U.K. broadcaster reports J.K. Rowling to police for alleged transphobia, author calls it 'obsessive targeting'

Rowling has threatened a harassment claim against trans journalist India Willoughby.

U.K. broadcaster India Willoughby said she has reported J.K. Rowling to police for alleged transphobia.

The cohost of ITV's all-woman talk show Loose Women, who is considered Britain's first transgender national television reader, revealed that she recently filed a police complaint against the controversial Harry Potter author in an interview with Byline TV that aired Wednesday evening.

The news comes after Willoughby's years-long social media feud with Rowling, who has repeatedly misgendered Willoughby and who the author says has "definitely committed a crime."

"I'm legally a woman," she said in the interview. "She knows I'm a woman and she calls me a man. It's a protected characteristic, and that is a breach of both the Equalities Act and the Gender Recognition Act."

Willoughby added that she reported Rowling to the Northumbria Police in recent days. The U.K.’s Crown Prosecution Service states that hostility related to transgender identity can be prosecuted as a hate crime.

A Northumbria Police spokesperson confirmed to EW that the department received a complaint on March 4 about a social media post but could not reveal the identities of those involved.

“We are currently awaiting to speak to the complainant further," the spokesperson said.

Rowling tweeted about Willoughby on March 4, writing that the broadcaster "didn't become a woman" and is "cosplaying a misogynistic male fantasy of what a woman is."

Willoughby called the responses under Rowling's posts "putrid" and "some of the worst abuse I've ever seen on social media."

Following the airing of Willoughby's interview on Wednesday, Rowling responded to her allegations and threatened a harassment claim against the broadcaster.

"Some time ago, lawyers advised me that not only did I have a clearly winnable case against India Willoughby for defamation, but that India's obsessive targeting of me over the past few years may meet the legal threshold for harassment," she wrote on social media.

“I ignored this advice because I couldn’t be bothered giving India the publicity he so clearly craves,” Rowling continued, later adding, “Aware as I am that it’s an offense to lie to law enforcement, I’ll simply have to explain to the police that, in my view, India is a classic example of the male narcissist who lives in a state of perpetual rage that he can't compel women to take him at his own valuation."

Watch Willoughby's interview in full above.

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