Luna Lovegood actor Evanna Lynch has received intense backlash after defending JK Rowling's transphobic comments.
Lynch was quizzed about Rowling's controversial tweets during a recent interview with The Telegraph, saying that she had ‘compassion for both sides of the argument’.
Since then, the actor has come under firing for defending the author with LGBTQ+ fans who’ve taken to Twitter to express their frustration.
In 2020, Lynch joined her co-stars in condemning Rowling, writing on Instagram: "I think it’s irresponsible to discuss such a delicate topic over Twitter through fragmented thoughts and I wish Jo wouldn’t."
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However, she now appears to have changed her mind.
During the Telegraph interview, the Harry Potter actress said that she’d felt she’d been ‘dragged into a conversation’ when the initial controversy happened.
She told the publication: "I just felt that her character has always been to advocate for the most vulnerable members of society.
"The problem is that there’s a disagreement over who’s the most vulnerable. I do wish people would just give her more grace and listen to her."
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Elsewhere, she noted: "I know what it was like to be a teenager who hated my body so much I wanted to crawl out of my skin, so I have great compassion for trans people and I don’t want to add to their pain.
“I understand being too triggered to be able to have a conversation.
"I do also think it’s important that JK Rowling has been amplifying the voices of detransitioners. I had this impulse to go, ‘Let’s all just stop talking about it’, and I think probably I’m a bit braver now about having uncomfortable conversations."
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Her comments have disappointed many of her fans and those in the trans community.
One fan said that Lynch had ‘ignored’ the damage Rowling’s comments had done to various communities, including trans people. They also referenced accusations of anti-semitic stereotypes in the Harry Potter books.
Their tweet read: “So Evanna Lynch is saying that we need to give grace and compassion to JKR. You know, grace and compassion, two things she refuses to give either the trans or Jewish communities.”
They added how Lynch’s interview had bitterly disappointment them, writing: “It's so crushing when someone who portrayed a character you related to, ignores harm done to people."
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Others quickly joined in, with one questioning what Lynch had read about the initial controversy: “Has miss Evanna Lynch been reading the same tweets and articles we have??”.
Another added: “No because I'm so disappointed in Evanna Lynch for saying this, sorry that I do not want to listen a transphobic woman who does not recognize my identity.”
Lynch's comments set her apart from several of her co-stars who have slammed Rowling, including Daniel Radcliffe.
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The actor wrote a supportive essay about the trans community in 2020, telling readers that he’d found so many queer fans had identified with Harry Potter.
After it was published by The Trevor Project, he explained: "The reason I was felt very, very much as though I needed to say something when I did was because, particularly since finishing Potter, I’ve met so many queer and trans kids and young people who had a huge amount of identification with Potter on that.
"And so seeing them hurt on that day I was like, I wanted them to know that not everybody in the franchise felt that way. And that was really important."
Topics: Harry Potter, JK Rowling, Celebrity, Film and TV
Katherine Sidnell