When You See Jk Rowling Trending Shit Here We Go Again
Harry Potterfans—yes, I'g addressing roughly the unabridged Millennial generation—nosotros need to have some other tough conversation with ourselves: Nosotros must end ourHarry Potterfantasyat present.
Last week, J.Chiliad. Rowling tweeted a transphobic annotate (not for the start time). She quickly doubled down on those feelings, publishing a lengthy essay in response to the backlash, leaving Potterheads to make up one's mind whether denouncing Rowling and her anti-trans positions meant they must also denounce the wholePotter franchise.
Similar so many others, I feel a deep, emotional connection to the series. It has been the soundtrack of my entire life; each new book coinciding with an adolescent milestone of my ain. When the seventh and final book was released the summertime before my senior year of high school, it felt similar Harry, Ron, Hermione, and I were all transitioning into adulthood together—the culmination of their chance was also the culmination of mine. Pottermore personality quizzes determined that my Patronus was a silverish cat and I was owed a yew wand from Ollivander's, making me feel seen—transforming my specific traits into unique powers that I could be proud of instead of loathe. The fact that it is common to define oneself in terms of Hogwarts houses (proud Gryffindor speaking) is a mark of how profoundly personal this universe feels. The books felt similar a place where I—we—belonged.
I'm also a ciswoman, which means my feelings are not the point right at present. As significant as the franchise has been for me, if I am actually going to be the ally I fancy myself to be, that means I take to consider the impairment Rowling (and potentially the unabridged serial) has done to trans, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming people. Being a white ciswoman gives me a voice—like a magical power, only a shitty one, considering information technology's a power others are denied. It's my job to use that "magical ability" every bit a force for expert and say what nobody wants to say. To bring to light that if Rowling had been a Hogwarts parent and heard that Lupin was a werewolf, her Karen-self likely would accept demanded he be fired for putting her petty Hufflepuff in danger.
Rowling has come up under burn several times before for saying or insinuating awful things (as she herself noted in her essay). In December, she tweeted in support of Maya Forstater, noted TERF (trans exclusionary radical feminist). And recently, people have pointed out several troubling or outright racist elements of thePotter serial: Gringotts' goblins, creatures who control all the money in the Wizarding World, are described in explicitly antisemitic stereotypes. The single Asian graphic symbol in the serial is named Cho Chang, of all things. Rowling'due south stories prepare in the United states of america, at a school named Ilvernmorny, have been roundly criticized for appropriating and flattening Native American mythologies, borrowing liberally from entirely disparate tribes and traditions, and watering them down into something cute and vaguely magic-esque. The stories center around a white settler from Republic of ireland who establishes the magical school, implying in that location are no Native American witches or wizards at all. Meanwhile a "Pukwudgie," a fauna from Wampanoag lore, serves equally side-kick and is meant to clumsily correspond all Native American people. (Not to mention, Rowling's books treated Hermione'due south dedication to SPEW like a goofy personality quirk akin to being a raw vegan.)
The books felt similar a place where I—nosotros—belonged.
As a theoretically woke coalition, people in my orbit tin acknowledge these things, but we all seem particularly reluctant to even consider canceling (whatever that means)Harry Potter.
As we once once more grapple with Rowling outing herself as troubling, to say the least, the "art versus the creative person" statement has bubbled to the surface—as it always does. Fans have fretted and argued over whether we tin, in good conscience, continue to listen to Michael Jackson or scout Woody Allen movies, at present knowing what they take been defendant of. Is their cultural contribution enough to outweigh reprehensible behavior?
Thanks to my English Lit degree, I can certainly summon a convincing instance thatHarry Potter should exist appreciated independently of Rowling. My instinct is e'er to encounter a work of art, no matter what it is, equally its own thing. One time you've created something and put it out into the earth, information technology's no longer yours. It takes on a life of its ain; it's like having a literary kid.
