Daniel Radcliffe Reaffirms Staunch Support For All Queer People, Despite JK Rowling

Actor and all-around legend Daniel Radcliffe has said that he will continue to support the rights of all LGBTQ people, despite disavowal from Harry Potter author and raging transphobe JK Rowling. 

In an extensive profile piece for The Atlantic, Radcliffe shed some light on his perspective of Rowling’s continued efforts to antagonise the trans community and burn bridges between the cast of the Harry Potter movies. 

Radcliffe first talks about the experience of discovering prejudice aimed at his parents’ gay friends, which inspired him to advocate for the Trevor Project. 

He said: “If there was any value in a famous straight young actor who was from this film series that could be useful in the fight against people killing themselves, then I was just very keen to be a part of that.”

“I did have a realization of a connection to Harry Potter and this stuff. A lot of people found some solace in those books and films who were dealing with feeling closeted or rejected by their family or living with a secret.”

Daniel Radcliffe’s response to Rowling’s comments

But then, of course, JK Rowling took to Twitter in 2020 with a series of tweets that began her downward spiral into the transphobia rabbit hole. Radcliffe said of his response through the Trevor Project at the time: “It would have seemed like, I don’t know, immense cowardice to me to not say something.”

“I wanted to try and help people that had been negatively affected by the comments. And to say that if those are Jo’s views, then they are not the views of everybody associated with the Potter franchise.” 

The Swiss Army Man actor confirmed that he’s had no contact with Rowling throughout the whole thing, a fact he described as ‘sad.’ 

But in response to people in the press (especially in Britain) implying that he, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint were “ungrateful brats”, Radcliffe responded with a well-earned sense of self. 

“Jo, obviously Harry Potter would not have happened without her, so nothing in my life would have probably happened the way it is without that person. But that doesn’t mean that you owe the things you truly believe to someone else for your entire life,” he said.

Finally, in responding to Rowling’s recent comments saying she ‘won’t forgive’ Potter stars who support trans rights, he simply stated: “I will continue to support the rights of all LGBTQ people, and have no further comment than that.”