Author JK Rowling has said she never set out to “upset anyone” with her views on transgender rights but that she was “not uncomfortable getting off my pedestal”.

The Harry Potter author spoke to a new podcast, The Witch Trials of JK Rowling, saying that she was intrigued by fans who tell her, “You’ve ruined your legacy. Oh, you could have been beloved forever, but you chose to say this.’”

“And I think: ‘You could not have misunderstood me more profoundly,’” she said.

In a trailer for the podcast, she says: “I never set out to upset anyone. However, I was not uncomfortable with getting off my pedestal.”

Rowling’s views on trans rights have proven controversial with her fans.

In 2020, she published an essay setting out her concerns over how single-sex spaces might be put at risk through gender self-identification, drawing on her own experience as a survivor of sexual assault.

She also drew criticism for tweeting, “If sex isn’t real, there’s no same-sex attraction. If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased”.

Fans and even stars of the Harry Potter franchise have argued that her stance is harmful to an already marginalised community.

The Witch Trials of JK Rowling will premiere on February 21 through independent media company The Free Press, founded by Bari Weiss, a former New York Times writer.

The series is hosted by Megan Phelps-Roper, who left a family background of religious extremism as her parents followed the Westboro Baptist Church.

The Free Press describes the podcast as an “audio documentary that examines some of the most contentious conflicts of our time through the life and career of the world’s most successful author.”