want to harm children!”

That manipulative hook is as far as it goes with her. From there, she absents herself from being caring or nurturing toward children. We don’t hear kindnesses from her when it comes to the children she disapproves of. She actually ostracizes them and sends them up. If a child wants to play a girl’s sport and does not satisfy Rowling’s litmus test for participating, that child is not met with any sort of sanctuary or safety.

To Rowling, heteronormativity is not merely a pre-requisite for sports participation or bathroom access. It’s a pre-requisite for children being treated with any sort of threshold or bare minimum level of decency.

The people who come after some children, painting those children as monsters and existential threats, are not in this out of a sincere concern for children. They cannot be trusted with any children if they’re drawing lines that dictate which children are revolting.

At this point, the attacks she wages are not even confined to trans justice. She’s placing children under attack. Sure, for now, it may appear at first blush that she’s limited herself to attacking trans children, but in my experience, as a volunteer guardian ad litem for abused and neglected children, and as a pro bono attorney-advocate for child survivors of human trafficking, I regard the act of shaming, disgracing, attacking, ostracizing and otherwise othering any group of children as a clear signal that an adult cannot be trusted with the welfare of any children.

When people look at the significant body of youth literature she’s authored and take a hard pass on account of her anti-trans stance, that’s no longer an example of “cancel culture” - where an extra-judicial measure of economic retribution is exacted for various transgressions that offend someone’s sensibilities. I see those dots being connected as a common sense safety issue - with people reasonably concluding that any actions promoting her works (not to mention her concern trolling) should be dialed down out of a bona fide heightened concern for the welfare of children.

That’s fair, given that she has taken an accurate reading of the public in playing on our decent inclination to think: “Oh my gosh! I don’t want to harm children!”