J.K. Rowling: “It is dangerous to assert that any category of people deserves a blanket presumption of innocence”

Does J.K. Rowling believe that trans people — or at least trans women — don’t deserve the presumption of innocence? That seems to be the clear implication of an op-ed she wrote for the Times (UK) today. But she is cagey enough in her wording that she can and probably will figure out a way to say, my goodness, I wasn’t saying anything of the kind.

You can decide what you think she meant.

Here’s the relevant quote in context. She is — in the midst of a longer attack on First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon –insinuating that men routinely pretend to be trans women in order to get easier access to women to abuse:

The third argument Sturgeon uses is that it’s transphobic to suggest any man would fraudulently claim a female identity. This claim is extraordinary. Nobody but the very naive can fail to be aware that predatory men are capable of going to great lengths to gain easy access to victims, and have often sought out professions or special status that offer camouflage for their activities. Sex offenders have historically been found among social workers, teachers, priests, doctors, babysitters, school caretakers, celebrities and charity fundraisers, yet no matter how often the scandals break, the lesson appears never to be learned: it is dangerous to assert that any category of people deserves a blanket presumption of innocence.

In the next paragraph, she backtracks a little, if only a little:

This shouldn’t need saying, but in the current climate, it does: literally no feminist I’ve ever met claims all trans women are predators, any more than we believe that all men are predators.

As @Bronwen85 puts it on Twitter,

Seriously if you can tell me how any of this is different from Trump’s “they’re murderers, they’re rapists…and some, I assume, are good people” speech you’ll be a liar, because it’s not

It’s the same fucking thing.

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