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JK Rowling gets into legal trouble in Imane Khelif lawsuit

JK Rowling called Imane Khelif “a man who knows he is protected by a misogynistic sporting establishment…”

Sara Belcher - Author
JK Rowling
Source: Getty Images

Controversial author JK Rowling has made headlines not only for her work, but also for her ongoing transphobic statements. For years, the influential author of the Harry Potter The show has tweeted a lot of opinions about transgender identities and gender expression to its 14 million X-followers, but its feed has been suspiciously quiet lately—and that could be because it's about to get into a lot of legal trouble.

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JK Rowling is named in a lawsuit filed by boxer Imane Khelif.

During the 2024 Paris Olympics, Algerian boxer Imane Khelif faced a barrage of accusations regarding her gender identity. Many false claims circulated online that she was transgender. Despite being born a woman and not identifying as transgender or intersex, she continued to be attacked online for her gender presentation. Some even questioned her qualifications for the women's Olympic boxing team.

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Despite the hate she received online and the barrage of accusations, Imane won the gold medal – but she is still seeking justice for the abuse she endured. After the Olympics concluded, she filed a cyberbullying complaint with French authorities, specifically naming JK as one of the people who committed the “acts of serious cyberharassment.”

“On August 13, (the National Center for Combating Hate on the Internet) contacted the OCLCH (Central Office for Combating Crimes against Humanity and Hate Crimes) to conduct an investigation into charges of cyber harassment based on gender, public insult based on gender, public incitement to discrimination and public insult based on origin,” the Paris prosecutor’s office confirmed to diversity.

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Also included in the investigation are Elon Musk and Donald Trump, both of whom tweeted about Imane during their tenure at the Olympics.

JK in particular tweeted to her followers that Imane is “a man who knows he is protected by a misogynistic sports establishment who revels in the misery of a woman he just punched in the head and whose life ambitions he just destroyed,” following her fight with Italian boxer Angela Carini, per Them.

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It seems that JK has since decided to delete some of these potentially defamatory posts, as the above tweet is no longer available on her X account. She hasn't posted anything since August 7 either, and many other users on X have noticed that she has taken to deleting a number of other posts she made during the Olympics. Currently, the only posts on her account that mention Imane are posts sharing various articles claiming that the boxer is actually a man.

Is JK Rowling a billionaire?

Although JK is undoubtedly one of the highest-earning authors in history, she is not currently a billionaire. In 2004, in the midst of the Harry Potter she was named the “first billionaire author” by Forbesalthough she denied being a billionaire just a year later. In 2012, it was confirmed that she had not crossed the billion dollar mark due to a combination of taxes in the UK and her various charitable donations.

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