Anyone who’s ever dipped a toe into online debate on trans issues will know that British TERFs are some of the worst people on the internet. To the confusion of the rest of the world, the United Kingdom is home to strange and unpleasant people who have devoted their lives to making life miserable for trans people. They brand themselves as gender critical, organize dogpiles of their critics, all the while doing their best to maintain an aura of “common sense” as they sow division and spread hate.
Recommended VideosHarry Potter author J.K. Rowling has become increasingly embroiled in this warped world, which makes what happened last night on a train to Cambridge so much funnier. The story comes to us via X, where user @dschw69 found themselves sat near Helen Joyce, director of the anti-trans campaign group Sex Matters. Joyce, who published the 2021 book Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality (described as “alarmist” and criticized for being anti-semitic) was working on her phone with her screen visible to other passengers:
I see the words “single-sex spaces” and some other TERF dog whistles and think “ew, but whatever”. But I’m interested now so I keep looking and see it’s like some policy or onboarding document. She then goes to WhatsApp (remember she’s pointing her phone essentially directly 2/
— Letters Bunchofnumbers (@dschw89) February 27, 2024Now, ordinarily a story about someone reading a phone over someone’s shoulder on public transport would be an invasion of privacy. But it’s what happens next that makes it newsworthy. As per the images posted to the thread, Joyce switched tabs to begin poring over…. erotic Harry Potter fan fiction.
Diligent research from the OP resulted in confirmation that Joyce was reading “Mudblood”, a graphic story in which Hermione and Draco Malfoy have violent sex in a potions storeroom, predicated on Hermione getting turned on by Draco verbally abusing her. As the replies quickly pointed out, Joyce is reading an erotic story about children in public, only taking time away from it to approvingly retweet J.K. Rowling. We have to wonder what Rowling herself would make of this!
The reactions are pretty much what you’d expect:
someone needs to check her phone and hard drive
— maia (@notedBonesHaver) February 27, 2024We can only concur that this is not a good look for Joyce:
A boy calling a girl*
They are still at school in this fic, and it looks like it takes place during the half-blood prince book, when the main characters are 16 🙃
— Jack River(he/they) (@Jack_River_13) February 27, 2024Joyce hasn’t directly responded, though has just posted a tweet arguing that she’s reading underage Harry Potter erotica as part of an “ongoing research project”:
The role of fan fiction in young women's adoption of trans identities is an ongoing research project of mine – it's incredibly powerful, and hardly anyone knows about it. I talk more about this in a podcast I recorded a couple of days ago – will drop soon https://t.co/DKbpqlraHk
— Helen Joyce (@HJoyceGender) February 27, 2024Replies dub it “the funniest possible defence you could’ve come up with”, pointing out that it’s very convenient that it’s a project that “hardly anyone knows about” and, succinctly, “HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA”.
And, also it’s worth pointing out that:
Maybe she had to read all the Harry Potter erotic fan fiction to check there weren’t any trans characters? She’s doing @jk_rowling a service, really.
— n_needs (@needs_nicholas) February 27, 2024Somehow we suspect the hilarity hasn’t quite run its course on this story, so stay tuned for updates.
ncG1vNJzZmivlZy8tcDHoqqcp6aav6awjZympmegpLmqwMicqmigqaW8pL7IraCcmZxir7O106KqoWWkmr%2BnecKarKCgpGK%2FprCMoZinnJWZeqq6jKmsm6SZmHqprdGrsGaon6nBpr6MnqmorJmYeqetzZ%2BgnGWYnrmivsitsGg%3D