Jinkx Monsoon has conjured up some magic.
The “RuPaul Drag Race” winner is getting praise online after she cleverly dragged J.K. Rowling’s transphobia during an episode of comedian Ziwe Fumudoh’s podcast Thursday.
Since 2019, Rowling has been open about her transphobic views and has been campaigning it very publicly since.
About 25 minutes into the episode, Ziwe mentioned Jinx’s funny impression of Judy Garland, prompting Jinx to respond as the “Wizard of Oz” icon with a slurring voice.
As Jinx was fully embroiled in her Garland impression, Ziwe then asked her a question that seemed to be a play on actor Renée Zellweger playing both Roxy Hart in the 2002 film, “Chicago” and Judy Garland in 2019’s “Judy.”
“Would J.K. Rowling make a good Roxy Hart in ‘Chicago?’” Ziwe asked Jinx as Garland.
“Who is this? Who is …J. Who is he? J.K. Rowling?” Jinx responded as a confused Garland.
“He’s a she,” Ziwe responded.
“Oh dear, that is not a feminine name in the slightest,” Jinx/Garland said before shedding a little lumos on Rowling’s bigotry.
“You know, I know that oftentimes, female authors use initials so that people assume it’s a male writer,” Jinx/Garland said. “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.”
After a silent beat, Ziwe smiled and said “Gagging!” — prompting Jinx to break character and burst out laughing.
The British author, whose full name is Joanne Kathleen Rowling, explained to CNN in 2017 that it wasn’t her idea to use the pen name J.K. Rowling, but her publisher’s.
“Basically, they were trying to disguise my gender,” Rowling said at the time.
“I was so grateful to be published, if they told me to call myself Rupert, I probably would have done to be honest with you,” she told CNN. “But now, I actually quite like having a pen name, because I feel that’s — to an extent, that feels like an identity and then I’m — in private life, I’m Jo Murray. And it feels like quite a nice separation.”
Rowling apparently grew to like pen names so much that in 2013, she decided to use another pseudonym for her detective series, Cormoran Strike. And the name she chose to use was Robert Galbraith.
This time, Rowling chose the moniker. She addressed on her website why she chose a male name for her series.
“I certainly wanted to take my writing persona as far away as possible from me, so a male pseudonym seemed a good idea,” she wrote.
She also explained why her male author persona also had military experience in his bio.
“It was the easiest and most plausible reason for Robert to know how the Special Investigation Branch operates and investigates,” Rowling wrote. “Another reason for making him a military man working in the civilian security industry was to give him a solid excuse not to appear in public or provide a photograph.”
