open letter, was JK Rowling, who on 7 July signed a letter warning of the dangers of censoriousness and intolerance, after publishing a broadside in June on transgender issues.
The irony, Chappell says, is that it was a line in Harry Potter that helped her decide to take the path she did.We’re chatting on Skype and Chappell, at home in Dundee, is wearing a cream shirt and a matching string of beads.
She looks comfortable and relaxed; you sense that her 50s have been a rebirth, and she’s enjoying life to the full. Now professor of philosophy at the Open University – the only openly transgender person to hold a UK chair in her subject, she believes – Chappell is also a Leverhulme Trust major research fellow, and is writing a book on.