A pack of masked activists stormed the red carpet outside London’s Palace Theatre on Thursday night, throwing themselves onto the ground and blocking arrivals for a gala performance of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Security quickly dragged them off, but not before they delivered their message: J.K. Rowling must be boycotted because she refuses to pretend biological sex is optional.
One protester wore a shirt declaring “Rowling money kills.” Others chanted demands to boycott the author while a megaphone barked about “trans rights under attack.” The target was not the play itself but Rowling’s long-standing view that sex is real and immutable, a position she has funded through women’s rights groups and that a UK Supreme Court ruling later backed.
The disruption hit as guests including Vanessa Feltz and Richard Arnold arrived for the shortened, single-part version of the long-running West End show. It fits a pattern of escalating protests aimed at anything tied to Rowling ever since she began publicly defending single-sex spaces and sports for women and girls.
The activists achieved little beyond footage of adults in costume being hauled away by security. The show went on. Rowling has faced years of similar campaigns and has not changed her position.
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