I’ve seen people talk about actors and artists that had a terrible time.
My own would be Anne Rice. She wrote Interview with the Vampire after her young daughter died of Leukemia. Then her husband suddenly died of a brain hemorrhage. I suspect her Christian, anti-fanfic phase was a result of mental illness and manipulation from the publishers, although I don’t think she ever apologized.
I think people don’t consider that her publisher made her publish as JK because they didn’t want anyone to know she was a woman. It’s her life’s work and her name isn’t on it, because of her gender. I don’t think it’s right, but I can see how she’d be frustrated at being told that anyone can be a woman when she wasn’t allowed to have her womanhood evident on the books she wrote.
Right, it’s incongruous that there are both people choosing to live as women and being celebrated, and the numerous scenarios where being identifiable as a woman is a disadvantage.
Several trans women have talked about this, actually. Trans men too: How, upon transitioning and coming to a point of “passing”, they are suddenly treated veeery differently.
If Rowling wanted to publish under her legal name, she could. Her publishers aren’t even getting her work properly edited anymore and haven’t since several books into the HP series. A writer of her standing can make the publishers print “Joanne Rowling” on the cover if she wanted to.
Weirdly, she chose another pen name instead, and an outright masculine name at that. I highly doubt she gives a crap about whether her first name is on her books.
ironic considering that’s exactly what she denies for trans women