‘Kaos’ Star Rakie Ayola Wants to Discuss Transgender Issues with JK Rowling

Rakie Ayola, former West End star Harry Potter and the Cursed Childhas said she would like to speak to JK Rowling about the author’s statements about transgender people.

Ayola, who now stars in a Netflix series Chaos as the underworld queen Persephone opposite David Thewlis, Jeff Goldblum and Janet McTeer, played Hermione Granger in the West End production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child from 2017 to 2018.

Ayola says she has met JK Rowling before, but she didn’t have the opportunity to talk to her at length. Now, however, she is eager to talk about transgender issues, as she wonders why Rowling focuses so much on transgender people.

Speaking to Newsweek, she said, “I’m not naive enough that I don’t recognize the conversation, of course I do, how could I not? But I’m just really curious why I personally feel like I don’t hear from her unless it’s talking about transgender people and their rights or not.”

“I don’t understand what she’s thinking about the rest of the time, is this the only thing? Of course I recognize that women have fought very, very hard for the rights that we have and the fear of them being taken away is very real. I’m not naive enough not to recognize that,” Ayola continued.

“But I just think sometimes that people are just trying to live their lives. Most people try to live their lives in a way that makes them happy in some way,” she added.

Rowling has been involved in a number of controversies in recent years because of her views and comments on transgender people.

She has previously been criticised for her tweets, in which she has often misgendered high-profile transgender people, including newsreader India Willoughby and Sutton United team manager Lucy Clark, and has been accused of bullying.

Rowling has recently been the subject of a legal complaint for alleged cyberbullying over gender-related comments made by Olympic boxer Imane Khelif. Rowling was unhappy about Khelif’s participation in the Olympics and falsely referred to the boxer as a “man.”

She also called transgender Paralympic athlete Valentina Petrillo, who is trans, a “cheater” four days ago.

Ayola is not the only one Harry Potter actor disagrees with Rowling’s views, as actors from the original films – Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson and Bonnie Wright – have condemned her statements and voiced their support for the trans community.

“There are dangerous people everywhere, but we can’t afford to decide that the dangerous people represent their entire group, their entire community, their entire, whatever it is, their entire gender, their entire sexuality, their entire ethnicity, whatever we’re talking about,” Ayola said.

She added that we cannot allow “other people who are just trying to live their lives to be defined” by “the worst of humanity”.