Skip to main content

Home News

6 February 2025

Azealia Banks calls out ‘paranoid’ JK Rowling over trans views: ‘It’s been YEARS sis’

The rapper referred to her trans brother in many posts in defence of the trans community and labelled the author "paranoid"

By Gary Grimes

Azealia Banks and JK Rowling
Azealia Banks and JK Rowling (Image: YouTube; WikiMedia/Dan Ogren)

Could JK Rowling have met her match?

Azealia Banks, the polarising rapper, has taken to X to call out the similarly controversial author over Rowling’s views on trans women.

The Harry Potter author has long been outspoken about her disagreement with trans women having access to women-only spaces and about whether or not trans women are women, much to the dismay of many of her fans including, it would seem, Banks.

In an exchange with one of her followers on X, Banks responded on 5 February saying: “All of the insane anti-trans paranoid people like @jk_rowling feel their femininity is threatened for whatever reason and try to mask that insecurity with “science” like anyone is stupid and doesn’t already know these things.”

She then followed up with another post in which she claims that Rowling had followed her, though it is not clear if Rowling followed her in response to this earlier exchange. The author does not appear to be following Banks at the time of writing this.

“No shade @jk_rowling thanks for the follow and I love you down sis, but transwomen are not a threat to your femininity,” Banks went on. “You are really too rich and legendary to keep spewing the same stuff over and over and over. The REAL problem in the world is crimes against children. Adults are gonna be who they wanna be and sleep with who they want to.

“And I’m not even sure trans people make up more than like 10% of the global population,” the rapper went on. (In fact, only approximately 1% of the world’s population is transgender, according to research by IPSOS.)

Banks then went on to speak about her brother, who is a trans man, and the difficulties she has seen him face, writing: “My brother is trans, I have witnessed first hand the type of misery, pain, ostracism, suicide attempts, unnecessary and unwarranted abuse my mother doled out to my brother, the discomfort with his body – it’s not a mental illness it’s a spiritual thing.”

The musician had previously spoken publicly about her brother’s transition, posting on Facebook in 2016 after he underwent top surgery. She wrote then: “BIG CONGRATS TO MY BROTHER JOVON WHO HAD A SMOOTH AND SUCCESSFUL TOP SURGERY TODAY! You know over here in the Banks family we like to switch up on n****s. TRANFORMATION IN THIS BITCH ! #transisbeautiful.”

Multiple X users responded to Bank’s references to her brother, with one person replying to say they were surprised she believes “in the trans nonsense,” to which she replied: “It’s not for you to believe in or not believe in but it’s for you to respect. Because that’s what evolved human beings do- respect one another and not always point each other out when people just be Trying to get thru the damn day.”

Responding to another user who said: “No one cares if your sister wants to be a boy. But don’t start caping for sex offenders,” Banks spoke in defence of the trans community, writing: “This is dumb. How did an entire community of people completely [sic] unrelated get blamed for the actions of this one person.”

Continuing in her remarks to Rowling, Banks went on: “One would assume that you of all people who have written books about magic and esoteric things would be able to comprehend and understand how states of consciousness vary in a human being. It’s been YEARS sis.”

Later in the post, Banks appears to conflate transgenderism with sexuality, writing: “Adults are fucking, chances are the man you are dating or will date is attracted to transwomen and also thinks about sucking other men’s cocks. Being in protest about it is not going to change reality.”

The ‘212’ artist concluded by seemingly attempting to appeal to Rowling’s ego, stating: “You are too paid and too accomplished to be worried about what adults choose to do in their sex lives. Repeat the “science” all you want- not a single transwoman will debate you about that. but I really do think it’s a front for some weird inferiority thing that’s truly just in your mind. I Say this with lots of love and respect. Xx”

She followed up these remarks with a series of posts today. Among them was a post responding directly to Rowling posting a photo of Donald Trump surrounded by little girls as he signs an Executive Order to ban trans women from participating in women’s sports. Rowling captioned the photo: “Congratulations to every single person on the left who’s been campaigning to destroy women’s and girls’ rights. Without you, there’d be no images like this.”

The ‘Liquorice’ singer retorted saying: “An image of a man who is on record sexualising a 12 year old Ivanka Trump surrounded by little girls in 2025 is not the serve you wanted it to be…”

She goes on to point out that there are a “a plethora of ways” Rowling could use her wealth and influence to help women around the world, citing the expense of IVF and the fight against period poverty as examples.

“It’d really be nice to see some of this energy and all of this influence you have be put to better use. Less focus on the transwomen (they exist whether you want them to or not) and more focus on helping out the females.”

Banks, who is as famous for her numerous social media controversies as she is for her impressive rapping skills, has herself come under fire on many occasions for her own remarks about trans people.

In 2019, the rapper engaged in a public spat on X (then known as Twitter) with a transwoman who accused Banks of pushing a narrative that all trans women are predators after the rapper claimed that a trans woman she hired had made ‘unwanted advances’. In a private direct message to the trans woman named Gabby, Banks said of trans women: “You want access to all of the space and when you get it it just becomes alllllll about you.”

The following year, in 2020, she was suspended from X after comparing gender affirmation surgery to “castration”. Speaking with regard to the rollout of Covid-19 vaccines, she posted: “Cancel all these dumbass luxury transgender healthcare ‘rights’ and redirect the castration funds to the Latino farmers working to actually feed any of us through this crisis.”

One X user brought these old “castration” remarks up to Banks in the wake of her recent posts to Rowling, to which she responded: “Yes. a female and a woman are two different concepts and Munroe Bergdorf [sic] was getting on my fucking nerves trying to cancel females . The activist dolls were trying it at this time.”

She responded to another user who called her out on these previous comments saying: “U know im not a transphobe please.”

The year after said comments, in 2021, Banks made similar remarks and also claimed in a comment on Instagram that trans women are “are just hot gay men.” Today, however, she denied ever making such remarks, stating that she wouldn’t phrase something like that.

In a 2023 interview with The Guardian, Banks spoke in support of far-right politician Ron DeSantis and advocated for healthcare funds to be prioritised to help underprivileged elderly people over trans people seeking gender affirming surgery, saying: “If we’re talking about divvying up healthcare funds, those situations should take precedence to facial feminisation surgeries and stuff like that. I mean, I get it – but that’s a cosmetic surgery. Like, does your penis work? Can you pee? You’re not as in trouble as the older woman who can’t afford her dialysis.”

Conversely, Banks has also in the past called out other public figures for their transphobic comments including US political commentator Candance Owens and comedian Dave Chappelle. Banks blasted Chappelle over his consistently transphobic stand-up sets. In 2021, on an Instagram story, Banks called the performer “highkey embarrassing” and “too grown and entirely too black to be this concerned about other people’s sex lives,” echoing her most recent remarks about Rowling.

Banks has addressed the billionaire author in the past, last October posting a similar statement on X which read: “…Jk Rowling really also needs to quit spreading the transphobia because it’s like sis, yes ur entitled to ur opinion but we’ve literally heard you say it a million times. She clearly feels like her own femininity is being threatened by the existence of transwomen… which is a personal problem she needs to go to therapy for.”

Banks is, of course, just one of many critics Rowling has provoked with her views about trans issues over the years. Over the years, many other stars have publicly criticised or disagreed with the writer, including Harry Potter actors Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, Fantastic Beasts actor Eddie Redmayne, Drag Race stars Sasha Colby and Peppermint, Sarah Paulson, Halsey, Kim Petras and Jameela Jamil, among others.

In This Article: