JK Rowling Creates Fund To Support “Sex-Based” Legal Rights

JK Rowling has created a fund to individuals and organisations facing legal action for “protecting their sex-based rights.”

Announced on social media over the weekend, The JK Rowling Women’s Fund says on its website that it will provide funding to give women “the means and confidence to bring to justice cases that make legal precedents, force policy change, and make positive contributions to women’s lives in the future”.

“It provides women with the means and confidence to bring to justice cases that make legal precedents, force policy change, and make positive contributions to women’s lives in the future,” the website continues.

Those the fund intends to help includes those who “have lost their livelihoods or are facing tribunals because of their expressed beliefs”, those “being forced to comply with unreasonable inclusion policies regarding single sex spaces and services, or female-only clubs and events”, and people “challenging legislation which takes away the freedoms or protections women are entitled to”.

Rowling said the fund was inspired by Athena, or Pallas, the goddess of wisdom and war, who, the website states, “believed warfare should only be used to protect the people and achieve justice.”

“Athena’s symbol, incorporated into the JKRWF logo, signifies a shield and a woman, which seemed appropriate to the aims of the fund – giving women the means to protect themselves against oppression and unfairness.”

History of funding transphobic actions

Funds will come directly from Rowling’s pocket, with the author previously donating tens of thousands of pounds to transphobic groups, including For Women Scotland. The donation helped fund a legal case on the 2010 Equality Act’s definition of a woman and sex, resulting in the Supreme Court ruling earlier this year defining women as based on their biological sex assigned at birth.

As of 2021, Rowling’s net worth reportedly sits at £820 million, or more than $1 billion AUD.

Those wishing to apply to the fund need to be based in the UK or Ireland, should be able to sufficiently explain how their lives have been affected by their beliefs on “biological sex being unchangeable”, and provide reasons why they require financial support.

The 59-year-old is infamous for speaking out against transgender rights.

Since first publishing an essay criticising the trans right movement in 2020, Rowling harassed Olympic boxer, Imane Khelif, so intensely that she’s being taken to court,  won the support of Russian president and alleged war criminal Vladimir Putin, and forever altered her legacy as a children’s author.

In 2022, Rowling founded Edinburgh-based Beira’s Place, a sexual violence and rape crisis centre that refuses to treat trans survivors.

Upon its founding, journalist Suzanne Moore wrote the service believed “survivors may need to be re-educated about trans rights as part of recovering from trauma”.