Daniel Radcliffe: ‘If you’re going to talk about trans kids, it might be useful to listen to trans kids’

Daniel Radcliffe speaks out for LGBTQ+ amid fresh JK Rowling backlash (Getty Images for Warner Media)

Daniel Radcliffe has come out in support of the transgender community as Harry Potter author JK Rowling is slammed for her recent comments about trans women.

It’s been announced by the LGBTQ+ suicide prevention nonprofit The Trevor Project that Radcliffe will moderate a discussion series involving transgender and nonbinary young people, titled Sharing Space.

Along with the announcement, Harry Potter star Radcliffe said in a statement: “If you’re going to talk about trans kids, it might be useful to actually listen to trans kids”.

“We listen to so many people talk about trans youth and hear them talked about so often in the news, but very rarely do we actually hear from these youth directly.

“It was an absolute privilege to get to meet and listen to this incredible group of young people.”

The 33-year-old actor has long supported the Trevor Project and was honoured by he organisation with the Trevor Hero Award in 2011 for his activism.

In a trailer for the first episode, which was released on YouTube today to commemorate International Transgender Day of Visibility, he said: “There are some people in the world who are just not trying to engage in this conversation in any good faith.

“I think a lot of the time it’s just because people don’t know a young trans person so there’s just this, like, theoretical idea about this in their head.”

His comments follow Tuesday’s installment of The Free Press’ podcast, The Witch Trials of JK Rowling, in which Rowling was asked to address some criticisms that have been levelled against her, including that she’s transphobic.

JK Rowling said: ‘This [new trans] movement, is pressing for something different, very different’ (PA Archive)

When asked about the accusation that she believes trans women are “second-class women” because of their biological differences and how hurtful some people would find that stance, she said: “Yes is the short answer.

“Yes, I could understand that hurt. The thing is, women are the only group, to my knowledge, that are being asked to embrace members of their oppressor class unquestioningly with no caveat.

“Now, on an individual basis, I think many people new to this argument would see it on that level because many people, of my generation particularly, think that we’re talking about old-school transsexuals.

“People who’ve been through full sex reassignment because of profound gender dysphoria, and I feel 100 per cent compassion for such people and I would absolutely respect their pronouns – always have, always will – and would want them, as I say, to have comfortable, easy lives.

Rupert Grint, Emma Watson and Radcliffe have all hit out at Rowling over her ‘transphobic’ comments (PA Archive)

“This [new] movement, though, is pressing for something different, very different.

“This movement has argued, continues to argue, that a man may have had no surgery whatsoever but if he feels himself to be a woman, the door of every woman’s bathroom, changing room, rape centre should be open to him. And I say no. I’m afraid I say no.”

Rowling’s latest comments have been met with criticism from transgender activists and several members of the LGBTQ+ community.

Back in 2020 she made similiar comments on Twitter, which prompted Radcliffe and a host of his former Harry Potter co-stars, including Rupert Grint and Emma Watson, to join him in distancing themselves from the author.