JK Rowling and the Dangers of Celebrity Authority

The author’s anti-trans viewpoints highlight the risks we collectively take when we invest celebrities with cultural and social authority.

Like many , I was aghast and horrified when I read author J.K. Rowling’s tweets about trans people, and even more so when I read the entirety of the essay that she subsequently published. As many people have rightly pointed out, her arguments are wrong-headed, mainly parrot those of various anti-trans right wing groups and, perhaps most importantly, are actively dangerous to many trans people. And, of course, I am outraged that she would choose this particular moment — Pride month, a pandemic, and international protests for racial justice — to trot out thinly-sourced strawman arguments about trans people, children, and bathrooms.

However, this whole incident brought home to me something that I’ve been thinking for quite some time now. Namely, we should, collectively, stop looking up to celebrities — particularly fiction authors and actors — as sources of wisdom or political philosophy. The simple truth is that they are often very good at one thing, and usually that thing happens to be what they’ve undertaken as a profession. When we elevate them into the ranks of authority, we run the risk of a JK Rowling…