This episode of "The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling" podcast is a review of J.K. Rowling's controversial statements and actions regarding transgender issues. The host begins by discussing the background and context of Rowling's comments, which started with a tweet in June 2020 expressing concerns about the implications of including trans women in women-only spaces.

The week in audio: The Witch Trials of JK Rowling; Dear Daughter; Sisters – review

The Witch Trials of JK Rowling is a strange podcast. Rowling’s careful, crisp mind contrasts with host Megan Phelps-Roper’s mushy Christian desire to be as kind and evenhanded as possible. That’s not to say that the podcast isn’t interesting – it is – just that it’s uneven and reeeally streeetched out. It needs a far tougher editor.

A bit of background. Phelps-Roper is known for being brought up in, and then leaving, the virulently homophobic Westboro Baptist church, her fundamentalist views changed by Twitter (I know!). Landing Rowling as an interviewee is a huge coup for Phelps-Roper, as Rowling is private, and we understand why when, in episode one, she recounts how her ex-husband tried to break into her home. We should also note that The Witch Trials comes from a production company started by Bari Weiss, a journalist who fell out with the New York Times over her provocative “anti-woke” stance on cancel culture. Because of this, and given the title, we assume that the podcast exists because Rowling has been disowned by many – some of her fans and others – for her views on women’s and trans people’s rights and how they can conflict. Perhaps we will get to this subject; however, it appears, only once Phelps-Roper has gone through every single US cultural permutation of the past 20 years.

The programme is in chronological order and follows Rowling’s professional history (her personal life is included to show how it shaped her work and how her work changed her life). The longueurs occur because we are also given the context in which her work was published. By work, of course, we mean Harry Potter, or Hairy Podder, as every American insists on calling it. There are a lot on this show. The second episode spends what seems like days on 1990s US Christian evangelists and their mad belief that the Harry Potter books truly promote witchcraft to children, that kids might “drink unicorn blood”. It’s hard to maintain interest throughout this lunacy.

Safer still are the hands of the unacknowledged Gary Davies, there to smooth things over in between Ken Bruce and Vernon Kay

The third episode, out last week, about the rise of internet message boards and their overspill into the mainstream, was much better. The two examined are Tumblr (essentially sweet and lefty) and 4chan (like a racist, Columbine-loving Andrew Tate). Tumblr gave many young people the space to define their own gender queer identities. And 4chan allowed its members to rail against societal norms in a different manner, paving the way for self-promoting feminist-baiters such as Milo Yiannopoulos.

This is Jon Ronson-style stuff, though Phelps-Roper is less sharp, journalistically. Really what The Witch Trials highlights is what happens to both artist and fans when a creation balloons into something unmanageable. Harry Potter – and via Harry, Rowling – became so popular that everyone, even those who with no stake in the game, decided on an opinion and all subtleties were lost. Rowling, as she says, may have hoped that the books’ message that humans are flawed, complicated, a mixture of good and bad, is what would resonate. But – and she sees this – that’s not what’s happened. Harry and Rowling became too famous for that. Now they’re seen as entirely good or utterly bad. There are four episodes to go.

Namulanta Kombo presents the award-winning Dear Daughter. BBC

A far cosier female-centred listen is Dear Daughter, winner of podcast of the year at last year’s British Podcast awards. The first episode of the second series came out last week as a podcast on BBC Sounds and will be a World Service programme starting on 11 March. Hosted by the positive, optimistic Namulanta Kombo, mother to a young boy and girl, it’s a sweet show that believes the relationship between mothers and daughters is special. Although last week, we heard from Marian, a journalist from Estonia, who had a distant relationship with her father and is very grateful for her husband’s much closer bond with their daughter. Both Marian and Kombo’s girls are still young: you wonder, a little, about teenage issues, also how the programme would differ if they had more than one daughter. This week, she will be interviewing writer Isabel Allende, not a woman to pull punches.