And this is the case when information technology comes toHarry Potter. Rowling isn't the sole creator of this universe equally we inhabit it at present. The actors who starred in the movies, for case, are enduring elements of the franchise, and many of the most visible stars have been outspoken in opposition to Rowling's position on trans rights. See: Daniel Radcliffe'due south statement in The Trevor Project. Afterward Rowling released her divisive essay, other stars, including Emma Watson (Hermione Granger), Bonnie Wright (Ginny Weasley), Evanna Lynch (Luna Lovegood), Eddie Redmayne (Newt Scamander), and Katie Leung (Cho Chang), began voicing their support of trans rights on social media. Noma Dumezweni, who played Hermione in theCursed Child stage play, and even Arthur Levine, who edited theHarry Potter books, also spoke out condemning Rowling'southward comments.
Some of these statements also included a consoling message to fans: that it's okay to love or have lovedHarry Potter. "If you found annihilation in these stories that resonated with you lot and helped you at whatever time in your life—then that is between you and the book that you read, and it is sacred," Radcliffe wrote in his moving argument. And Wright's tweet read, "If Harry Potter was a source of beloved and belonging for you, that honey is infinite and at that place to take without judgment or question. Transwomen are Women. I run across and love you, Bonnie x."
These words, from people who had a directly paw in creatingHarry Potter as we know it, feel especially comforting. I cannot erase what this world meant to me growing upwardly. I agree with Radcliffe and Wright.
But...
All of this analyzing and agonizing misses the point. Who does it injure when we continue to lionize a serial written by an outspoken transphobe equally a generationally-defining text?
Trans people are at increased take chances of hate crimes and violence, particularly Black trans women. The Human Rights Entrada counts at least 26 trans and gender not-conforming people who were murdered in 2019, though the real number is probable larger due to not-reporting. Just last calendar week two Black trans women, Riah Milton in Ohio and Dominique "Rem'Mie" Fells in Pennsylvania, were killed. That aforementioned week the Trump Assistants rolled back anti-bigotry laws that protected LGBTQ people (and particularly trans people) from being denied medical care. This is to say aught of living in a world whose very infrastructure seems determined to deny the reality that trans, nonbinary, and nonconforming people exist at all. Ideologies like Rowling's are actively and intentionally barbarous and unsafe.
I don't want to be i of those people who says "I'm an ally!" and does zero more than than attend a Pride parade and feel moved byPhone call Me Past Your Name. My childhood nostalgia tin't be more important than a trans person's trauma or physical condom. If standing to call myself a "Gryffindor" or referring to Hermione equally a personal hero valorizes a transphobic effigy, bolsters a hate group, and puts people in danger, practise I have a pick only to abandon the story?
If I am actually going to be an ally, I accept to consider the damage Rowling has done to trans, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming people.
The irony of it all is that Rowling'due south books taught united states that we each, no affair how young or seemingly insignificant, have a specified contribution to make in the fight against evil. My high school senior quote was Dumbledore's final line to Harry: "Of course, it is all happening inside your caput, Harry. But why on earth should that hateful that information technology is not real?" If I'thou honest, there will likely always be a place in my centre for that world, which, indeed, still feels very real to me.
But it is fourth dimension forHarry Potter to exist dethroned from its place atop the zeitgeist. We tin no longer use the series as an upstanding yardstick, measuring right and wrong on a scale of Voldemort to McGonagall, or use Patronus quizzes every bit an astrology-adjacent class of self-assessment. Nosotros should consider shutting downCursed Child and Harry Potter theme parks. Considering we cannot merely and wholly divorce Rowling from the Wizarding World she conjured. When nosotros patronizeHarry Potter parks or movies likeFantastic Beasts, she withal benefits financially, and her position of power remains unchecked. In doing and so, we abandon the trans lives her public statements endanger.
The Wizarding World isn't the moral sanctuary it one time was. And because we are all adults now, we have to admit that.
InHarry Potter and the Half-Claret Prince, Rowling herself penned, via Harry's thoughts: "It was important, Dumbledore said, to fight, and fight again, and keep fighting, for only and then could evil be kept at bay, though never quite eradicated." So let's fight. Let's use this opportunity to talk frankly about anti-trans violence, TERFs, and the importance of language that identifies people accurately—like using correct pronouns or acknowledging that not all women menstruate and not all people who menstruate are women. It's the least we can do in keeping evil at bay.
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Source: https://www.marieclaire.com/culture/a32871234/harry-potter-jk-rowling-anti-trans-comments/
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