Opinion | I’m a Trans Woman. Bullies Don’t Surprise Me, but Allies Still Do.

In late March, President Vladimir Putin of Russia compared his country’s reputational plight to that of J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series. In a speech railing against the West’s efforts to ostracize Russia, Mr. Putin groused about “cancel culture” run amok, pointing to what he called the cancellation of the author because she “did not please fans of so-called gender freedoms.”

Ms. Rowling was, understandably, not thrilled to learn Russia’s president, who began his brutal, deadly war against Ukraine six weeks ago, believed they were of common cause. “Critiques of Western cancel culture,” she tweeted, “are possibly not best made by those currently slaughtering civilians for the crime of resistance, or who jail and poison their critics.” She included a link to a BBC story on Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader who has been poisoned and imprisoned.