U.K. charity Oxfam has apologized for publishing a pro-LGBT video on its social channels that appeared to depict bestselling author and women’s rights campaigner J.K. Rowling as as anti-trans hate figure.
The video, posted on Tuesday to millions of followers across its social platforms to commemorate Pride month, spoke about the persecution and discrimination some LGBT communities face around the world.
It included one scene with three hateful-looking individuals as caricatures, with the narrator stating: “LGBTQIA+ people around the world (…) are preyed on by hate groups online and offline.”
The woman in the video, equipped with a TERF badge, which stands for “trans-exclusionary radical feminist,” appears to portray Scottish author J.K. Rowling, who in recent years has campaigned to protect the definition of “woman” and in favor of female safe spaces.
The video received widespread criticism from women’s rights campaigners and members of the public.
Former Brexit Party MEP Alex Phillips accused Oxfam of “spreading actual hate against women who want to protect single sex spaces, who don’t want men in loos and changing rooms,” and claimed the organization doesn’t care about women, linking to the 2018 scandal surrounding employees of the charity in Chad and Haiti who regularly invited destitute sex workers to the organization’s premises.
“I will no longer be supporting your organization,” tweeted former Olympian Sharron Davies, who has campaigned against transgender athletes being allowed to compete against biological women.
Following the backlash, Oxfam pulled the original video from its channels and released a statement in which it insisted “there was no intention for this slide to have portrayed any particular person or people,” and apologized “for the offense it caused.”
The charity subsequently re-uploaded the video with the offending slide removed.
Elements of the video’s content, however, are still disturbing. Transgender Trend, the leading U.K. organization calling for evidence-based care for gender dysphoric children, highlighted another still from the video that shows a biological woman transitioning to a man after undergoing a double mastectomy.
“You are still promoting to girls the idea that it’s normal to have your healthy breasts cut off. You equate this with ‘protecting trans kids.’ It’s clear what you think of anyone who raises concerns about this, which indicates you have no understanding of safeguarding,” the campaign tweeted at Oxfam.
