The Harry Potter author backed For Women Scotland, whose emphatic legal victories should mean safe spaces for women should be immediately accured
After a long and often divisive debate one clear winner has emerged in the struggle between trans rights and those of biological women. And it has to be Harry Potter author JK Rowling – who has funded, argued and won battle after battle to protect women’s safety and dignity in the face of a virtual onslaught by the Scottish Government.
Rowling had no need for a magic wand like the heroes of her books. Her formidable voice, most often on social media platform X, has undoubtedly been the most powerful and consistent one in the debate that led to two thumping court victories for her close associates, the For Women Scotland group.
The author’s position has remained rock solid, despite death threats and concerted global moves to “cancel” her, amid mass book burnings and thousands of vitriolic direct messages decrying her as a traitor, a TERF, and a transphobe.
Rowling refused to be bowed and her financial support of FWS – a group of equally resolute Scottish women – led to the UK’s Supreme Court last April enshrining in law that biology defines a woman. The group’s second big legal victory, just last week, means it is now, categorically, illegal for trans women to be held in women’s jails in Scotland.
And this week the multi-millionaire author has doubled down on her promise to put her money where her mouth is. She has invited any woman who might have been subject to unlawful treatment by the Scottish Government or Scottish Prison Service to join a class action, in which she’ll foot the hefty legal costs.
The J.K. Rowling Women’s Fund (JKRWF), according to the author, “stands ready to fund such an action” – and several women who have served time in Scottish prisons are already thought to be on board, arguing that they were put in danger by the presence of men.
Rowling’s focus now seems to be making sure that the legal victories she has been a big part of do not get shoved to the side – and that quick changes must be seen in the way women’s safe spaces are assured.
To understand how far we have moved, we need to remember that in 2022 the then First Minister Nicola Sturgeon declared simply that ‘trans women and women’ and her followers were keen on the phrase “no debate”.
The big change was perhaps the case of Isla Bryson, who was known as Adam Graham when he raped two vulnerable women in 2016 and 2019. In January 2023, Bryson was set to serve an extended sentence of 11 years in a women’s jail.
But an outcry erupted after he turned up at court in a blonde wig and tight pink leggings, revealing his full male biology. That picture told a thousand words.
Prior to that, disturbed Tiffany Scott was another who was earmarked for a women’s jail, despite his crimes including stalking a 13-year-old girl. Scott, previously Andrew Burns, died in HMP Grampian in February 2024 after a long history of self harming.
The presence of Sophie Eastwood in a women’s jail also caused alarm, given the fact the lifer had strangled a cellmate, Paul Algie, to death with shoelaces in 2004, for little apparent reason. Eastwood was another to be quietly re-assigned to the male estate but has spent a substantial time in hospital.
The biggest recent focal point for campaigners has been the case of murderer Alexandria Stewart – formerly Alan Baker – who was able to conduct a relationship with child killer Nyomi Fee inside HMP Greenock for several years.
Stewart was recently charged with an alleged sexual crime against a woman in the jail – but is still being held in the women’s wing, in segregation.
Despite the legal success of the “gender critical” lobby, that includes Rowling, the SPS is pausing to consider its position, meaning there are still biological men held among women in the female estate.
That means the organisation is still holding a position that Ms Sturgeon defended to the hilt, prior to mentally unravelling when she was asked to simply state what defined a woman in 2022. Recent history shows that anyone caught in the sights of Rowling over a moral – or legal – issue she has committed to would have a right to feel uneasy.
The SPS and Scottish Government would do well to wave the white flag on this one – and immediately move all biological men to the male estate, where they legally belong.
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