Judy Blume is responding to Sunday Times headline stating she is “100 percent” behind fellow author J.K. Rowling, seeking to emphasize that she stands “with the trans community” against discrimination.
In an interview with the British newspaper, Blume said of Rowling, “I love her. I am behind her 100 percent as I watch from afar.” According to The Sunday Times, Blume was referring to the backlash Rowling has received for “speaking up in defense of women’s sex-based rights.”
But in a statement shortly after the interview was published, Blume said that was untrue.
“I wholly support the trans community,” Blume wrote Sunday in a statement shared to social media. “My point, which was taken out of context, is that I can empathize with a writer — or person — who has been harassed online.”
“I stand with the trans community and vehemently disagree with anyone who does not fully support equality and acceptance for LGBTQIA+ people. Anything to the contrary is total bulls—-,” wrote Blume, who spoke to the Sunday Times ahead of the release of a cinematic adaptation of her classic novel “Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret.”
Rowling has repeatedly been accused of making transphobic comments in social media posts and during interviews. In a lengthy 2020 blog post, the Harry Potter creator said transgender women and girls should not be permitted to use public facilities such as restrooms consistent with their gender identity, citing her experience as a survivor of sexual assault.
She maintains that she has nothing against transgender people and supports the LGBTQ community.
Blume on Sunday additionally pointed to a recent interview with Variety where she said she opposes efforts to ban books in school libraries that some parents or individuals consider to be inappropriate for young readers.
More than 40 percent of books banned last year explicitly address LGBTQ themes or have protagonists or prominent secondary characters who are LGBTQ, according to a September PEN America report.
“I just read a book that was wonderfully enlightening to me. It’s called ‘Gender Queer,’” Blume told Variety last month. “Gender Queer,” a memoir and graphic novel by Maia Kobabe, who is nonbinary, was named the most challenged book of 2021 by the American Library Association for its focus on LGBTQ identities and images considered by some to be sexually explicit.
“This young person is telling me how they came to be what they are today,” Blume said of Kobabe’s memoir. “And I learned a lot, and became even more empathetic. That’s what books are all about.”