Editor’s Note: The following article was originally published by the Observatory of University Ethics on July 3, 2025. The Observatory translated it into English from French. I have edited it, to the best of my ability, to align with Minding the Campus’s style guidelines. It is crossposted here with permission.
On June 13, Le Monde, under the byline of editor-in-chief Michel Guerrin, published an ad hominem attack on J.K. Rowling, essentially advising her to make money in peace with Harry Potter and to stop concerning herself with women’s health and dignity. What contempt for such an essential fight! Many of us believe that Rowling’s philanthropic work is far more significant than her literary output.
That Michel Guerrin believes “trans women” are women is entirely his prerogative; not everyone agrees, but this is a matter that can be discussed. Biologically, these individuals are men who cannot escape “the horror of their cradle”: sex is not assigned at birth but observed, and uncertainty occurs in only one out of five thousand births. This has nothing to do with a freely chosen “gender identity,” which ranges from the most toxic masculinity to the most ostentatious femininity.
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Nevertheless, these “transgender” individuals developed male musculature and aggression during the period when they were fully male, and, unless surgically altered, retain male genitalia and sexual desires. The limited estrogen they may have taken does not reverse these traits. Numerous reports exist of aggression toward women in prisons where they were incarcerated, in shelters intended for women, in athletic competitions, and in attacks on meeting spaces. These incidents are widely documented, even in Le Monde. Such cases are not “exceptionally rare.”
Women deserve protection from men—et us reject the odious phrase “bodies with vaginas,” which disgraced The Lancet years ago. Protection of their privacy, protection against violence, protection against rape—which can occur in spaces where women should feel safe—and protection against the consequences of rape, including unwanted pregnancy. That a left-leaning newspaper would fail to recognize this obligation is truly astonishing. In the Western world, no one is more vulnerable than a woman in prison or a shelter seeking refuge from violence. Should she be forced to surrender the small measure of dignity she retains to a patriarchal system masquerading as progressive?
Consider J.K. Rowling herself: a woman who has earned millions through her talent and devotes part of her fortune to funding organizations that protect women. Guerrin criticizes her for spending money on whisky and cigars aboard a yacht—how scandalous, reminiscent of the moralizing of Comtesse de Ségur!—and then chastises her for not earning more through her literary and cinematic work or pandering to adoring teenagers. To suggest, as Guerrin does, that Rowling should abandon her “obsession” with defending women is thoroughly odious.
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No, Rowling has not changed: she continues to champion inclusion, tolerance, equality, anti-racism; she defends migrants, public healthcare, abortion rights, and the respect of LGBTQ individuals. The headline of Guerrin’s article is misleading: it cites a single line in which Rowling attacks “trans women.” She does not. She highlights the risks that certain trans women may pose to cisgender women. She supports the weak, the oppressed, and the vulnerable. We admire her for this, and Guerrin seems resentful that many of us do. “Demonetized”? What a vile term! Is money all that matters? Is he so envious of her wealth and the “billion” he will never gain from his pen? (Nor will I!) She is only “demonetized” in the eyes of militant trans activists—of which Guerrin appears to be one—who imagine they can gain glory by erasing her name from women’s literature. Erasing what displeases you: what a spectacular achievement of cancel culture! Burn the books, vandalize the meeting spaces, silence Sylviane Agacinski, Élisabeth Badinter, Nathalie Heinich—the real feminists, leftist women who wish to protect the weakest among the weak. Is that what you support?
Of course, trans women “are not the world’s top priority.” But the compliment can be returned: why such aggression toward J.K. Rowling? If Guerrin adds one more article to the hundreds published over the past five years, it is he who is obsessive. Let her work in peace defending women. She does not concern herself with trans individuals so long as they do not threaten women in prisons, shelters, restrooms, boxing rings, or sports courts. Rowling shows us the moon; Guerrin looks at the finger.
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Image: “J.K. Rowling” by Kingkongphoto on Wikimedia Commons
