Harry Potter author JK Rowling posted a savage new picture in response to the UK’s Supreme Court ruling that the legal definition of a “woman” is based on biological sex. The new ruling sets out what the words “woman” and “sex” refers to in the Equality Act, delighting gender-critical activists who have campaigned to ban trans women from gender-specific spaces.

Though the author has come under fire for her anti-trans views in the past, Rowling wasn’t letting it get to her as she smoked a cigar on a sunny balcony, with a gorgeous blue sea in the background. In a brutal post, she clutched a glass of wine in one hand and the cigar in the other, holding it to her lips while grinning at the camera. She wore her brunette hair swept back in a ponytail and opted for an emerald green kimono decorated with astrological patterns.

In her initial caption, she simply wrote: “I love it when a plan comes together,” adding the hashtags #SupremeCourt and #WomensRights.

She later clarified: “To those celebrating the fact that I'm smoking a blunt: it's a cigar. Even if it decided to identify as a blunt for the purposes of this celebration, it would remain objectively, provably and demonstratively a cigar.”

She shared a toast to activist group For Women Scotland, sharing two glasses of what looked to be champagne as she wrote: “We toasted you @ForWomenScot. Neil says it’s TERF VE Day.”

JK celebrated the ruling for “female prisoners locked up with male rapists, ill women requiring intimate care, girls forced to share changing rooms with males, sportswomen cheated out of their life’s goal, lesbians under attack for being same-sex attracted” – but has come under fire again and again for her refusal to refer to trans women as women – even cruelly calling GMB star India Willoughby a “man” on X.

One social media user replied to her: “You do realise that this is bullying?” As another echoed: “There’s no need to be unkind, especially when someone is down. Be gracious JK, not everyone is happy today.”