Another day, another opportunity for Joanne Rowling to offend a large swath of people for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Instead of sitting quietly in her castle and counting her money, J.K. Rowling decided to log on to Twitter on Sunday, July 5 to use her massive platform to spread her anti-trans beliefs. Instead of just insulting the LGBTQ community with her anti-trans rhetoric, Rowling widened the scope and added a whole new group of people to offend: people who take medication for their mental health. First spotted by Twitter user @sineadactually, Rowling liked a tweet comparing hormone prescriptions to anti-depressants. “Hormone prescriptions are the new anti depressants,†the tweet read. “Yes they are sometimes necessary and lifesaving, but they should be a last resort. Pure laziness for those who would rather medicate than put in the time and effort to heal people’s minds.†Insinuating that those who take anti-depressants are lazy? Just another day in the life of Joanne.
Rather than apologizing to those she offended and being quiet, Rowling claimed the screen shot was false and tried to clarify her stance on both trans women and mental health in a 11-tweet thread. Rowling began the thread with the following tweet: “I’ve ignored fake tweets attributed to me and RTed widely. I’ve ignored porn tweeted at children on a thread about their art. I’ve ignored death and rape threats. I’m not going to ignore this.†In the thread, Rowling claims to have used anti-depressants. “I’ve written and spoken about my own mental health challenges, which include OCD, depression and anxiety,†tweeted Rowling. “I did so recently in my essay ‘TERF Wars’. I’ve taken anti-depressants in the past and they helped me.†While she seems to possibly be approaching a cogent thought in regards to mental health, the thread quickly and unsurprisingly devolves into her defending her status as a grade A TERF.
In the very next tweet, Rowling claims that “many health professionals are concerned that young people struggling with their mental health are being shunted towards hormones and surgery when this may not be in their best interests,†doubling down on her anti-trans rhetoric. She goes so far as to say that society is witnessing “a new kind of conversion therapy for young gay people who are being set on a lifelong path of medicalisation that may result in the loss of their fertility and/or full sexual function.†At this point the question must be asked: Does J.K. Rowling know what conversation therapy is and has she ever met a gay person before? As for anti-depressants, I don’t know if Joanne can simply wingardium leviosa herself out of depression, but for most of us on Earth who have mental health problems it doesn’t work like that.