JK Rowling poses with her medal after being honoured by Britain's Prince William, Duke of Cambridge.

JK Rowling opens up about experiences of abuse and sexual assault for the first time.

The author spoke out in a lengthy statement seeking to clarify comments she has made about transgender people, which have been widely criticised.

“I’ve been in the public eye now for over 20 years and have never talked publicly about being a survivor,” she wrote on Wednesday in a post on her website.

“This isn’t because I’m ashamed those things happened to me, but because they’re traumatic to revisit and remember.”

She said she had chosen to share her experiences “out of solidarity with the huge numbers of women who have histories like mine, who’ve been slurred as bigots for having concerns around single-sex spaces”.

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The author insisted she feels “solidarity and kinship” when reading about “a trans woman dying at the hands of a violent man”, and that she has a “visceral sense” of the terror these women experience.

“I believe the majority of trans-identified people not only pose zero threat to others, but are vulnerable for all the reasons I’ve outlined,” she added.

The author has been widely criticised over the past few days after a series of tweets regarding transgender people, which many felt were dismissive of transgender people’s experiences.

Many celebrities, including Daniel Radcliffe, Evanna Lynch, and Eddie Redmayne, have publicly opposed her views.