Born in Yate, Gloucestershire, Rowling was working as a researcher and bilingual secretary for Amnesty International in 1990 when she conceived the idea for the ''Harry Potter'' series. The seven-year period that followed saw the death of her mother, the birth of her first child, divorce from her first husband, and relative poverty until the first novel in the series, ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', was published in 1997. Six sequels followed, concluding with ''Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows'' (2007). By 2008, ''Forbes'' had named her the world's highest-paid author.
Rowling has won many accolades for her work. She has received an OBE and was made a Companion of Honour for services to literature and philanthropy. ''Harry Potter'' brought her wealth and recognition, which she has used to advance philanthropic endeavours and political causes. She co-founded the charity Lumos and established the Volant Charitable Trust, named after her mother. Rowling's charitable giving centres on medical causes and supporting at-risk women and children. In politics, she has donated to Britain's Labour Party and opposed Scottish independence and Brexit. She has publicly expressed her opinions on transgender people and related civil rights since 2017. These views have been described as transphobic by critics and LGBT rights organisations. They have divided feminists, fuelled debates on freedom of speech and cancel culture, and prompted declarations of support for transgender people from the literary, arts, and culture sectors.