JK Rowling has condemned the “utterly shameful” treatment of a teenage girl who felt forced to leave her school after pupils hounded her for challenging the views of a visiting speaker.
The author waded into the row after a teacher at the school claimed the unnamed girl was treated like a heretic for questioning a politician’s assertions about sex.
After debating with the speaker, a female member of the House of Lords, the sixth form student at the private girl’s school said she was surrounded by up to 60 pupils who shouted, screamed and spat at her. She escaped and said she collapsed, unable to breathe properly.
The girl has been studying at home after fellow sixth formers accused her of transphobia
The girl has been studying at home after fellow sixth formers accused her of transphobia
The school were initially supportive but after numerous accusations of transphobia were made by other students, they ended up apologising for not maintaining a “safe space” in the sixth form.
Teachers were initially supportive but withdrew their backing after the other sixth-formers accused the girl of transphobia. The teenager returned to school a few times but was told she would have to work in the library if she said anything provocative in lessons, and faced bullying and accusations of transphobia from pupils throughout the school. She also spent break and lunch times in the library. The girl left in December and is studying at home.
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Writing on Twitter to her 14 million followers today, Rowling shared the Times article and described her treatment as “utterly shameful”. “Add this to the tottering pile of evidence that people in education and academia who’ve supposed to have a duty of care towards the young have succumbed to an outbreak of quasi-religious fanaticism,” she added. “The girl’s crime? Saying ‘sex exists’.”
The girl spoke to The Times about the incident with the peer. “The language she was using was implying critical theory took precedence over biological reality in defining women.” She added: “When I questioned that, she said it wasn’t an issue of semantics. She said trans people don’t have basic human rights in this country. Afterwards I spoke to her and said I’m sorry if I came across as rude.” The pair parted amicably, the girl said.
A teacher at the school said: “We know how these views are being silenced in the adult world through high-profile legal cases and the bullying and defamation of celebrities such as JK Rowling. This is also happening in schools.”
Writing for the website Transgender Trend, he said: “There was a time when the school invited in Christian and other religious speakers to address moral and ethical issues and to provide food for thought and contemplation. It was usually the practice to follow these up with Q&A sessions during which the students could share their own feelings and opinions on the issues, and even disagree if they wanted to.”
It was the similarity of transgender ideology to religious fundamentalism that “alerted me to the danger of what has been going on in our schools over the last few years”, the teacher added.
He said a group of sixth-formers arrived in an “animated state” after the speaker’s visit, with a “significant group of girls verbally ‘laying into’ one particular 18-year-old who had had the audacity to question the position”.
The teacher added: “It was probably somewhat naive of her not to realise that this is indeed ‘an ideology’ and one with which you’re simply not allowed to disagree.” The 18-year-old girl ended up denounced by other pupils in the school. The teacher said: “It is quite chilling to witness first hand how this ideology operates and grows.”
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He said: “It was the whispered and frequent use of the terms transphobe and transphobic during that after-school activity that alerted me to the depressing fact that these girls were going along with the narrative that our heretic was, as far as they were concerned, indeed a heretic — and that she was thoroughly deserving of the roasting that she had just received before caving in and running off in a panicked and hyperventilating state.”
The girl told The Times that she would have completed her A-levels at the school had it not been for the incident in October. “It made me think I was mad,” she said. “Otherwise how could people turn on me so bitterly?”
She said she never uttered anything transphobic but felt that some teachers were less inclined to believe her because the other pupils made joint accusations.
The pupil said she was in effect forced to quarantine in the library instead of spending time in the sixth-form centre.
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