Thread by @ErinInTheMorn

1. Today, JK Rowling promoted holocaust denialist views, claiming that the trans people targeted and books burned during the rise of fascism was "a fever dream." She also called for the arrest of Stonewall, Mermaids LGBTQ+ leaders.

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2. Rowling originally compared trans people targeted by the Holocaust to "a fever dream." When confronted with sources, she linked to a thread calling the first trans woman to receive gender reassignment surgery "a troubled male," which also denied it.

erininthemorning.com/p/jk-rowling-h…

3. The claims and denialism came shortly after she called for the arrest of doctors providing gender affirming care, as well as leaders from Stonewall and Mermaids.

4. Responding to a tweet that compared views like those she holds to the targeting of trans people in the rise of fascism in Germany, she responded by labeling it a fever dream, implying it wasn't real.

5. When confronted with sources, she doubled down and linked to a twitter thread that virtually ignores the burning of books and the way in which trans people were targeted. The thread also called Dora Richter a "troubled male."

6. Nazis did indeed target transgender people in Nazi Germany. The Institute of Sexology, led by Magnus Hirschfeld, was the first institute to advance the study and medical care of transgender people

scientificamerican.com/article/the-fo…

7. The institute provided transgender people with "transvestite passes" which served as an early form of gender identification and legal transition.
-discrimination

8. Early patients of the institute gathered and existed freely in safe spaces in Berlin. You can see pictures of some of these first trans patients here:

9. Magnus Hirschfeld became heavily targeted due to the institute. Hitler infamously called him "the most dangerous Jew in Germany." One of the early editions of Nazi publication Der Stürmer published him on their front page, essentially calling him a groomer.

10. This of course famously led to the sacking of the institute and the plundering of its books, thousands of them, which included the earliest research into transgender people.

The books they were burning were of the institute.

. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_book…

11. Liddy Barcroft was one trans woman who was sent to a camp and murdered after police said she was “fundamentally a transvestite” and “morals criminal of the worst sort,

https://twitter.com/EliErlick/status/1688994851075895296

12. Gerd R was interred in a concentration camp, forced to detransition, and took her own life.

academic.oup.com/past/article/2…

13. Transgender woman Toni Simon was sent to a concentration camp after being deemed a “pronounced transvestite” and thus a “threat to Nazi society.”

cambridge.org/core/journals/…

14. In a special report by historian Laurie Marhoefer on behalf of Central European History Society of the American Historical Association, Marhoefer found that transgender women occupied a distinct category from male homosexuals when it came to Nazi persecution.

15. Rowling suggested that the Nazi practice of treating trans women as gay men means they were not specifically targeted, implicitly endorsing the Nazi belief that transgender women possessed false gender identities.

A view she has also promoted.

https://x.com/jk_rowling/status/1767939048427896900?s=20

16. Just a week ago, Rowling called a prominent trans woman and journalist in the UK "a man... cosplaying"

This appears to be her framework for transgender people and echoes statements from conservatives that trans people cannot experience genocide because they don't exist.

17. You can learn more about Nazi targeting of transgender people in this video from the Museum of Jewish Heritage.

18. Holocaust denialism over transgender people has run rampant in recent weeks. The error-ridden editorial called the "WPATH files," for instance, contain the same claims - claims that Rowling boosted today.

19. These claims include highlighting a doctor, Gohrbandt, at the clinic who went on to become a Nazi collaborator.

These sources leave out doctors patients who had to flee, such as Levy-Lenz, who helped perform the first gender reassignment surgery.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Le…

20. Of course, collaboration was not unique to a doctor at the institute - many collaborators existed in Nazi Germany, including "masculinist" gays who could be comparable to "Gays Against Groomers."

They are used to illustrate the folly of collaboration with fascism.

21. Holocaust denialism is seen as a continuation of atrocity. That Rowling would promote it helps contribute to the erasure of transgender victims of the Holocaust.

22. Lastly, I am a transgender journalist who reports on news, cultural events, and the biggest moments on LGBTQ+ topics every day.

Please subscribe to support my work at and you'll receive my articles first everyday.erininthemorning.com/subscribe