Miriam Margolyes offers to mediate between JK Rowling and Emma Watson amid trans series

Miriam Margolyes, 80, who played Professor Pomona Sprout, has defended JK Rowling after making controversial comments about the transgender community. Encouraging kindness, the actress shared her own experience with a friend who wanted to switch

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Miriam Margolyes discusses JK Rowling on the Harry Potter red carpet in 2016

Miriam Margolyes has defended JK Rowling after saying she “admires” her and that people’s anger at the author is “misplaced”.

The Harry Potter actress also offered to mediate between JK and Emma Watson, who appears to have taken aim at her during BAFTAS.

Miriam’s comments come after the world-renowned author remains embroiled in a bitter debate over her views on transgender women.

Speaking of her own experience, Miriam said that when she was a student at Oxford, one of her classmates showed her his closet full of women’s clothes.

The 80-year-old actress said he told her he wanted to transition to a woman.

Miriam, who has been with her wife Heather since 1968, tells radio times : “There is a spectrum, and people can be anywhere along that spectrum.”

“There is no single answer to all these transgender questions. We all know people who are a bit stuffy or a little bit butch or whatever you call it.

“But I think the abuse JK Rowling received is misplaced. I don’t know her at all. I admire her as a person. She’s a generous woman, she’s a brilliant writer.

She also said she believed that if people were kinder to one another, “a lot of the misery would go away.”

The actress added that she would like to mediate between her former co-star Emma Watson, who strongly disagrees with JK.

“I would if someone asked me,” she told the publication.

Proud feminist Emma appeared to cast shadows at JK during her speech at BAFTAS.

After being greeted on stage, Rebel Wilson quipped, “Here to present the next award is Emma Watson. She calls herself a feminist, but we all know she’s a witch.”

To which Emma replied, “I’m here for ALL witches.”

Miriam has spoken about her journey to understanding her own sexuality and said she still fears coming out gay was one of the things that caused her mother’s stroke.

JK Rowling was left off a Platinum Jubilee reading list despite writing one of the most popular books of all time.

Some of these are A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood and Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys Carre.

However, the initiative’s co-founder, BBC Arts, insists the election had nothing to do with the transgender debate.

While Susheila Nasta, a judge on the competition and Emeritus Professor of Modern Literature at Queen Mary and Westfield University, said: “There was a big discussion about JK Rowling.

“She was longlisted with Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. A spot was vacated for someone who was just as good but whose work wasn’t as well known. There were some very tricky decisions,” she told the Sunday Times.

The argument first began in 2020 after JK retweeted a comment that focused on “menstruating people.”

The Harry Potter author had a problem with the fact that the word “women” was not used in the story.

“‘People who menstruate.’ I’m sure there used to be a word for these people Someone can help me Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?” she tweeted.

The tweet was met with backlash, with many calling it “transphobic.”

But the author persisted, continuing to write, “If sex isn’t real, there is no same-sex attraction. When sex is not real, the lived reality of women worldwide is erased.

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“I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex robs many of their ability to meaningfully talk about their lives. It’s not hate telling the truth,” she tweeted.

“The idea that women like me, who have been empathetic to trans people for decades and feel related because they are just as vulnerable as women are — i.e., to male violence — ‘hate’ trans people because they believe sex is real and consequences are lived has – is nonsense.”

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