Some staff at the publishing house working on J. K. Rowling’s new book, The Ickabog, are said to have “downed tools” in protest over her views on transgender people, it was reported on Tuesday.

Rowling, 54, appears to have fallen out with the stars she helped to create, among them Emma Watson, 30, Daniel Radcliffe, 30, Eddie Redmayne, 38, and Rupert Grint, 31, after the author responded to an online article discussing “people who menstruate” by tweeting: “I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?”

Now, some of the younger staff at Hachette have also found her views “transphobic” and are said to be refusing to work on her new children’s book.

The first two chapters of The Ickabog, which were released online in May, had five million views in its first 24 hours, with visitors from more than 50 countries visiting the book’s website, Rowling’s representatives have said.

Hachette have now issued a statement defending Rowling’s right to express herself: “We are proud to publish JK Rowling’s children’s fairy tale The Ickabog. Freedom of speech is the cornerstone of publishing. We fundamentally believe that everyone has the right to express their own thoughts and beliefs. That’s why we never comment on our authors’ personal views and we respect our employees’ right to hold a different view.

“We will never make our employees work on a book whose content they find upsetting for personal reasons, but we draw a distinction between that and refusing to work on a book because they disagree with an author’s views outside their writing, which runs contrary to our belief in free speech.”

It has been pointed out that this is not the first time Hachette have faced a mutiny.

Staff at the firm’s New York office staged a walkout in March in protest at the decision to publish Woody Allen’s autobiography, Apropos of Nothing.

Meanwhile, the “heartbroken” editor of a Harry Potter fan site, Melissa Anelli, who runs The Leaky Couldron, is encouraging her 28,000 followers not to buy Rowling’s books.

In an extraordinary blog post, 3,674 words long, Rowling revealed last week that she was a victim of domestic abuse in her first marriage to a former Portuguese journalist, Jorge Arantes. She was briefly married to him when the couple were in their twenties. She also said she was the victim of sexual abuse through she did not identify the perpetrator.

Tracked down to his home in Oporto, Arantes, now 52, told a couple of British tabloid newspapers that he did once hit her when she attempted to leave with their baby daughter Jessica, now 27.

“I slapped Joanne — but there was not sustained abuse,” he claimed. “I’m not sorry for slapping her.”

He was then questioned about his own admission 10 years ago that he had hit her on the night she left him. “Yes. It is true I slapped her. But I didn’t abuse her.”

Grint, who played Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter films, said he echoes the sentiments expressed by his peers.

“I firmly stand with the trans community and echo the sentiments expressed by many of my peers. Trans women are women. Trans men are men. We should all be entitled to live with love and without judgment,” the 31-year-old actor said.

Eddie Redmayne, who plays Newt Scamander in Fantastic Beasts, said he wanted to make his stand on the topic clear. “Respect for transgender people remains a cultural imperative.”