JK Rowling: Harry Potter author takes subtle swipe at Emma Watson for supporting trans charity Mermaids

JK Rowling has blasted celebrities including Emma Watson and businesses such as Starbucks for backing the charity Mermaids, who supports gender variant and transgender youth.

The author, 57, from Gloucestershire, vented her thoughts to 13.8million Twitter followers, after the charity “appointed a paedophilia apologist as trustee”.

“We’ve now learned that Mermaids appointed a paedophilia apologist as Trustee and that their online moderator encouraged kids to move onto a platform notorious for sexual exploitation,” JK Rowling tweeted.

Trustee Dr Jacob Breslow has since resigned from Mermaids following the revelation that he did a speech for peadophile support group B4U-ACT, in 2011.

B4U-ACT calls for paedophiles to have the right to live “in truth and dignity”, and Dr Breslow is said to have used the phrase “minor-attracted persons” instead of paedophile in his speech.

JK Rowling went on to argue Mermaids couldn’t have achieved what it has “without the money and public support of certain corporations and celebrities, who eagerly boosted them even though the red flags have been there for years.”

Thus making a subtle dig at the likes of Emma Watson, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, Starbucks, and Dr Martens - who have all previously supported Mermaids and their work for transgender youths.

Actress Emma is known for her role as Hermione Granger in all eight Harry Potter films - which were adapted from JK Rowling’s novels.

In 2020, the Harry potter star asked her Twitter followers to donate to Mermaids.

She wrote: “I donate to @Mermaids_Gender and @mamacash. If you can, perhaps you’ll feel inclined to do the same. ❤️”

That same year, coffeehouse Starbucks teamed up with Mermaids to sell cookies across the UK where 50p from each sale “goes towards raising a minimum of £100k” for the charity.

In 2019, Harry and Meghan met with the CEO of the charity and said the organisation is "on the front line of mental health work in the UK”.

Earlier this year, Dr Martens supported Mermaids as they tried to set up a Youth Advisory Panel.

The shoe retailer said they were “proud to support this great initiative”.

JK Rowling said the charity should have taken reasonable steps before appointing a trustee, as a “simple Google search would have enabled Mermaids to read Breslow’s own words”.

The author claimed the charity either did no checking at all, or “were fine with his views” - both of which she described as “a catastrophic safeguarding failure”.

In numerous tweets she made further allegations against the charity, some of which are now being investigated.

In one, the mother-of-three claimed that staff from Mermaids had sent “devices to flatten breasts to underage girls w/o [without] parental consent”.

In another, JK Rowlingclaimed that men, including gay men, have been “threatened and bullied” for “raising their concerns around Mermaids.”