Getting your
Trinity Audioplayer ready...Where were Buckingham Palace’s infamous “men in gray suits” when it came time to guide Queen Camilla in selecting a famous British children’s author to help her promote young people’s literacy this week?
The job of these palace aides is to make sure such events go smoothly and to protect royal family members from controversy. But it appears they failed by apparently going along an idea for the queen to invite J.K. Rowling to join her for the event in Edinburgh. On Tuesday, those aides shared a photo of the wife of King Charles III with the “Harry Potter” author on the royal social media accounts, prompting a wave of controversy, according to People.
Notably, Tuesday is the final day of Pride Month in both the United Kingdom and the United States, and Rowling has a history of making comments that are offensive to transgender community.
On X, the Royal Family account shared a photo of the two women together at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh. The caption described their “shared passion for books and a deep commitment to children reading for pleasure.” It also said, “Her Majesty and Ms. Rowling discussed the importance of ensuring that young people have access to books and the vital part reading plays in opening doors for future generations.”
📕 With a shared passion for books and a deep commitment to children reading for pleasure, The Queen and author J.K. Rowling have met at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh.
Her Majesty and Ms Rowling discussed the importance of ensuring that young people have access to…
[pic.twitter.com/Yx1Xy6olqC]— The Royal Family (@RoyalFamily)
[June 30, 2026]
Critical comments followed, with some posts garnering hundreds of “likes” and replies.
“The Royal Family should not be posing for photographs with one of the worst trans-baiters in the world today,” one person wrote in a popular post, while another said: “There are SO many authors in the U.K. Why would you select the one who wants to deny young people access to live-saving health care? Why would you select the one who has made it her life mission to erase a vulnerable minority from public existence?”
For transgender people and their allies in America, timing of the post for Tuesday could seem particularly distasteful. LGBTQ people suffered a major blow to their rights, with the Supreme Court ruling to uphold state laws that ban transgender athletes from participating in girls and women’s sports. “So wonderful that JK has a commitment to kids reading books and giving them a future,” another person wrote. “Oh, except ones with trans characters in them. She only wants to give children a future without LGBT people in it.”
Rowling’s public statements against transgender women have led many to label her a transgender-exclusionary radical feminist, or TERF, People reported. The author first came under fire in 2020 for making remarks widely condemned as transphobic, such as criticizing the language used around transgender issues, such as “people who menstruate,” People reported at the time.
“I’m sure there used to be a word for those people,” Rowling wrote in June 2020. “Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?”
Rowling has denied being transphobic, while defending her views as pro-women and pro-feminist, People reported. In a lengthy 2020 essay on her website, Rowling wrote: “I refuse to bow down to a movement that I believe is doing demonstrable harm in seeking to erode ‘woman’ as a political and biological class and offering cover to predators like few before it,”
Rowling also insisted she wanted everyone to be safe, including trans women, according to People. She then brought up her personal experience as a survivor of sexual assault and domestic abuse, while doubling-down on the view that trans people can potentially threaten girls’ and women’s safety in certain situations.
Rowling said, “When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman … you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside.”
Sarah McBride, national press secretary for LGBTQ-advocacy group Human Rights Campaign blasted Rowling’s assertions, saying they were based on “dangerous and discredited myths about transgender people,” People reported.
“You’d think that for someone who has professed support for inclusivity and equality in other ways, that her use of the same arguments that Donald Trump and far-right extremists in the United States are using would give her ,” McBride said. She noted that the U.K. allows transgender people to use restrooms consistent with their identities.
“When trans people face discrimination in employment and housing and public spaces, it’s discrimination that’s rooted in the prejudice that transgender people are not who we say we are,” McBride said. “And that is exactly what J.K. Rowling is reinforcing.”
The stars of the films based on Rowling’s Harry Potter books also spoke out against her comments at the time, including Emma Watson, who posted on X. “Trans people are who they say they are and deserve to live their lives without being constantly questioned or told they aren’t who they say they are.”
“Transgender women are women,” Daniel Radcliffe also wrote in a short essay. “Any statement to the contrary erases the identity and dignity of transgender people and goes against all advice given by professional health care associations who have far more expertise on this subject matter than either (Rowling) or I.”