Why Is JK Rowling Being Called a Holocaust Denier? An Explainer
“JK Rowling is a Holocaust denier” has been trending on Twitter. How did it come to the point where the beloved author of the Harry Potter series is now associated with something as widely despised as Holocaust denial?
The Inciting Incident
On March 13, 2024, Rowling tweeted the following:
The thread is authored Malcolm Clark, a documentary film maker who also runs a substack called The Secret Gender Files which describes itself thusly: “You can follow me on Twitter and Instagram but this is where I place all my longer articles that carefully dissect and dismantle the claims and pseudo-science of the LGBTQ+ lobby as well as their fellow travellers.” That’s a newer bio he put up after the increased scrutiny he received from being retweeted by Rowling. At the initial time of his retweeting, his bio was far more incendiary:
And if that weren’t a good enough indication of his views: he writes articles in defense of conversion therapy, bemoaning the sexual revolution, calling for the end of pride parades, and claiming that cultural Marxists are trying to destroy Western civilization.
In short, Clark is a right-wing crank with no credentials or relevant expertise vomiting out anti-LGBT propaganda in between other far right conspiracy theories. It should be no surprise then that his thread about Nazis and trans people is ahistorical bunk that professional institutions like The Smithsonian and the German court system disagree with him on. It’s unclear how JK Rowling stumbled upon his work or why she found it persuasive. All we know for sure is that she seemingly endorsed it by retweeting it and shocked a lot of people by doing so. Claims that she was engaging Holocaust denial came from every corner. Rowling even responded to one critic directly.
The original tweet is in reference to the infamous looting of the Institute for Sexual Research in Berlin which has been widely acknowledged as the first trans health clinic. The building was destroyed and much of its research was burned with many of its scientists forced to flee the country. Rowling here seems to deny that such an event took place by implying that the source of this claim was delusional.
Rowling’s Denial
Rowling issued a statement the following day, denying that she had denied the Holocaust:
Frankly, it’s a bad response that doesn’t meaningfully engage the criticisms posed. First, she pretends to be refuting the idea that trans people were the first victims when the threads she retweeted make no such claim. Second, she attributes all criticism to “extreme trans activism” when there were plenty of historians and journalists criticizing her as well. Third, she does not mention her denial of trans book burnings at all nor explained why she said what she said. Last, there is no reckoning with the fact that her source was himself an extreme activist and not in any way reputable.
But all of this was a month ago. Why is the controversy picking up again in mid April?
Re-sparking Controversy
Rowling’s statement did not end the accusations so she took a different tack: threatening legal action. Rowling has been well known for being litigious in the past. Vanity Fair described her as the “best [client for an IP lawyer after JD Salinger] because they are extremely litigious [and] guarantee great publicity.”
And she is enabled by the UK court system which is famous for extremely favorable libel laws that protect celebrities and royalty. NPR describes the UK as “a popular place for libel cases to be filed because of laws that make it difficult for journalists or the media to prevail.” Her most notable target this time was the journalist Rivkah Brown. Brown, being both Jewish and British, was offended by Rowling’s retweeting of Clark and called Rowling a Holocaust denier. Rowling responded by saying she would take Brown to court. You can see the full exchange in this screenshot.
Brown took the tweet down and posted this retraction on April 15:
This is where the controversy took off again. People immediately recognized that Brown’s apology had all the hallmarks of being made in response to a legal threat and questioned Brown about why she had posted the apology. Brown confirmed that it had been made to avoid a potential court battle with the world’s richest author since Brown did not have the resources to compete and wasn’t confident the outcome of such case would be favorable.
Upon learning that a famous rich person didn’t want to be called something, the internet had a predictable response: trolling. Twitter users propelled the Holocaust denial allegation to the trending page to spite Rowling for her litigiousness in what is being called a classic example of the Streisand effect.
But is Rowling a Holocaust Denier?
Clark’s thread is definitely Holocaust denial. Clark claims that trans people were never killed at Dachau which is categorically incorrect. The Museum of Jewish Heritage, an org dedicated to memorializing the victims of the Holocaust, readily acknowledges transgender deaths in concentration camps. However, Rowling retweeting his thread with her vague quote that edges around explicit endorsement means that outright calling her a Holocaust denier may not be legally defensible.
It is certainly clear from context that Rowling agrees with some or all of Clark’s thread (otherwise she either wouldn’t have retweeted it or would have retweeted it with a more critical caption). I don’t think it’s meaningfully wrong for someone to call her a Holocaust denier but she has produced enough plausible deniability that taking the matter to court in Britain would be risky for anyone calling her that.
Her response dismissing the burning of trans literature is the closest to outright undeniable Holocaust denialism. However, with that claim it would be easy to plead ignorance of the burning of the Institute for Sexual Research’s trans research. So here again, we’re stuck with the frustrating answer that it’s not off base for a person to call this Holocaust denial but I can’t say for sure that such a claim would hold up in court. Put another way: she may not be denying the Holocaust specifically and directly but she does appear to be denying that a specific pre-Holocaust atrocity was committed by the Nazis against trans people and that’s going to be a distinction without a difference to anyone with a conscience.
I think the most legally defensible answer is the following set of statements:
- Rowling retweeted a Holocaust denial thread and appears susceptible to the messaging of Holocaust deniers.
- Rowling seemingly cannot distinguish between credible experts and right wing cranks when it comes to writing about the Holocaust.
- Rowling is at best ignorant of the history of Nazi book burnings which did target trans literature and she is clearly resistant to learn about it.
It’s sad to see Rowling’s well-documented dislike for the trans community slowly erode her standards of acceptability. It’s hard to imagine this same woman would have retweeted a kook like Clark even just a few short years ago. But here we are now. The woman who was once the most beloved children’s author in history now spends her days retweeting fringe activists with anti-gay agendas and then threatening to sue anyone who is alarmed by that fact.