Pop music icon Boy George says people shouldn’t bother with recent comments by author J.K. Rowlings that have sparked accusations that she is transphobic.
“Why give attention to what you see as negativity? Who actually cares what JK thinks about something she knows zero about,” the Culture Club singer tweeted Thursday. “Post positive stuff. I thought JK had more of an imagination!
"In simple terms, hearing and using positive language can make you feel great – physically, mentally and emotionally. On the flip side, negative language can block the brain’s natural de-stress mechanisms.”
Rowling has come under fire since tweeting last week that there used to be a word for “people who menstruate.” She wrote: “Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?”
Facing heat on social media, the Harry Potter creator insisted: “I know and love trans people … It isn’t hate to speak the truth.”
She added: “I respect every trans person’s right to live any way that feels authentic and comfortable to them. I’d march with you if you were discriminated against on the basis of being trans. At the same time, my life has been shaped by being female. I do not believe it’s hateful to say so.”
George is having none of it. “I don't care what she thinks about anything. We need to stop defining ourselves by the negatives we hear about ourselves," he tweeted. "Listen to me, I have been a queer since 1976!”
The singer’s tweets come as he clarified comments he made at the beginning of the year about preferred pronouns that some perceived to be transphobic.
In early January, George tweeted: “Leave your pronoun’s (sic) at the door.” In a reply, he suggested preferred pronouns are “a modern form of attention seeking.”
In an interview for Billboard and The Hollywood Reporter for the upcoming Pride Summit & Pride Prom, the singer complained about “policing” on social media.
“There is a lot of bullying online, like 'You have to do this, you have to do that,’” he said. “There is this sense sometimes that our lives are being run by the internet … I’m trying to not add to the noise.”
George denied that his comments were transphobic. “I see the world has changed a lot, and that's what I wanted,” he explained. “I wanted people to be able to be free to identify as whoever they want.
“My point when I said the thing about the pronouns was, you’ll never have a situation, when you encounter me, where you'll have to explain yourself to the degree where it's uncomfortable for you.”