Maya Forstater, executive director of Sex Matters, has launched a fierce defence of JK Rowling after Stephen Fry branded the Harry Potter author “radicalised” and “a lost cause” over her views on transgender issues.

Speaking to GB News, Forstater dismissed Fry’s characterisation as “utter nonsense”, insisting that “the idea that men are men and women are women is not a radical view”.

Forstater told The People’s Channel: “What she’s done is stand up for women’s rights.”

GB News host Tom Harwood said: “Has there not been a progression, at the very least, in how J.K. Rowling has approached this issue?

“Back in 2020, she tweeted, ‘I respect every trans person’s right to live in any way that feels authentic and comfortable to them’.

“And yet, this year, we’ve seen J.K. Rowling refuse to use the pronouns that trans people would like others to use, quote-tweeting various trans women and calling them men.

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“At the very least, her tone seems to have shifted considerably over the last five years.”

The activist responded: “What you’re talking about is whether she must use the pronouns they prefer. Those are two different things.

“If someone wants to call themselves something, fine, but as J.K. Rowling tweeted in 2019, after my case, “Call yourself what you like, but that doesn’t mean others have to call you that.”

“People can use the words that make sense to them.”

Stephen Fry has condemned his former friend JK Rowling as “radicalised” and “a lost cause” in a recent podcast interview, marking a dramatic shift from his previously neutral stance on the transgender debate.

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The comedian and Harry Potter audiobook narrator told The Show People podcast that Rowling had been “radicalised by TERFs” as well as by “the vitriol that is thrown at her.”

“She seems to be a lost cause for us,” Fry said during the interview, adding that the backlash against her “is unhelpful and only hardens her and will only continue to harden her.”

Fry claimed he is “really angry” about Rowling’s stance, stating he “disagrees profoundly with her on this subject”.

“She started to make these peculiar statements and had very strong difficult views.

“She seemed to wake up or kick a hornet’s nest of transphobia which has been entirely destructive,” he said.

The QI presenter particularly criticised Rowling for not disavowing “some of the more revolting and truly horrible, violently destructive things that people say.”

“She says things that are inflammatory and contemptuous, mocking, and add to a terribly distressing time for trans people,” Fry added.

He noted that until recently, he’d found Rowling “charming, funny and interesting”, but claimed “this thing happened and it completely altered the way she talks and engages with the world now.”