Here’s a show about more than one daughter: Sisters, from Kaitlin Prest, who is revered among podcast-lovers, especially North American women. Her podcast The Heart, a collection of different series, is beautifully made, intense and personal; she negotiates and understands the world via her own body and life. So it’s interesting that she is co-creating this beguiling, intriguing podcast with her younger sister, Natalie. Using recordings that Prest has made of her family over several years, the first three episodes cover Kaitlin and Natalie’s childhood, how Kaitlin was dismissive of Natalie, how Natalie thought her big sister was amazing and how they became close as adults. Now they are working together, and despite Natalie’s efforts to be her own person, everything still feels dominated by Kaitlin. Is there space for Natalie here? God, families are complicated…

Natalie and Kaitlin Prest, co-creators of the ‘beguiling’ Sisters.

Can we say the words Vernon Kay without the Radio 2 “family” falling apart? Now Ken Bruce has left (his last stint was on Friday), the mid-morning show will pass to Kay in a few weeks. He is a safe pair of hands, though perhaps a little blokey (despite its long love affair with the straight white male presenter, since Chris Evans left in 2018, Radio 2 has been almost entirely un-blokey). Safer still are the hands of the unacknowledged Gary Davies, there to smooth things over in between Bruce and Kay, to ensure that the world still keeps turning and the family still functions.

The Long Take: The Witch Trials of JK Rowling - A Review

I moved into my fourth primary school when I was 12 years old. I was a very quiet kid, and it gave bullies a reason to physically and verbally abuse me. My educational performance was very poor, and English was one of my most inadequate subjects. At one point, I didn’t even attempt an important writing exam that was instituted in public schools everywhere. During that time, a small library at my newer school had a series of books about a boy who was born with the power to eliminate a tyrannical dark lord that killed his parents. It was called Harry Potter and was one of the first books I’ve repeatedly read from beginning to end. The story was simple; a young orphan, who has suffered abuse by his aunt and uncle, is transported into a new environment, making new friends along the way, and defeating his biggest enemy to become the very best in his area. But each entry is well-written, and it taught me a lot about narrative and creativity, compared to most of the English teachers I once had. I became so enamoured with the books and films that I also learned to communicate with more people who shared the same interests.

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To many, Harry Potter is their hero, so for them, J.K. Rowling is the individual that made each instalment and related spin-off possible. As the face of the franchise, Rowling has recently become more divisive following her opinions on sex and transgenderism, which involves her concerns about transwomen appearing in female prisons, the attempts to make inclusive terms like ‘menstruating persons’ and ‘pregnant people’ transpiring, and her support for Maya Forstater and other gender-critical feminists. Fandoms have treated the author like the villain Voldemort, who is nicknamed He Who Must Not Be Named, publicly shaming her and attempting to reclaim their beloved property for themselves. One example of this includes Quidditch League changing the name of their sport, depicted in the books, into Quadball.

This is what an audio documentary series called The Witch Trials of JK Rowling attempts to explore. A production of The Free Press and presented by Megan Phelps-Roper, this podcast is not simply about the recent tribulations of JK Rowling, but how she grapples with her huge influence, as she went from a struggling single mother to one of the most well-known authors in the world.

Reviews of The Witch Trials were swiftly critical of the podcast for being hagiographic towards its subject. The Washington Post described it as an ‘exhausting listen’, while Vulture claims that it “displays little urgency in engaging with the perspectives of trans people.” But they weren’t written once the series finished on the seventh episode on 29th March (an epilogue will be released in a few weeks). As someone who has listened to all of the series, my opinion is that it’s a delicate and sensitive look into one of the world’s most famous women who became an active player in the new version of the culture wars that reveals far more about her, as soon as she gets the chance to speak. The Witch Trials aren’t just targeted at people who are labelled as TERFs and have uneasy stances on transgenderism. They also aimed at anyone sceptical that Rowling is coming in good faith. And its accomplishment is that the more you listen, a dispassionate and careful enquiry around a rather anxious issue comes around that becomes complex and balanced.

