Why Are People Calling J.K. Rowling a ‘Holocaust Denier’?

People on Twitter/X are calling Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling a "Holocaust denier" after an online interaction from March in which she falsely claimed that transgender people were not affected by the tragedy.

In a March 13 tweet, Rowling claimed that Nazis burning books on trans healthcare and research was a "fever dream."

This, and her ensuing tweets in reply to scholarly articles contradicting her claims – which she only doubled down on – led to people labeling her a Holocaust denier.

Now, a journalist has been forced to publicly apologize to the disgraced author reportedly due to defamation laws in the U.K.

"On 13 March I tweeted that JK Rowling 'is a Holocaust denier'. That allegation was false and offensive. I have deleted it and apologise to JK Rowling," the reporter tweeted on Monday (April 15).

Another journalist quote-tweeted the post and wrote, "JK Rowling threatens to sue anyone who rightfully calls out the things she says are anti-trans. She can only do this in the UK where defamation laws allow people with money to chill free speech."

"Luckily my american ass is free to say jk rowling is a holocaust denier," someone else tweeted.

Despite all of this, Rowling has not backed down on her claims about transgender people's experience and history, telling people on Twitter/X to "read the room" despite being sent multiple scholarly sources that refute her claims.

In one source Rowling was confronted with, the Museum of Jewish Heritage said that trans people were "brutally targeted" during the Holocaust as Germany in the 1930s was a "center of LGBT+ community and culture, with several renowned organizations serving and supporting trans and gender non-conforming people."

Others sent the author a Smithsonian article that states that "a [German] court acknowledged the possibility that trans people were persecuted in Nazi Germany."

An AP News article from 2023 also acknowledged that "thousands of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people were arrested and thrown into camps" during the Holocaust "based on anti-homosexuality laws that preceded and outlasted the Nazi era."