Harry Potter star Emma Watson shows support for trans rights
Emma Watson has been vocal in her support for trans rights
Film star and women’s rights activist Emma Watson has showed her support for transgender equality in a social media post published on October 18.
Watson posted a photo on Twitter of herself in a t-shirt bearing the slogan: “Trans rights are human rights.”
She tagged several groups that campaign for transgender rights in the post, including LGBT+ charity Stonewall, transgender children’s charity Mermaids, and non-profits all About Trans and Gendered Intelligence.
(Screenshot/Twitter)
Fans and members of the trans community thanked Watson for showing her support.
Trans journalist Paris Lees wrote: “Thank you for speaking up, so many families struggling at the moment don’t have a voice. We love you! ❤️ “
Mermaids added: “THANK YOU from all the trans kids that don’t have a voice! ❤️❤️❤️”
Watson is best known for playing Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter films, but is also a respected women’s rights campaigner, serving as a UN Women Goodwill ambassador and launching the UN Women HeForShe campaign in 2014.
Her intervention in support of trans rights comes at a key moment in the UK, as a government’s consultation on reforms to gender recognition laws closes on Friday.
The proposed reforms have faced a wave of controversy, as self-described radical feminist groups have raised thousands of pounds to lobby against the measures, which they claim would undermine women’s rights protections.
UN Women’s Goodwill Ambassador, actress Emma Watson (KENA BETANCUR/AFP/Getty)
Harry Potter author JK Rowling was previously drawn into the debate on Twitter in March, when she liked a tweet that referred to trans women as “men in dresses.”
Rowling had ‘liked’ a message about the campaign from a prominent anti-transgender campaigner that read: “I was shouted at by men at my first Labour Party meeting aged 18 because I asked them to remove a Page 3 calendar. I’ve been told to be louder, stronger, independent. I’ve often not felt supported. Men in dresses get brocialist solidarity I never had. that’s misogyny!”
The author, 53, later blamed a “senior moment” for the Twitter incident.
Her representative told PinkNews at the time: “I’m afraid J.K. Rowling had a clumsy and middle-aged moment and this is not the first time she has favourited by holding her phone incorrectly.”
Actor Emma Watson accepts Best Actor in a Movie for ‘Beauty and the Beast’ onstage during the 2017 MTV Movie And TV Awards. (Kevin Winter/Getty)
Watson’s most recent box office success, the 2017 live-action Beauty and the Beast, previously faced censorship over LGBT+ content.
The Disney film was temporarily banned from release in Malaysia and several other markets after the director revealed a minor character was intended to be gay. The film was only permitted to release in full after Disney made clear there was no explicit LGBT+ content.
In 2017, Watson won the first gender-neutral Best Actor in a Movie prize at the MTV Awards.
“MTV’s move to create a genderless award for acting will mean something different to everyone,” she said in her acceptance speech.
“To me, it indicates that acting is about the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and that doesn’t need to be separated into two different categories.”
Watson added: “Empathy and the ability to use your imagination should have no limits.
“This is very meaningful to me, both to be winning the award and to be receiving it from you in such an inclusive, patient and loving way.”