The Witch Trials was made possible after Megan Phelps-Roper receive some correspondence from Rowling over a letter that she sent her. But that connection does not begin there. Phelps-Ropers grew up with Harry Potter , while Rowling read Phelps-Roper’s memoir Unfollow, which is about moving away from her father Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church, which notoriously picket events with signs saying God Hate Fags. Both had their fair share of experiencing extremism, whether they are confronted by it or had participated in it, which Phelps-Roper once did.

Here in The Witch Trials, Phelps-Roper has a more active role than being the narrator and presenter. Her questions are detailed and are often on the opposite side of the equation to make Rowling clarify her opinions better. She appears introspective about her own past, and considering Rowling’s history of charging back against bigotry before the recent controversies (including a tweet criticizing the Westboro Baptist Church for objecting to same-sex marriage), it makes the relationship between the interview and interviewee more interesting.

This theme would feel familiar in Episode Two, where one of the first controversies that Harry Potter encountered was from Christian fundamentalists, accusing the books of spreading Satanism and paganism. It’s hard to forget how much these fringe groups, were more likely to be associated with creative control and censorship. Now, during a continuous age of religious and spiritual decline, these groups do not have the same amount of cultural purchases they once had before. What accommodated that gap is a combination of accelerant digital platforms and political justice that allows much of the backlash towards Rowling possible.

Rowling is not just a feature of this way of life, but a symptom. The topic of a ravenous online split between 4chan reactionaries and its progressive users of Tumblr is explored in Episode Three, with a curious range of talking heads that includes Kat Rosenfield, Angela Nagle and Helen Lewis. Each of them has written previously about the Internet’s transformation into a machine that incentivises the relationship between the author and their fans. Rosenfield has written a lot about the plight of Young Adult authors being pressured by their fans to conform to the ideological orthodoxies of diverse and authentic representation, while Nagle explored the transgressive aesthetic of the online Right in her book Kill All Normies . This shaped an important context for how these controversies intensified and how Rowling became an engaged player in these conflicts. Various platforms, particularly Twitter and Tumblr, facilitated many precocious fandoms that include Harry Potter . It gave Rowling an opportunity to communicate with them, who made the franchise their identity and used it to develop their cultural beliefs. After all, she did hint that Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster of the wizarding school Hogwarts, was gay in 2009.

As these issues become bigger than JK Rowling, her answers with Phelps-Roper come off as understated but are nonetheless revealing. Rowling tells Phelps-Roper that she started questioning the effectiveness of her own side when hard-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos was greeted with violence, upon descending into the campus at the University of Berkeley in 2017. She condemned the violence, and it’s surprising to hear this from her nowadays, since around that time, her books and her views have become a substitute for opposition against Donald Trump, who she once described as Voldemort. She was also sympathetic to the Blairite wing of the Labour Party, but loathed Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership at the Labour Party, bemoaning that he turned it into a cult and his positions on Brexit that were sympathetic to the Leave argument.

The most prominent critic being interviewed is Natalie Wynn, a transwoman who runs the YouTube channel Contrapoints, who made a video about JK Rowling. Often associated with BreadTube, an umbrella of YouTube creators with a hard left stance, Contrapoints’s videos cover a variety of contentious topics, particularly transgenderism. Because she endured backlash over her comments about cancel culture and even had some heterodox opinions about being transgender, this could give her sufficient authority to not just strongly criticize Rowling but to understand where she was coming from. Watching some of her efforts, Wynn has proved that she’s capable of delivering measured thoughts about these issues that don’t always come from dogma.

Before the release of the podcast, Contrapoints made a Twitter thread expressing regret for her appearance, feeling that it would endanger trans people along the way. However, listening to her interview, you would not know the specificities of what makes Rowling a transphobe, unless you’ve seen Wynn’s video that calls her an indirect bigot, compared to a direct one, which she associates with the Westboro Baptist Church. That video frequently distorts these concerns further, before hurling insults at Rowling at every opportunity that she gets. This seems very easy for someone who is frequently acclaimed by progressive media outlets for deradicalizing young men from the alt-right but is ultimately unconvincing from someone capable of restraining her partisanship from the conversation.

