A recent headline jolted J.K. Rowling out of her wizarding world and into Oceania, the domineering surveillance state of George Orwell's "1984."

Rowling scoffed at an online opinion article that used "people who menstruate" as a substitute for "women," and she was roundly condemned for questioning the trans-inclusive newspeak. Big Brother may not be prosecuting her thoughtcrime, but progressive pundits and cancel-culture activists believe the utterance should end her career.

Proponents of inclusive language say references to men and women alienate people who are transgender or nonbinary. "Expectant mother" is out, and "pregnant person" is in. "Chest-feeding" is preferred over "breastfeeding," even though both sexes can develop breast cancer.

The "Harry Potter" series author says these genderless euphemisms erase women's visibility. She's been branded a transphobe and a TERF, or trans-exclusionary radical feminist. Rowling insists she harbors no hostility.

"I respect every trans person's right to live any way that feels authentic and comfortable to them," Rowling tweeted. "I'd march with you if you were discriminated against on the basis of being trans. At the same time, my life has been shaped by being female. I do not believe it's hateful to say so."

That may seem reasonable, even enlightened, but it's still problematic to the wokescolds who mobbed Rowling's Twitter page. Actors Daniel Radcliffe (Harry) and Emma Watson (Hermione) from "Harry Potter" and Eddie Redmayne of the "Fantastic Beasts" flicks quickly distanced themselves from their characters' creator.

"Transgender women are women," Radcliffe wrote in a prepared statement released on The Trevor Project's website. "Any statement to the contrary erases the identity and dignity of transgender people and goes against all advice given by professional health care associations who have far more expertise on this subject matter than either Jo or I."

Progressives differentiate biological sex — male and female — from gender, which they call socially constructed. Under this terminology, an adult male can identify as a woman with or without hormone treatments or reassignment surgery. That same person can also choose from dozens of newly iterated identities, from nonbinary to pangender to otherkin — the last of which describes people who identify as having animal or other nonhuman spirits.

The new gender theory has no limiting principle. If gender is a self-defined mixture of male and female characteristics that's unmoored from biology, it's no longer a useful way to categorize people. Facebook lists 71 gender identities its users can select, but there's no reason there can't be 7 billion genders. Doesn't everyone have a complex, custom blend of masculine and feminine traits?

After her tweets drew withering criticism, Rowling penned a 3,600-word essay on her website revealing that she's a domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor. As a woman who's faced male violence and misogynist insults, reductive euphemisms like "menstruator" strike her as "dehumanizing and demeaning."

Rowling fears that opening female bathrooms and changing rooms to trans people creates a loophole for male predators who can claim to identify as women. While some biological women and girls share this concern, the transgender bogeyman is a phantom.

Signs on restroom doors don't deter sex offenders any more than gun-free zones stop mass shooters. In either case, a trespassing complaint pales in comparison to perpetrators' premeditated crimes.

As North Carolina learned with its short-lived "bathroom bill" repealed in 2017, restrictions on access to sex-segregated spaces are largely unenforceable. Most people use the facilities that best align with their dress and appearance. A busybody who thinks you're out of place has no right to check your plumbing, and police would be loath to stop someone on nothing more than a hunch. Trans-bathroom bans are a solution in search of a problem.

Rowling isn't alone in bristling at gender-neutral newspeak and its erasure of women. Language is democratic, and "pregnant people" will never catch on with the majority of English speakers.

Staging a boycott of Rowling's books and films, as some critics have suggested, would show cancel culture's intolerance at its worst. Resist the urge to conflate disagreement with discrimination.

Applying labels like transphobe and TERF to everyone who doesn't march in lockstep with progressive gender politics risks ending dialogues about sexuality and gender expression precisely where they should start.

Corey Friedman is an opinion journalist who explores solutions to political conflicts from an independent perspective. Follow him on Twitter @coreywrites. To find out more about Corey Friedman and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Daniel Ogren