The author of the mega-popular Harry Potter saga, JK Rowling, launched an organization on Monday for women victims of sexual violence following becoming a fervent and often controversial feminist campaigner in the United Kingdom in recent years.
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Beira’s Place markets itself as “a women’s support service run by women.” It offers free help to any woman over the age of 16 who has been the victim of sexual violence, in all its forms, in the region of Edinburgh in Scotland where Ms Rowling lives.
The organization is funded by the author, herself a victim of domestic violence in the past.
JK Rowling has expressed herself in recent years in a very virulent way in favor of women’s rights, which she has sometimes opposed to the cause of transgender activists, a hot topic in the United Kingdom.
In 2020, she shared an article on Twitter referring to “menstruating people”, commenting ironically: “I’m sure we had to have a word for these people. Someone help me. Fire? Woman? Feemm?”.
She thus drew the wrath of certain Internet users, who reminded her that transgender men might have their period and that transgender women might not.
She has since been the target of regular attacks by activists for the rights of transgender people and indicated in November that she had received death threats.
The novelist is launching her foundation as the Scottish Parliament considers a controversial bill that aims to ease the transition of transgender people. JK Rowling publicly opposed this text defended by the local separatist government.