Contrapoints comes in the second last episode, which is delivered alongside another interview with Noah, a teenager who transitioned from female to male and is far more measured and understanding of Rowling’s claims about transgenderism, even if he strongly disagrees. They bring a solid representative of her critiques and it allows the podcast to allow opposite sides to speak out. But given that their journeys to satisfactorily embody their new bodies is yet to be complete, it leaves a lot to be desired. Noah says he still struggles with some mental health issues, following his transition, which only reinforces Rowling’s point about whether or not they do stem from the event.

(Contrapoints released a really long follow-up video that is titled after the podcast. I haven’t checked it out, but reading this rebuttal from Holly Lawford-Smith, there’s a chance that she’s not as capable of grasping nuance as her champions frequently state. Whether it’s because of audience capture, or a genuine regret in appearing on the show, my thoughts still stand)

The relationship between Rowling and her critics is of political and creative betrayal. But as I listened to the podcast, what they have in common is that each player possesses a vocabulary that was once applied within feminist and academic spaces. This language specifically revolves around fairness and equality, and that has now been broadly used by mainstream media outlets and corporate HR departments to spearhead these positions. This allowed both sides of this debate to express their vulnerability in the most performative way. But one will go as far as to remove another in those institutions if they don’t want to conform to these new rules.

In this day and age, it would be really tempting for anyone on the Internet to become activated by one particular issue before trading much of their worldview to reinvent themselves with their new audience into a truth-telling prophet. Hence, because of her gender-critical stance, there’s an assumption that Rowling has drifted rightward. She affirms that she has not stopped being a progressive, during the final episode where she answers all of her critics, including Natalie Wynn. She distinguishes herself from conservatives whose views happen to overlap with hers, saying that they are more interested in harming more vulnerable communities along the way, whether it’s the LGBT minorities or women, in general. This is in the wake of right-wingers currently taking the maximalist route around the issue; commentators like Michael Knowles declared that if transgenderism is false, then it should be “eradicated from public life entirely.” The distinction between Rowling and Knowles is he’s more than happy to own his position in simplistic and brutal terms, while she, as a broader public figure, has to be very careful in elaborating on their opinions.

A thing that could have made the podcast more compelling would be a more thorough assessment of Rowling’s future as a public figure. Since she elaborated on her opinions of sex in 2020, Rowling has continued writing a series of adult fiction novels under the pseudonym of Robert Galbraith called The Cormoran Strike , and it has been a success. While her financial freedoms can withhold any controversy, the culture she has created with the Harry Potter fandom remains fraught. Upon the release of The Witch Trials , Hogwarts Legacy became one of the biggest console games of the year. This is in spite of the backlash towards the author, but also spreading to anyone interested in streaming it. For most people who are eager to excuse cancel culture, one aspect that is ultimately missed is that Rowling won’t be the one being taken down, but her fans that want to revisit their memories of reading the books. They do not have the same safety net to weather the storm that JK Rowling is able to.

An advantage that a long-form podcast has is that you can be interrogated directly by other people and allow yourself the chance to answer people who disagree with you. This is the goal of The Witch Trials of JK Rowling rather than cover for her because she has the correct opinion and it has achieved much of it. And it serves as a lesson for anyone within this fragile debate to remain restrained and grasp the complexity of the issue, when more parents who feel they don’t understand the topic well enough, enter the conversation.

As I grew up, I have a close friend from high school who transitioned and it initially confused me when I first heard about it. But knowing that our memories are not mine, I accepted this person’s transition and for us, it’s the best way to move forward. However, as the conception of being female is becoming fraught among researchers, it’s foolish to shut down anyone who makes this mild observation, nor is it wise to dismiss trans people, because they made a decision that ultimately makes them happy. That is the position that JK Rowling actually takes. And while she isn’t the best person to understand this topic, neither is anybody, especially the activists taking such matters very personally, they believe intimidating language against supposed extremists is the best way to bring the debate forward. And that has become larger than the witch in question.

