Metro apologises for JKR Holocaust slur

Metro has apologised after falsely accusing JK Rowling of having “engaged in Holocaust denial”.

The smear appeared in an article published on Monday about the backlash against actors joining HBO’s forthcoming Harry Potter series.

 TERF Times founder Jo Bartosch spotted the claim on Tuesday morning and asked Metro to explain. Later that day, the newspaper removed it and added a correction:

“An earlier version of this story wrongly stated that JK Rowling had been ‘engaged in Holocaust denial’. This follows claims in March 2024 when Ms Rowling was accused on X of denying aspects of the Holocaust, an allegation which she strenuously denied. The allegation has been removed and Metro apologises for the error.”

The original article, written by Rebecca Cook and Danni Scott, presented the accusation as an established fact.

The controversy dates from March 2024, when Rowling responded mockingly to a post on X which read: “The Nazis burnt (sic) books on trans healthcare and research, why are you so desperate to uphold their ideology around gender?”

Rowling replied:

“I just… how? How did you type this out and press send without thinking ‘I should maybe check my source for this, because it might’ve been a fever dream’?”

This triggered furious accusations of Holocaust denial from trans activists.

The following day, Rowling published a statement on her website calling the accusation “baseless and disgusting”. She explained that she had spoken out consistently and repeatedly against antisemitism:

“I’m familiar with such activists’ assertions that transgender people have been uniquely persecuted and oppressed throughout history, but claims that trans people were ‘the first targets’ of the Nazis – a claim I refuted on X, and which led to these accusations – and that I ‘uphold [Nazi] ideology around gender’ is a new low.”

A month later, Novara Media editor Rivkah Brown publicly apologised for accusing Rowling of Holocaust denial, admitting that the claim was “false and offensive”.

More than two years after that retraction, Metro regurgitated the baseless claim and printed it as fact. But this was not the article’s only collision with reality. 

The newspaper also claimed Rowling had “misgendered” Olympic boxer Imane Khelif. The International Boxing Association disqualified Khelif from its 2023 women’s world championships after tests conducted by two laboratories produced what it called “absolutely identical” findings. A document purporting to contain the 2023 result was later leaked. It states: “Chromosome analysis reveals male karyotype.” Given this knockout evidence, Rowling was correct to call the woman-beater “he”.

The article also claims Rowling called “trans youth education” “more harmful than lobotomies”. She said nothing about education, but accused adults of sacrificing children’s health to an ideology she believed would wreak “more harm than lobotomies and false memory syndrome combined”.

Metro further describes For Women Scotland as “the campaign group pushing for the Scottish law to exclude trans women from the legal definition of ‘woman’”.

That, too, is as fanciful as the gender unicorn. The case FWS brought to the Supreme Court concerned whether a man with a gender recognition certificate counts as a “woman” under the Equality Act. Five justices unanimously concluded that the answer was “No”.

Metro has allowed itself to become a mouthpiece for trans ideology, publishing extensive coverage critical of Rowling while handing columns to barmy activists including Sophie Molly. At a demonstration last year, Molly said: “JK Rowling is a bitch” adding “we should all take a shite on you.” 

The paper has now admitted that its Holocaust denial claim was wrong. It has not publicly explained how such a serious allegation came to be presented as fact, or whether any action will be taken over the failure.