The Silkworm

J.K. Rowling, born Joanne Rowling in Gloucestershire, England, in 1965, is one of the most commercially successful authors in modern history. She is best known for the Harry Potter series, becoming a household name with the first book’s publication in 1997. The series is now a global franchise. After the conclusion of Harry Potter, Rowling pursued crime fiction under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. The Cormoran Strike series, including The Silkworm (2014), has been both commercially and critically successful, but Rowling’s public image has changed dramatically in recent years.

Rowling’s acclaim is increasingly overshadowed by controversy, particularly surrounding her views about transgender identity and rights. In 2020, she used social media to publicly criticize the use of the phrase “people who menstruate,” saying, “I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?” (Thorpe, Vanessa. “JK Rowling’s stance on trans rights divides fans and creates rifts within publishing.” The Morningside Review, 2021). This post was widely interpreted as mocking and questioning the gender of AFAB trans and non-binary people. It marked the beginning of a sustained series of public statements, essays, and social media posts in which Rowling expressed concern about the erosion of “biological sex-based rights.”

Since the original controversial tweet, Rowling has become involved directly with anti-transgender politics, asserting that transgender women being allowed access to women-only spaces poses a danger to women and girls. She frames her concerns as rooted in feminism. Critics, including LGBTQ advocacy organizations, fellow authors, actors from the Harry Potter films, and fans, assert that she is using her massive platform to perpetuate transphobic rhetoric.

These views have led readers to reexamine Rowling’s fiction, including The Silkworm, which features a transgender character, Pippa Midgley. In the novel, this character is depicted as a young, aspiring writer who was mentored by Owen Quine. She is also shown to be insecure and dangerously impulsive. In her first interaction with Strike, she attempts to stab him in a dark alley. During the altercation that follows, Strike remarks that prison “won’t be fun… not pre-op” (325). This scene has drawn criticism for its tone and content. Critics argue that this series plays into harmful stereotypes, portraying a transgender character as unstable and violent, and using her identity for demeaning humor or shock value. Strike, ostensibly the moral center of the series, delivers the comment with minimal narrative pushback. Many readers view this as a reflection of the author’s own discomfort with or assumptions about transgender people. Bombyx Mori, the novel within a novel, also uses gender in a way that has drawn criticism. Several characters display both male and female traits, and these traits are often described in ways meant to illicit disgust or frame the characters as sexually deviant.

At the time of this guide’s publication, Rowling stands by her statements, characterizing backlash as “cancel culture” and positioning herself as a champion of free speech. She continues to publish the Cormoran Strike series under the Galbraith name, with each new book bringing fresh scrutiny. Most notably, the fifth Strike novel Troubled Blood (2020) includes a subplot involving a male serial killer who dresses in women’s clothing to lure victims. The idea of men dressing as women to commit crimes against women is one of the defining anxieties of modern transgender discrimination rhetoric.

J.K. Rowling’s literary legacy is now inseparable from her political and cultural stances. While her ability to write bestsellers remains evident, the ethical and ideological frameworks underlying her stories have come under increasing scrutiny. Like Harry Potter, The Silkworm was released before Rowling made her views public, but many believe it contains early echoes of the author’s now overtly divisive beliefs.