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'Harry Potter' actor Robbie Coltrane slammed for defending JK Rowling in transphobia row: 'Hagrid is dead'

'I don’t know why but there’s a whole Twitter generation of people who hang around waiting to be offended'

Actor Robbie Coltrane, who played Rubeus Hagrid in the ‘Harry Potter’ movies, has come out in defense of JK Rowling after she was accused of being transphobic. In June, she attracted a lot of criticism after sharing a series of tweets about menstruation that were dubbed as “anti-trans”. Though she denied the allegations at the time, she wrote a long blog post, which was slammed for encouraging inaccurate harmful thoughts about transgender people.

The controversy was triggered again this week after it was found that the antagonist of Rowling's latest book, ‘Troubled Blood’, dresses as a woman to kill his victims. An early review of the book done by The Daily Telegraph stated that its “moral seems to be: never trust a man in a dress”, which sparked huge controversy online with people writing #RIPJKRowling.

However, there were some who urged people to read the book, which is not released until Tuesday, September 15, before thrashing it. Coltrane told the Radio Times: “I don’t think what she said was offensive really. I don’t know why but there’s a whole Twitter generation of people who hang around waiting to be offended. They wouldn’t have won the war, would they? That’s me talking like a grumpy old man, but you just think, ‘Oh, get over yourself. Wise up, stand up straight and carry on.’”

However, the actor did not dive further into the matter as he said, “I don’t want to get involved in all of that because of all the hate mail and all that sh*t, which I don’t need at my time of life.”

But Coltrane’s support for Rowling did not go down well with people on Twitter as they did not take time to slam him too. One user tweeted, “Hagrid is dead to me.” Another said, “This made-up character must be weeping fictional tears over this.” “I love how offended people are getting, thus proving his point,” said a third user. While the fourth added: “Hagrid is a great character... Unfortunately, the actor who portrayed him has shown that he is not.”

Earlier, Rowling was alleged to be transphobic after she replied to an article, titled ‘Creating a more equal post-Covid-19 world for people who menstruate’. The 55-year-old British author tweeted: “People who menstruate.’ I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?” She also defended her remarks and stated, “If sex isn’t real, there’s no same-sex attraction. 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.”

But several people, including ‘Harry Potter’ star Daniel Radcliffe criticized her at the time. "To all the people who now feel that their experience of the books has been tarnished or diminished, I am deeply sorry for the pain these comments have caused you. I really hope that you don’t entirely lose what was valuable in these stories to you,” Radcliffe said.

“If these books taught you that love is the strongest force in the universe, capable of overcoming anything; if they taught you that strength is found in diversity, and that dogmatic ideas of pureness lead to the oppression of vulnerable groups; if you believe that a particular character is trans, nonbinary, or gender fluid, or that they are gay or bisexual; if you found anything in these stories that resonated with you and helped you at any time in your life — then that is between you and the book that you read, and it is sacred. And in my opinion, nobody can touch that. It means to you what it means to you and I hope that these comments will not taint that too much."