Harry Potter will continue, however, its intellectual property allows them to, and Rowling will still reap the benefits. HBO has announced a TV series that is based on the books, which means that the stories are here to stay, so long as more readers younger than I am, are attached to what they are reading. This means that they’ll be some who would try to reclaim it from the monster holding it captive since 1997, and who grew up in hard times before it became a phenomenon.

‘The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling’ podcast review: A timid inspection of the ‘Harry Potter’ author’s mind

If you live on the Internet, like I do, it is hard to have a conversation about J.K. Rowling without an eye roll, a nonchalant shrug or a shrewd hand gesture indicating we move on from the topic. The fifty-seven-year-old has become one of the most polarising figures in the culture wars of today. Some of her tweets are quoted by feminists to hail her as an icon while others use the same tweets to condemn her as a transphobe. While most of you reading this might have discerned the author through her Hogwarts characters, she is now inviting you into her castle in Scotland with the podcast The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling to discuss her beliefs on freedom of speech, gender ideology and witchcraft.

The host of the podcast brings her share of intrigue to attract listeners. Megan Phelps-Roper is a former member and spokesperson of the Westboro baptist church, a Calvinist Christian sect that some organisations classify as a hate group. The members of the church indulge in picketing soldiers’ funerals and spreading hate against the LGBT community and minorities in America. British-American journalist Louis Theroux’s BBC documentary The Most Hated Family in America helped open the doors of the church to the world to look at an organisation where hate was the norm.

The boy wizard turns 40: Here’s a look at some of the popular Harry Potter tours from around the world

The first episode of the podcast kicks off with Rowling recounting the early 1990s after she lost her mother. The author opens up about the abuse she suffered at the hands of her ex-husband and the efforts she took to make the Harry Potter manuscript see the light of day. In the following episode, Phelps-Roper looks at the culture wars of the 90s in the United States when ‘Satanic panic’ was at its peak and positions the Harry Potter series’ impact in its milieu. She informs us that even a mention of the author’s name would attract accusations of mainstreaming witchcraft which would lead to Evangelical Christians admonishing Rowling and burning her books. Rowling takes this opportunity to comment on the issue of censorship.

Throughout the two episodes, Phelps-Roper, in an attempt to situate Rowling’s comments into their respective historical and cultural contexts often indulges in the tedious narration of the events, which feels like a distraction from her conversation with the author. While it is nice to see the highly-reserved JKR open up, the host’s rambling sometimes makes one wonder if her journalistic rigour is sufficient to dictate the direction of the podcast.

In the third episode, the conversation delves into the rise of fan forums that foster a global fan base for the fantasy series. Discussion forums encourage fans to inform themselves about the Harry Potter houses they fit into and divulge their theories and opinions about the books. These platforms also served as a safe space for kids who did not fit into the cliques at their school and allowed them to experience the joys of friendship in the virtual world. However, the author claims that the atmosphere started to sour with the proliferation of the internet and cites an incident when she went undercover on one of these platforms only to get bullied off it. Tumblr and 4chan, two very distinct platforms gained a stronghold with the youth and the medium started to morph into the message. While this is an interesting phenomenon to understand, the host turns it into an exhausting exercise; her constant emphasis on kindness in an attempt to show the world that she is now reformed is boring, if anything. Her constant need to put Rowling’s controversial tweets in the backdrop of America’s modern political events is futile and bizarre.

Now we come to episode four: TERF Wars (TERF is an acronym for trans-exclusionary radical feminist). We finally arrive at the issue that polarised her fans and as many allege saw the author fall from grace.

The fourth episode of the podcast maps the gains of the LGBT community in the early 2010s — from same-sex marriage being legalised in the United Kingdom to the increasing dialogue around and push for transgender rights. However, waters get muddy around the issue of self-ID. Gender self-identification is the concept that a person’s legal sex or gender should be determined by their gender identity without any medical certificates.

