JK Rowling backs Elon Musk’s ‘cisgender’ ruling

Harry Potter author JK Rowling tweeted her support for Twitter owner Elon Musk’s new policy classifying the terms “cis” and “cisgender” as targeted harassment on Wednesday. 

“‘Cis’ is ideological language, signifying belief in the unfalsifiable concept of gender identity,” she wrote in the tweet, continuing, “You have a perfect right to believe in unprovable essences that may or may not match the sexed body, but the rest of us have a right to disagree, and to refuse to adopt your jargon.”

Musk responded approvingly to Rowling’s tweet with a single word: “Exactly.”

The Twitter CEO had announced earlier that day that “cis” and “cisgender” would be “considered slurs on this platform” going forward, declaring that their use in “repeated, targeted harassment against any account” would lead to temporary or even permanent suspension.

Musk revealed the new policy in a tweeted response to a post from commentator James Esses in which he claimed to have received “a slew of messages from trans activists calling [him] ‘cissy’” after saying he rejected the term ‘cis’ and did not want it used on him. Esses suggested Twitter would have punished his attackers “if the roles were reversed” and later thanked Musk for “standing up for reality” in response to his tweet defining the term as a slur. 

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After journalist Genevieve Gluck claimed that the term “cisgender” was coined by German sexologist and pedophilia sympathizer Volkmar Sigusch, Musk continued, “The contemptible creep that manufactured the term ‘cis’ has serious problems,” suggesting Twitter users “ignore him.” 

Sigusch actually coined the term ‘cissexual’, which was turned into ‘cisgender’ by academic Dana Defosse. Defosse rejected Musk’s announcement as “a cowardly and futile attempt to censor an idea which is, in my opinion, way bigger and more enduring than anything Musk could hope to offer” in a statement on Wednesday. 

The billionaire clarified that users who referred to themselves as “cis” would not be punished, urging people to “call yourself anything you want.”  

Twitter’s current “hateful conduct policy” forbids attacking others “on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, caste, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability or serious disease.” 

Rowling is an outspoken critic of transgender ideology and has been doxxed, cancelled and subjected to death and rape threats over her insistence that there is a difference between female-born women and trans-women. 

She recently opened a women's shelter in Edinburgh exclusively for biological women in response to Scotland allowing trans-women into women’s prisons, shelters, and other formerly female-only spaces.