In June 2020, Tom Felton, the English actor renowned for his role as Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter film series, found himself in trouble after reportedly liking a tweet from J.K. Rowling.

"One of my best mates just called me. Self-described butch lesbian. It was hard to tell, because she was shouting quite loudly, but I could just make out '[expletive] YES!'" Rowling's tweet read.

The author's tweet was again in response to her other transphobic post, which read,

If [physical intimacy] isn’t real, there’s no [same-gender] attraction. If [physical intimacy] isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of [intimacy] removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isn’t hate to speak the truth.

When Felton reportedly liked the controversial tweet, many Twitter users were quick to notice it and bombarded him with accusations of transphobia.

One of them quickly alleged the actor to be transphobic, saying, "tom liked one of the many transphobic tweets from j.k. rowling, which was posted on june 6th, 2020. He quickly unliked the tweet when people started calling him out for transphobia [sic]."

So, Is Tom Felton Transphobic?

While many bashed Felton on the internet, some fans defended the 33-year-old actor stating he had taken to his Instagram Live to explain why he liked the tweet. A fan wrote, "When Tom went live he said he liked jk rowling's tweet without reading and apologized for it [sic]."

The actor implied he was not transphobic, and he had liked Rowling's tweet mistakenly. But Felton's fans didn't stop there, as they went a step too far to prove that the actor was someone who supported the LGBTQ+ community. 

The actor's fan account on TikTok posted a video that featured a series of screenshots of Felton standing in support of the trans community on different occasions and platforms.

J.K. Rowling's Controversial Tweets About the Transgender Community

It turns out Felton received all the hate and got tagged as transphobic just because he mistakenly liked the author's one of the many controversial transphobic tweets.

Rowling came under fire for a series of controversial tweets she posted about the transgender community. It started when she retweeted an opinion article that discussed "people who menstruate," asking why there was no use of the word women.

"'People who menstruate.' I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?" she tweeted.

The tweet received heavy backlash from the LGBTQ+ community and allies. But that didn't stop the author from putting out her thoughts in public. She subsequently tweeted a ton of things she liked and hated about trans people.

A few days later, she also published a descriptive post on her website and sent out a tweet that read "TERF Wars," an acronym for a trans-exclusionary radical feminist.

But many were still not buying her words, and it got to the extent that actors like Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, and Eddie Redmayne spoke against her.