J.K. Rowling’s tussle with trans rights activists dates back to 2019 when Maya Forstater, a researcher at a think tank lost her job after tweeting that transgender women cannot change their biological sex. Enraged, Rowling tweeted in support of the researcher, “Dress however you please. Call yourself whatever you like. Sleep with any consenting adult who’ll have you. Live your best life in peace and security. But force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real? #IStandWithMaya #ThisIsNotADrill.”

Dress however you please.
Call yourself whatever you like.
Sleep with any consenting adult who'll have you.
Live your best life in peace and security.
But force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real? #IStandWithMaya#ThisIsNotADrill

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) December 19, 2019

In 2022, Ms. Forstater won her claim that she was unfairly discriminated against because of her gender-critical beliefs.

She only doubled down on her beliefs in 2020 when she tweeted an opinion piece using the term “people who menstruate” and asked, “’People who menstruate.’ I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?”

'People who menstruate.' I'm sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?

Opinion: Creating a more equal post-COVID-19 world for people who menstruate https://t.co/cVpZxG7gaA

Radical feminists often frown at phrases that reduce women to their reproductive organs and processes earning them the label ‘TERF’ from trans rights activists for allegedly choosing to not incorporate inclusive language.

Time and again, the author has emphasised the need to have female-only rehabilitation spaces for female victims of sexual assault. The author also has repeatedly looked down upon systems that let children below the age of 18 undergo medical procedures to transition to the gender of their choice. Recently, The New York Times published an opinion piece defending Rowling and noting that her arguments for women’s rights do not infringe on trans rights.

The next three episodes continue to wrestle with gender ideology, her beliefs and why she invites scorn from certain sections of society. They touch upon the increasing number of de-transitioners, if allowing children below the age of 18 to transition does more harm than good and if transwomen can be allowed into sex-segregated spaces like female prisons and rape crisis centres. Rowling is adamant, set in her views and makes arguments for her camp.

Megan Phelps-Roper | Photo Credit: Youtube/TED

Throughout the podcast, Rowling comes across as a woman with strong opinions and layers of arguments supporting her views but struggles with the host who is keen on making them palatable to appease everyone. She squanders her chance at thoroughly probing the author and striking a conversation that gives the listeners some food for thought.

The guests who frequent the podcast are randomly chosen and fail to add nuance to the topic being discussed. For the sixth episode, she invites Natalie Wynn, a transwoman and a YouTuber and Noah, a seventeen-year-old transman, both American, to speak on the issue and their perception of Rowling. By inviting the duo on the podcast, the host is not only focusing on the anecdotal experiences of two randomly picked representatives of the trans community but also indirectly signalling that they are on an equal footing with Rowling to counteract her claims; Rowling does not feature in the episode and the listeners are yet again given a lesson in kindness.

Despite the allegations of transphobia against her, Harry Potter as a brand is raking in dollar bills with Warner Bros. selling a whopping 12 million copies of Hogwarts Legacy, an action role-playing game, worldwide.

The show ends with Rowling’s concerns for the political left which according to her is becoming increasingly puritanical and pushing the youth to alt-right ideology. She also affirms that she supports the rights of transgender people but wishes to keep them from the sex-segregated spaces of females. “There are more important things in this world than being popular, and that does not mean it is more important to me to be right but it is more important for me to do the right thing,” she remarks as she closes the doors of her castle to us.

The podcast is available on all podcast streaming services

‘The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling’ Is a Mind-Numbing Exercise in Digression

In its first two episodes, the podcast likens fundamentalist Christians’ efforts to ban “Harry Potter” from schools to the controversy surrounding Rowling’s anti-trans comments.

Laura Bradley

Senior Entertainment Reporter

REUTERS/Carlo Allegri

J.K. Rowling is not worried about what her anti-trans speech might do to her legacy. In fact, while speaking on the new podcast The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling, the Harry Potter author said that while she “never set out to upset anyone,” those who assume she cares about tarnishing her reputation “could not have misunderstood me more profoundly.”

