The Harry Potter writer, 58, hit back after being criticised for mocking Lucy Clark, who has been appointed manager of Sutton United’s women’s football team.

Rowling initially tweeted sardonically in response to the news: ‘When I was young all the football managers were straight, white, middle aged blokes, so it’s fantastic to see how much things have changed.’

Now, after a suggestion she was ‘comparing’ Clark to a ‘straight, white, middle-aged bloke’, she has insisted: ‘I didn’t compare him to one. He IS one.’

Rowling’s comments came after LGBTQ+ charity Pride posted on X, formerly Twitter, championing Clark – who was previously said to be the first openly transgender football referee.

The sports official was put in charge of the women’s team at fifth-division south London club Sutton United earlier this year, becoming the first trans manager in the top five tiers of women’s football in England.

Some social media users branded Rowling’s response to the news ‘cruel’ but many others have backed both her original post and now her follow-up remark.

Pride had posted a photo of the referee with her pink whistle and a red card with long dark brown hair falling around her shoulders.

They captioned the image: ‘Lucy Clark, the world’s first openly transgender referee, has made history by becoming the first trans manager in the top 5 divisions of English women’s football. The former referee has taken over at Sutton United. FABULOUS!’

Among those criticising Rowling’s response online was Caroline Litman said: ‘I’ve not met Lucy but my husband knows her wife.

‘Lucy is a real person with a family, and a life to live. Bills to pay. What harm does her role as a football manager cause you?

‘The team love her. Her wife and child love her. Your decision to pile on her is simply cruel.’

Clark, 51, has also been writing on X regarding the row – saying: ‘Another day of hate fuelled transphobia against me… but hey guess what I am living my best life.

‘Wake up everyday with my beautiful family around me. Everyday I laugh and have things to look forward too.

‘Who’s winning at life…the one who’s happy and smiling or those hating?’

But Rowling’s words have also been backed, with her latest post doubling down on her view about the football boss being shared almost 4,500 times by this morning.

In response to someone asking, ‘How did we get to a point where speaking the truth is seen as wrong?’, the author replied: ‘Cowardice.’

And when another asked, ‘How can you tell?’, she drily answered: ‘Psychic powers. That and the fact he fathered three kids with his wife.’

Other replies included ‘J.K. Rowling is a national treasure. Protect her at all costs’, ‘Stating facts and then being criticised for it these days is so strange’ and ‘Truth can be cruel’.

Rowling was criticised in 2018 after she liked a tweet describing trans women as ‘men in dresses’.

Her spokesperson at the time said the like was a ‘mistake’, calling it a ‘clumsy middle-aged moment’.

The writer has since become a prominent campaigner to protect what she describes as women’s rights – fuelled by her own experiences of domestic abuse – in the face of pro-trans causes.

She has opposed new legislation in Scotland seeking to make it easier for trans people to change their legal gender.

She has also insisted biologically male trans women should not be allowed in women’s spaces nor to take part in women’s sports.

Rowling has denied accusations she is transphobic, and police said recent tweets in which she ‘misgendered’ trans women did not fall foul of Scotland’s new hate crime laws which outlaw ‘stirring up’ hate against transgender people.

Her views have brought her into disagreement with some of the stars of the Harry Potter films based on her books – including Daniel Radcliffe, who played Harry, and Emma Watson who appeared in the movies as Hermione Grainger.

Last month’s publication of the Cass Review, which concluded that gender services for children were not making decisions based on backed medical evidence, prompted Rowling to suggest she was unlikely to forgive stars such as Radcliffe and Watson for their views.

She said people who supported gender transitioning in children should apologise to ‘traumatised detransitioners and vulnerable women reliant on single sex spaces’.

The review, written by leading paediatrician Dr Hilary Cass, found teenagers in Britain were allowed to change their gender based on ‘remarkably weak evidence’.

Dr Cass warned that there was a ‘lack of high-quality research’ on the effects of giving children puberty blockers and hormones and said the toxicity in the debate over the issue had become ‘exceptional’.

In the aftermath, one fan told Rowling they were ‘just waiting for Dan and Emma’ to offer a ‘very public apology’ knowing they’d be safe in the knowledge the author would forgive them.

Rowling replied: ‘Not safe I’m afraid. Celebs who cosied up to a movement intent on eroding women’s hard-won rights and who used their platforms to cheer on the transitioning of minors can save their apologies for traumatised detransitioners and vulnerable women reliant on single sex spaces.’

Radcliffe, 34, has previously apologised to those who he said may feel as though their enjoyment of the Harry Potter series had been ‘tarnished or diminished’ due to Rowling’s stance.

Watson, 34, has also repeatedly spoken out in favour of trans rights, both before and after the author’s views came to light.

And Radcliffe last month spoke out again, saying his beliefs do not have to align with Rowling’s just because her books helped make him a star.

He said: ‘I will continue to support the rights of all LGBTQ people, and have no further comment than that.

‘Jo, obviously Harry Potter would not have happened without her, so nothing in my life would have probably happened the way it is without that person.

‘But that doesn’t mean that you owe the things you truly believe to someone else for your entire life.’