Mark Hamill Apologizes After Liking JK Rowling’s Transphobic Tweet

Well, Mark Hamill is in some hot water after liking a very controversial tweet from J.K. Rowling. The author tweeted her defense of Maya Forstater and her legal case about anti-trans rhetoric. Hamill admitted that he didn’t know the intricacies of the case beforehand and should have read more carefully before liking the tweet. His fans are letting him hear it over the misstep. The Star Wars actor really sounded sincerely sorry for the mistake but on the Internet things last a long time. This could linger for a while and timing couldn’t be worse with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker launching tonight in multiple locations. Still, no one could have expected this day to start off with this sort of controversy from the Harry Potter scribe.

Hamill began, “Ignorance is no excuse, but I liked the tweet without understanding what the last line or hashtags meant. It was the 1st 4 lines I liked & I didn’t realize it had any transphobic connotation.”

Rowling’s open support of a researcher who was fired for tweeting anti-trans rhetoric jump-started al of this. Fans absolutely didn’t like her delegitimizing the experiences of trans people. A lot of readers looked up to her in their younger days and talked about feelings of betrayal on Twitter. Her Twitter habits have been called into question before as she has liked tweets with anti-trans and trans-exclusionary radical feminist talking points. People were quick to dismiss the likes as user error, but today’s revelation seems to cement where her stance is. The author of a book about an outcast becoming so important to their world leaves a bad taste in a lot of fans’ mouths.

In Rowling’s own words, “Dress however you please. Call yourself whatever you like. Sleep with any consenting adult who’ll have you. Live your best life in peace and security. But force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real? #IStandWithMaya #ThisIsNotADrill”