Gamer Stacey Henley railed against "Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling in an interview on BBC Radio last Thursday, blasting her for alleged transphobia while saying that her website would not report on the newly-released "Hogwarts Legacy" video game because of its ties to Rowling.
"The reason we're not [supporting the game] is really the fact that Harry Potter and the world that Harry Potter exhibits is just entirely connected to J.K. Rowling, but she has a platform that she uses to push transphobia, that she uses to build up this campaign against trans people, especially in Britain," she said.
"Supporting this game continues to give J.K. Rowling a platform in which she can use to hurt people," she added.
Henley, the editor-in-chief of The Gamer website featuring video game news coverage, guides for games and more, aired some of her grievances with the response she has received for dissing Rowling on Twitter.
She said that "Harry Potter" fans are not being asked to forget all their childhood memories of the franchise, but should instead focus on the impact Rowling's rhetoric can have on the transgender community in the future.
BBC, responding to Henley's remarks, issued a statement: "We do accept that there wasn't sufficient challenge to the claims that were made and that we fell short here."
"This is a difficult and contentious area which we do try very hard to cover fairly," the statement continued. "However, we should have challenged the claims more directly and we apologize that we did not," the statement read.
Henley also took to Twitter to share some criticism she has received for slamming Rowling, tweeting a photo of a hate message presumedly from a biological woman Monday and captioning, "This is just a very small sample of what you have to deal with if you criticise Harry Potter. JK Rowling knows she attracts these followers and never calls them out, she only offers dogwhistles and support while keeping her hands clean You are on the side of the bad guys."
Radio host Evan Davis, who spoke with Henley during the February 2 interview, tweeted as well.
"I think perhaps we got stuck because we were actually trying hard NOT to debate @jk_rowling or the substance of her views. We hadn't intended or cast it that way," Davis said in a tweet responding to "For Women Scotland," who critiqued Henley for making "unfounded accusations" and slamming Davis himself for "making the most perfunctory efforts to intervene."
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Davis called the criticism "fair," writing in a second tweet, "This was meant to be (and was) about the debate raging over the game among some fans, given many feel as they do. But while I did assert it, I should have made it clearer that @FiveTacey’s [Henley's] view of JK is her own premise for boycotting the game and is heavily contested."
Henley told Newsweek that she had formerly been led to believe "the interview would be on boycotting the game itself, [and] not a debate about Rowling's beliefs."
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There have been attempted boycotts of Rowling's works, with many trans people and trans activists cracking down on her statements made in defense of biological women.
BuzzFeed, in August 2022, added Rowling to its list of 17 famous people who began as heroes but ended up as "major villains," with author Hannah Marder writing, "J.K. Rowling went from beloved children's author to a TERF [trans-exclusionary radical feminist] after making a number of anti-trans comments, then repeatedly doubling down on them."