“I do not walk around my house thinking about my legacy,” Rowling said on the podcast, which debuted its first two episodes on Tuesday. “Whatever, I’ll be dead. I care about now. I care about the living.”

In various tweets and manifestos over the past few years, Rowling has framed transgender women as a covert threat to cisgender women and spread widely debunked “concerns” about trans people’s identities and behavior. A healthy contingent of fans and even former colleagues, including the Boy Who Lived himself, Daniel Radcliffe, have since distanced themselves from her. The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling—from columnist Bari Weiss’ fledgling media company The Free Press—attempts to turn this fiasco into just part of an ongoing narrative in which the author’s detractors try to silence her. There were the fundamentalist Christians who rallied against Harry Potter during its heyday in the late ’90s, and now, the podcast posits, a vocal set of fans (and some entertainment industry professionals) have similarly renounced the author after years of anti-trans statements. Surely these are the same!

The timing of The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling’s release is conspicuous. Last week, hundreds of New York Times contributors signed a letter urging the paper to improve its coverage of trans people. A day later, the Times published an opinion piece from columnist Pamela Paul titled “In Defense of J.K. Rowling,” in which she argued that it “is as dangerous as it is absurd” to call Rowling transphobic. All of this, of course, is happening while conservative lawmakers in states like Florida continue their work to roll back every possible protection for trans people.

Now, we have this podcast: an exercise in false comparisons and warped power dynamics that, as one might expect given its title, is also full of dog whistles. Not only do the first two episodes liken the fundamentalist Christian anger organized against Potter in the ’90s to the more recent controversy that’s erupted around Rowling’s anti-trans comments, but they also feature an astounding amount of ancillary information designed, presumably, to act as “context” for the author’s remarks. At no point (so far) does the podcast meaningfully engage with the very real, steadily increasing violence that’s being perpetrated against trans people.

“ At no point (so far) does the podcast meaningfully engage with the very real, steadily increasing violence that’s being perpetrated against trans people. ”

The podcast’s host, Megan Phelps-Roper, is a reformed spokeswoman for the Westboro Baptist Church, famous for its slogan “God hates f**s.” (As the political activist discussed in a 2019 NPR interview, she began to question the group’s extremist teachings after she operated its Twitter account and read some of the arguments being made against them; she ultimately left the group.) Phelps-Roper notes that as she was growing up, extremist Christians were pushing to burn Rowling’s books; now, she says, some trans people and their advocates are doing the same in response to Rowling’s tweets about gender.

“One of the things that stood out to me,” Phelps-Roper says in the first episode, “was how people on all sides of this conflict felt so under attack, so threatened, that they invoked the language of witch hunts even as they vehemently disagreed about who was the witch and who was the mob lighting the fire.” And yet, the title The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling does seem to indicate that someone has drawn a conclusion.

In its first episode, the podcast relays Rowling’s biography as a single mother who rose to unexpected fame with a children’s book series no publisher expected to become a hit. Rowling also repeats her allegation of domestic abuse against her daughter’s father and notes that her increased fame and the subsequent evaporation of her privacy made her fearful for her safety. In Episode 2, we pivot to a needless recap of the entire 1990s, when the Potter series became a phenomenon—from the booming economy, to the L.A. Riots, to Marilyn Manson getting blamed for the Columbine shooting, to the battle over gay rights. Through most of this, listeners might find themselves wondering, “What does any of this have to do with what J.K. Rowling has said about trans people?”

Do we really need to understand how good or bad the economy was in the ’90s, or why kids love books about magic, to discuss the comments she’s made? Does the existence of Harry Potter fans who cannot see Severus Snape as anything but a villain mean that everyone who’s spoken out about Rowling in the wake of those comments must be inherently misguided? The answer to all of these questions might be a resounding “of course not,” but The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling seems to hope it can filibuster those questions from our minds with additional “context.”

