J. K. Rowling and the Echo Chamber of Secrets

Abstract

This autoethnographic article attempts to capture the distress of a trans woman in Scotland at the transphobia in the legacy media's coverage of the J. K. Rowling furore in June 2020. Through the use of a frame narrative, the article analyses some of the transphobic elements of Rowling's essay published on June 10, 2020, originally titled “TERF Wars,” which prompted an online backlash and a subsequent cycle of negative legacy media coverage against trans people. The article deconstructs two opinion pieces in the Scotsman and the National that depict Rowling as a victim and trans women as abusive and/or delusional, with an accompanying association of trans women with virtual spaces, set against cis women inhabiting real-world spaces. The newspapers' subsequent, respective refusal to publish counter articles criticizing the opinion pieces is then described, with reference to the legacy media's more general cancel-culture narrative, described by Sara Ahmed as a “mechanism of power.” Concluding on the experience of having no personal voice or access to the kind of influence enjoyed by a transphobic legacy media, the article refers to Andrew Anastasia's conception of three modes of transgender voice to identify how only collective action can allow trans voices to be heard and effect change.