JK Rowling has been criticised after she appeared to mock a tweet about police LGBT+ outreach efforts near the site of a homophobic hate crime.
On 18 March, the South Wales Police’s LGBT+ network tweeted pictures of patrol cars, decorated with the rainbow flag, in Cardiff City Centre to promote their outreach work.
The increased efforts to support Cardiff’s LGBT+ community comes in the wake of Dr Gary Jenkins’ murder in Bute Park, near the city centre in July last year.
A consultant psychiatrist and father of two, 54-year-old Jenkins was violently assaulted by two men and a teenage girl on 20 July 2021. He died of his injuries 16 days later at the University Hospital of Wales.
The trio was convicted of murder in February after they pleaded guilty to manslaughter and robbery in a trial that lasted eight days.
Multiple comments under the 18 March tweet called the department out over its “waste of resources”, “virtue signalling” and a perceived “out and out support for ONE group”.
One critical tweet read: “Stop virtue signalling and get on with your job. I’m sure folk would rather have those two cars patrolling the street.”
The SWP LGBT+ network replied: “Supporting our communities is not [sic] virtual signalling, and we make no apologies for doing so.”
On Monday (21 March), the Harry Potter author retweeted this reply, mocking the obvious typo in it.
Rowling’s tweet read: “Virtual signalling. Like virtue signalling, but for people who couldn’t be arsed.”
The “virtue signalling” JK Rowling is laughing about is South Wales Police LGBT+ Network doing community outreach work 10 minutes walk from Bute Park where Dr Gary Jenkins was brutally murdered in a horrific homophobic attack in July 2021. pic.twitter.com/RigRWjXHys
— David Paisley (@DavidPaisley) March 21, 2022
Criticising Rowling’s tweet, Scottish actor David Paisley called her out for “laughing about” the network’s outreach work which was happening “10 minutes walk from Bute Park where Dr Gary Jenkins was brutally murdered in a horrific homophobic attack”.
He added: “South Wales Police LGBT+ community outreach followed a specific request at the vigil for Dr Jenkins, asking police to be more visible allies.”
Sharing screenshots, Paisley also revealed Rowling follows #SayYesToHate activism group Fair Cop on Twitter. The anti-LGBT+ group on Monday threatened legal action against any police forces that participate in Pride marches.
Just this week, JK Rowling has vilified a Wales Police LGBTQ Network doing community outreach after a man was killed in a homophobic hate crime as “virtue signaling” and also spread misinformation from a now deleted Twitter account about transgender detransition. Its Monday.
— Jessie Earl (@jessiegender) March 21, 2022
Reacting to Paisley’s threaded Twitter post, multiple users expressed outrage over Rowling’s “repulsive and ignorant comment.”
“Do better, Jo,” one person wrote.
Another user tweeted: “As a writer, do you do any research or is it just whatever falls out of your head first?”
“I don’t want to assume that this tweet is as badly motivated as it seems, so could you clarify that you’re not actually mocking the police for promoting the safety of the LGBT community in an area where a man was recently homophobically [sic] murdered,” a Twitter user appealed to Rowling.
Repulsive, ignorant comment.
Here we see JK Rowling here attacking South Wales Police LGBT+ Network for community outreach work next to Bute Park – where Dr Gary Jenkins was murdered in a shocking homophobic attack.
Does the safety of LGBT people not matter to you at all?
— Benjamin Butterworth (@benjaminbutter) March 21, 2022
Others however came to the author’s defence, writing that she was merely joking about the network’s “virtual vs virtue” typo.
“It’s actually funny if you pay attention to the spelling.”
Paisley later addressed the “it’s just a joke about a typo” comments in a subsequent tweet.
The actor wrote: “It amazes me that the world’s most successful living author chose today to get really nit picky about other people’s spelling & just coincidentally happened to choose a police force supporting the LGBT+ community.”
The Independent has reached out to Rowling’s representatives for comment.
