"Harry Potter" author Rowling has been absent from social media for several days, after erroneously calling female Olympic boxer Khelif a "man."

Author J.K. Rowling has fallen silent on her usually busy X (formerly Twitter) feed, after Olympic gold medalist boxer Imane Khelif filed a legal complaint in France for alleged cyber harassment over statements regarding her gender.

On August 9, lawyers for Khelif filed a lawsuit with a special unit of the public prosecutor’s office in Paris, stemming from false statements that spread online about her gender after the Algerian boxer defeated Italy’s Angela Carini in her first fight of the 2024 Olympic Games. Carini pulled out 46 seconds into the bout and told reporters afterwards that she had “never felt a punch like this.”

      • @acosmichippoEnglish
        5•24 days ago

        all of this started when the (Russian controlled) IBA suddenly disqualified Khelif (who had been boxing for many years without issue) after beating a Russian. Since then IOC banned the IBA due to ties with organized crime, fixing fights, and financial instability, so now IBA has no influence on olympic boxing whatsoever.

        fast forward a couple years to the bigger stage of the olympics, twitter warriors pick up on the story again based on nothing more than “looks like a man” which happens disproportionately more to women of color. So yes, this kind of thing often does have racial undertones.

      • @RadioFreeArabia
        -3•24 days ago

        Yes, she is Algerian (North African) and that was a major reason if not the reason why she was targeted.

        • @derf82English
          12•24 days ago

          She was targeted because it was spread falsely she had XY chromosomes and had high testosterone, not that she was North African. Rowling has had plenty of hate for white trans people.

            • Flying Squid
              24•24 days ago

              And JK Rowling specifically is a racist.

              • @Jiggle_Physics
                2•24 days ago

                I mean, her books are full of racist tropes, like obvious ones. Ones she still defends to this day.

                • @Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In
                  1•24 days ago

                  Yes. And those tropes are saying racism is bad. Pure blood/mugblood, enslaved elves etc. All bad in the potter universe.

                  However, Rowling deserves some blame for allowing the goblins to become Jewish caricatures.