J.K. Rowling, the famous author of the Harry Potter book series, is under attack again by the transgender mob after it’s been revealed that a serial killer in her new adult book is a “transvestite,” as The Telegraph puts it. That supposition is incorrect, and it gives fuel to those that hate and attack Rowling for simply wanting to support women as a separate and distinct sex.

Released on September 15 under the penname Robert Galbraith, Troubled Blood is the fifth in a series that follows the exploits of private detective Cormoran Strike and his assistant Robin Ellacott.

As a summary on Amazon puts it, “Private Detective Cormoran Strike is visiting his family in Cornwall when he is approached by a woman asking for help finding her mother, Margot Bamborough – who went missing in mysterious circumstances in 1974… As Strike and Robin investigate Margot’s disappearance, they come up against a fiendishly complex case with leads that include tarot cards, a psychopathic serial killer and witnesses who cannot all be trusted. And they learn that even cases decades old can prove to be deadly…”

According to The Guardian, during the investigation, Strike and his assistant look into a serial killer known as Dennis Creed, “a now-imprisoned and notorious serial killer who once tricked some of his female victims into his van by wearing a wig and a woman’s coat to appear unthreatening.”

But The Telegraph, likely in an effort to stir up controversy  due to the author’s own bias against Rowling and her beliefs, stated on Twitter, “One wonders what critics of J.K. Rowling’s stance on trans issues will make of a book whose moral seems to be: never trust a man in a dress.”

Well, when it comes to serial killers, that advice is rather sound.

There are multiple instances of serial killers trying to appear more vulnerable in order to lure in their victims. Ted Bundy is probably one of the most famous examples. During some of his abductions, the serial killer wore a cast in order to make him seem more trustworthy when he asked women for help loading something into his car.

Jerry Brudos killed at least four women between 1968-1969 and wore women’s clothing during some of his attacks. In fact, there are a fair number of serial killers who had a predilection for dressing up in something like lingerie and photographing themselves. Why? Well, only they, or their psychologist/psychiatrist, can really tell you.

Perhaps the most infamous and influential example is Ed Gein, who killed two women and robbed numerous graves in order to steal female human remains that he could fashion into a suit in order to become his mother.

If his story sounds a bit familiar, that’s because Gein was the inspiration for Norman Bates in the Alfred Hitchcock’s movie Psycho, where, spoiler alert, he kills women while dressing as his mother. Gein also influenced the creation of Buffalo Bill in the Silence of the Lambs, which transgender activists also criticized, and Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Though The Guardian defends Rowling to an extent, it still says that she made “an utterly tone-deaf decision to include an evil man who cross-dresses after months of pain among trans people and their allies.”

Is it though? Why is a man who cross-dresses in order to attack women so offensive? Should every white man be offended when the killer in a story is a white man, which the vast majority of them are? Instead of being “transphobic,” it just sounds like Rowling has done her research on serial killers and created a compelling character.

These latest attacks against Rowling have nothing to do with the content of her work and this particular book, and everything to do with pushing the agenda that the author is transphobic because of her belief that women are a separate and distinct sex.

Photo from CARL RECINE/REUTERS

 

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