Stephen Fry embodies everything wrong with our cultural elite

Telegraph

19-06-2025

Another day, another celebrity dunks on JK Rowling. Stephen Fry has joined the long list of Harry Potter beneficiaries like Rupert Grint, Emma Watson and Daniel Ratcliffe to turn on Rowling for her views on biological sex. During a podcast recording for The Show People, Fry told the audience that Rowling 'seems to be a lost cause for us' because she 'says things that are inflammatory and contemptuous, mocking and add to a terribly distressing time for trans people'. He also claimed that Rowling had 'been radicalised by terfs'.
If she can be bothered to read about Fry's sniping, Rowling won't be surprised. Back in 2022, Fry made headlines for complaining on a different podcast that he had 'trans friends and intersex friends who are deeply upset by her', but insisted she was still a friend. During that recording, Fry asked Rowling to 'retreat', along with trans activists, to 'consider that it is possible for trans people to live full, accepted lives, according to their terms, in society, and for women to have all the rights and dignities that they demand'.
The gender wars are not some dinner party discomfort: Fry's misunderstanding of the fundamental differences in this political battle shows that you can be good at television quizzes but have no sense at all.
Rowling seems to live rent-free in the heads of many celebrities who have leeched off her writing talent. Perhaps Fry's decision to come clean with his bitchiness this time was prompted by the Supreme Court ruling that insisted the definition of woman be biological rather than fantastical. Perhaps it was Rowling's celebration of the ruling with champagne and cigars that ticked off Fry – some men find it very hard to watch women enjoy a victory.
On the one hand, who cares what Stephen Fry thinks? His desire for Rowling to shut up rather than cause discomfort to his friendship circle is laughable in its bourgeois pomposity. He should also know better than to criticise someone for voicing an unpopular opinion – he himself was almost done by the cancel culture mob for allegedly making about jokes about women shagging and Muslim terrorists at the Marylebone Cricket Club in 2023.
Perhaps, like many celebrities, Fry just likes being popular with the woke kids. He's certainly pretty cowardly for someone who fancies himself as the twenty-first-century Oscar Wilde.
But, on the other hand, Fry's denunciation of Rowling as someone who 'wakes up' to 'kick a hornet's nest of transphobia' needs contesting. Speaking to The Show People Podcast, Fry said 'to scream 'transphobe' at anybody who does not buy into every single aspect of that particular person's trans views is so self harming. It does not get the thing done. You have to let people love you'.
This is the transphobia Fry thinks Rowling is guilty of – not showing 'love'. She's not polite enough. This is what so much of trans activists' complaints boil down to – a demand for love and attention. This from a side who fail to show anything like love for the women they oppose.
It's OK if Fry and his acolytes don't like women with opinions of their own – we don't want their 'love'. We demand our freedom, respect and dignity when defending and organising our own spaces, resources and identity. Hate us for it if you like. Rowling, perhaps more than most, is used to men objecting to her speaking her mind. Thankfully, though, it won't stop her.