In fact, most of this information feels more like an ancillary distraction from the point: Rowling has repeatedly advocated against policies designed to help trans people, who are being increasingly attacked and murdered. This is not a “constant assumption of persecution,” as an ex-fundamentalist Christian described his own beliefs to Phelps-Roper. Last fall, the nonprofit Everytown for Gun Safety reported that murders of trans people nearly doubled between 2017 and 2021, rising to 56 reported murders.

At least one source who participated in The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling has already spoken out against it: YouTuber Natalie Wynn, known on YouTube as ContraPoints, responded to news of the podcast’s impending release last week with a Twitter thread in which she called her participation “a serious lapse in judgment.” Wynn went on to describe her conversation with Phelps-Roper as a “pretty miserable three-hour interrogation about my own transition, as well as the usual ‘concerns’ about trans rights” and said she regrets her participation.

“Megan does not seem to grasp that trans people are fighting for our lives, our right to exist in society,” Wynn wrote. “And that this fight is in no way equivalent to the rationalizations offered up by people who oppose trans rights, even when the former are angry and the latter composed.”

The host begins by discussing the background and context of Rowling's comments, which started with a tweet in June 2020 expressing concerns about the implications of including trans women in women-only spaces. The podcast explores the backlash that followed and the subsequent statements made by Rowling defending her viewpoint. The host delves into the arguments put forth by both supporters and critics of Rowling, highlighting the complexity and sensitivity of the topic.

They acknowledge the importance of open and respectful dialogue while also addressing the harm that can be caused by misinformation or misrepresentation of transgender individuals. Throughout the episode, the host provides various perspectives on the controversy, including those of transgender people, activists, and experts in gender studies. They examine the impact of Rowling's statements on the trans community and the wider discourse surrounding gender identity and equality. The podcast review assesses the implications of Rowling's remarks for her legacy as the author of the beloved Harry Potter series. It raises questions about the separation of art from the artist and explores whether or not it is possible to appreciate Rowling's literary achievements while also condemning her controversial views. The host concludes the episode by emphasizing the importance of continuing to engage in discussions that promote understanding and inclusivity, advocating for the rights and dignity of transgender people. They encourage listeners to educate themselves on the experiences and struggles faced by the trans community and to support organizations working towards equality. Overall, this podcast review offers a measured and thoughtful analysis of the J.K. Rowling controversy, promoting empathy and understanding while encouraging critical thinking and dialogue on the complex issues surrounding gender identity..

Reviews for "Analyzing the Ethical Dilemmas Presented in 'The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling' Podcast"

1. Sarah - 1 star

I was really disappointed with "The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling" podcast review. I was expecting a thoughtful and nuanced discussion about the controversy surrounding J.K. Rowling's statements, but instead, it felt like a one-sided rant. The hosts seemed more interested in expressing their own anger and frustration rather than providing an objective analysis. It was incredibly frustrating to listen to, and I didn't feel like I learned anything new or gained any insights from it. Overall, a waste of time.

2. Michael - 2 stars

As someone who enjoys podcasts that offer different perspectives and encourage critical thinking, "The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling" fell short for me. The hosts seemed only interested in amplifying their own beliefs and disregarded any opposing viewpoints. It lacked the intellectual depth and respectful dialogue that I appreciate in a podcast. While the topic itself is intriguing, I would recommend finding another podcast if you're looking for a more balanced and insightful discussion.

3. Emma - 1 star

I couldn't finish listening to "The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling" podcast review. It was clear from the beginning that the hosts had a strong bias against J.K. Rowling, and they didn't even attempt to hide it. The tone was condescending and dismissive, making it difficult to take their arguments seriously. I was hoping for a fair examination of Rowling's controversial statements, but instead, it felt like a personal attack. I expected better from a podcast aiming to discuss an important issue.

Exploring the Cultural Impact of J.K. Rowling's Witch Trials on the Podcast