When it rains, it pours.
This is Broadway star and RuPaul's Drag Race alum Jinkx Monsoon, and she had a few cleverly-placed words for the author best known for creating the Harry Potter series.
In addition to winning Season 5 of RuPaul's Drag Race and Season 7 of Drag Race All Stars, Jinkx has starred on Broadway as Ruth in Pirates! The Penzance Musical, Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors, and "Mama" Morton in Chicago. She is set to take over as Mary Todd Lincoln in Oh, Mary! in August 2025.
Jinkx feigned confusion about J.K.'s identity, seemingly addressing a larger conversation surrounding the British author's anti-trans politics.
"Who is Jake? Who is he? Jake Hay Rowling?" Jinkx asked.
When Ziwe pointed out that J.K. was a "she", Jinkx immediately said, "Oh, dear. That is not a feminine name in the slightest."
Jinkx then suggested that J.K. intentionally misled readers about her gender. "I know that oftentimes, female authors use initials so that people assume it's a male writer," Jinkx said, before adding, "I have to presume that J.K. Rowling was unsatisfied with the way that the world saw her, and then she transitioned herself into a new personality so that the world would perceive her the way she wanted to be perceived."
Ziwe and Jinkx locked eyes for a moment, and she responded, "Gagging."
In a July 2017 Teen Vogue interview, J.K., whose real name is Joanne, revealed that her publisher for Harry Potter suggested she "disguise" the fact she was a woman so the book "might appeal" to all genders. The author said it didn't last long because once she got a lot of publicity and an advance from America, she was "outed as a woman." Notably, J.K. also writes the Cormoran Strike series under the pen name Robert Galbraith.
Over the last few years, J.K. has made headlines for her anti-trans comments and active campaigning against laws in the UK that would allow transgender people to change their legal gender. Earlier this year, when the UK Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the legal definition of a woman only applied to those whose biological sex is female, J.K. shared a photo with the caption, "I love it when a plan comes together."
