JK Rowling
British author J. K. Rowling poses upon arrival at the BAFTA British Academy Film Awards at the Royal Albert Hall in London on February 12, 2017JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP/Getty Images

Harry Potter novelist JK Rowling has always been the controversy's favourite child, either due to her comments on transgender issues or detransitioning of the self, but this time, the author has garnered by social media backlash over her latest Strike novel which features a cisgender man who wears dresses and kills women.

The author, 55, under her pseudonym Robert Galbraith, has penned a book called "Troubled Blood" that is the latest installment in her Cormoran Strike detective series.

A day before the book's release, fans and foes lambasted Rowling, who has previously made a slew of controversial comments about the trans community, and declared her "dead" by sending #RIPJKRowling to the top of the Twitter trending charts.

Rowling's controversial novel

In "The Silkworm," the second novel in the series, Rowling portrays a trans character as being "unstable and aggressive."

"The meat of the book is the investigation into a cold case: the disappearance of GP Margot Bamborough in 1974, thought to have been a victim of Dennis Creed, a transvestite serial killer," wrote the Telegraph in a review of the novel.

"One wonders what critics of Rowling's stance on trans issues will make of a book whose moral seems to be: never trust a man in a dress," it added.

In June, Rowling defended past controversial transphobic comments in a lengthy essay, which also revealed that she was sexually assaulted as a young woman.

"I'm concerned about the huge explosion in young women wishing to transition and also about the increasing numbers who seem to be detransitioning (returning to their original sex), because they regret taking steps that have, in some cases, altered their bodies irrevocably, and taken away their fertility," she wrote.

She and 100 other writers and scholars also penned an essay calling for the end of cancel culture, citing an "intolerance of opposing views," in July.