London(CNN) Stars of the "Harry Potter" movie franchise have joined trans activists in standing with the transgender community after the publication of a lengthy essay by author J.K Rowling.
In the 3,600-word piece, published on her website on Wednesday, Rowling explained why she has joined the UK's polarising trans debate, revealing that she was "a domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor" and held "concerns around single sex spaces."
"I'm mentioning these things now not in an attempt to garner sympathy, but out of solidarity with the huge numbers of women who have histories like mine, who've been slurred as bigots for having concerns around single-sex spaces," Rowling wrote.
The backlash was immediate. "Trans people are who they say they are and deserve to live their lives without being constantly questioned or told they aren't who they say they are," actress Emma Watson, who plays Hermione Granger in the "Potter films," wrote on Twitter hours later, without mentioning Rowling.
Watson added that "many other people around the world see you [trans people], respect you and love you for who you are." The sentiment was reiterated by her co-star Bonnie Wright, who wrote on Twitter: "Transwomen are Women. I see and love you."
This split in opinion reveals a wider debate that has raged over trans rights in the UK, where a number of columnists and radical feminists have argued that trans women are not women and should be barred from single-sex spaces like refuges or changing rooms.
Rowling's foray into the matter has not only made her one of the highest-profile, and perhaps richest, proponents of the gender critical debate, but trans activists say the author has used her lived experience as a tool to prop up a transphobic worldview.
"Through her own legitimate experiences of violence, she's evoked the threat of gender-based violence against women in order to connect it to fear of trans people," Nim Ralph, a 34-year-old trans activist, told CNN.
Ralph added "it's devastating" to see "somebody as powerful -- and have as wide a reach as J.K. Rowling -- spend her time in the middle of a pandemic, in the middle of a global uprising for black lives, and in the middle of Pride month, write an essay with a lot of misinformation and transphobia."
One common shorthand for understanding what it means to be trans is that one's gender identity does not match the sex one was assigned at birth -- anathema to anti-trans feminists, who argue sex is immutable.
Rowling wrote on Twitter last weekend: "If sex isn't real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isn't hate to speak the truth."
Her comments came under fire from her large fan-base as well as "Harry Potter" star Daniel Radcliffe.
"Transgender women are women," Radcliffe wrote in a blog post for The Trevor Project, a non-profit devoted to suicide prevention among LGBTQ+ youth. "Any statement to the contrary erases the identity and dignity of transgender people and goes against all advice given by professional health care associations who have far more expertise on this subject matter than either Jo (Rowling) or I."
In a statement to Variety, "Fantastic Beasts" actor Eddie Redmayne said he disagreed with her and respect for trans people should remain "a cultural imperative."
"My dear transgender friends and colleagues are tired of this constant questioning of their identities, which all too often results in violence and abuse. They simply want to live their lives peacefully, and it's time to let them do so," he said.
According to her essay, Rowling's ire over the weekend comes from attempts to ease the current pathway for trans people to change their gender markers in their birth certificates.
At present, the law in Scotland, which is Rowling's adopted home, requires an applicant to provide the panel proof of living in the "acquired gender" for at least two years, as well as a detailed medical and psychiatric report. To put it in step with other European countries, Scotland's government was working to ease the process, criticized as too expensive and intrusive.
The simplified self-declaratory system would shed the panel and the medical reports and shorten the time period from two years to three months. The move has received widespread support from the country's biggest women's groups, including Engender, Rape Crisis Scotland, Scottish Women's Aid, and Women 50:50. However, the Scottish government announced in April that work on a draft bill was put on hold, so that it could focus resources on the dealing with the coronavirus pandemic.
Emma Ritch, Engender's executive director, reiterated the organization's support for a change, but did not comment on Rowling's essay. "Engender has previously shared expert feminist legal analysis of the proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act in Scotland, which makes clear that proposed reforms will not have a detrimental impact on women's equality and rights," she said in a statement to CNN.
Yet Rowling writes: "When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he's a woman -- and, as I've said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones -- then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside. That is the simple truth."
Trans advocates ask why a man would change his gender to enter a safe space like a toilet, when he can already do so by just walking through the door.
While Rowling recognized in her essay that trans people do face harm and are victims of abuse, trans activist Ralph said the author provides no alternatives for trans women in need of refuges. "She is arguing against 1% of the population, who she recognizes is being harmed and marginalized -- that is not a position of protecting your own rights [as a woman], that is becoming the oppressor," Ralph said.
"White women have always tried to control the definition of women and there is a legacy of black feminist and women of color who have fought against that singularity," Ralph added. "White feminism ... has a long lineage of scientific racism and biological essentialism and this is just another extension of that."