Daniel Radcliffe says he wouldn't be able to look at himself if he hadn't spoken out against J.K. Rowling
The boy who lived is opening up about his decision to speak out against Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling's controversial statements about transgender people.
Daniel Radcliffe, who of course played Harry Potter in the big screen adaptation of Rowling's beloved book series, shared a statement via The Trevor Project in June 2020 denouncing the author's rhetoric around trans issues that she's consistently shared on social media and in published work in recent years.
In a new interview with IndieWire, Radcliffe explained that he shared his statement — in which he wrote in part that "transgender women are women" and "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" — because he felt he needed to say something to Harry Potter fans specifically.
"Particularly since finishing Potter, I've met so many queer and trans kids and young people who had a huge amount of identification with Potter on that. And so seeing them hurt on that day I was like, I wanted them to know that not everybody in the franchise felt that way. And that was really important," Radcliffe told the outlet.
Peter Mountain/Warner Bors Daniel Radcliffe in 'Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets'
"It was really important as I've worked with the Trevor Project for more than 10 years, and so I don't think I would've been able to look myself in the mirror had I not said anything," he told IndieWire. "But it's not mine to guess what's going on in someone else's head."
Radcliffe first joined the Trevor Project's Circle of Hope, a community of major donors which plays an essential role in the financial leadership of the organization, in 2009. The Trevor Project is the leading national organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning youth.
The actor's recent comments come on the heels of another Potter alum — Voldemort actor Ralph Fiennes — coming to Rowling's defense in an interview with The New York Times, in which he called "the verbal abuse" directed at the author "disgusting" and "appalling." Fiennes added, "I mean, I can understand a viewpoint that might be angry at what she says about women. But it's not some obscene, über-right-wing fascist. It's just a woman saying, 'I'm a woman and I feel I'm a woman and I want to be able to say that I'm a woman.' And I understand where she's coming from. Even though I'm not a woman."
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