Interesting the first trailer for the new Fantastic Beasts drops the day JKR once again says disgusting transphobic shit. And yet yall make the film trend and give her the smokescreen that she wants. If you support this film, especially if you’re giving it money, I don’t want to know you.
There is no excuse for supporting her work. You cannot ‘separate the art from the artist’ when the art is also full of her bigoted ideas. The HP books and films are full of her racism and antisemitism. ‘HP would be fine with JK’ is a lie. The big nosed bank running goblins are antiemetic caricatures, the only Chinese character is named ‘Cho Chang’ which are two Korean surnames and is very close to the English ‘ching chong’ derogatory term for Chinese people, there’s slaves who love being slaves and meant to be slaves, there’s the actress who played Cho being told to keep the racism she dealt with from the HP fans a secret and lie to the press and tell them it wasn’t happening, there’s the insensitivity in the Fantastic Beasts world to Native Americans, there’s making Dumbledore gay years after she finished the books and then when he’s being included in the media again he won’t be actually shown as gay, there’s her comparing werewolves to people who have HIV/AIDS, there’s her weird sexualization of gay people with her not wanting to confirm any romantic relationship between Dumbledore and Grindlewald but saying they have intense sex as if gay people are obsessed with sex, would you like me to go on?
As a child I loved it, I made so many dear friends through it, and it took years to struggle with being trans and a HP fan until I threw out all my HP stuff and stopped supporting the work. Money you spend on tickets to see the new Fantastic Beasts, or on any HP merch or Cursed Child, is money she gives to anti-trans organisations. Time that you give HP is time keeping her relevant. I don’t think people outside of the UK realise how much power she actually has here, in a country where trans hate crimes have quadrupled in the last five years, where trans rights have been repealed and set back, where politicians quote JKR and site her as if she’s a gender studies professor, that all ‘gender critical’ UK transphobes look up to her.
What she said today, about how ‘everyone who has a penis is a man and only men rape people’ is not only transphobic but just gross about cis men and women too. Cis women can be rapists. Cis women can be sexual abusers. Anti-trans people have this idea of ‘men do x bad thing and therefore can’t be women because women would never do x bad thing because women are perfect’ frankly that’s patronising towards women and a slap in the face to every woman (and person) who has been abused by a cis woman. Anyone of any gender can be an abuser. Trans women are over four times as likely to experience sexual violence than cis women.
HP was fun as a child. The nostalgia was fun as a teen. Being 23 and looking back at it now, there is no excuse to support her or to support the work itself. Cis HP fans need to understand that you liking HP is a red flag for trans people. You might be a great ally, but so many HP fans are transphobes who see JKR as some feminist god that you need to understand it’s important to make sure trans people know you’re a safe person.
You may think it doesn’t matter. JKR gets backlash for the things she says right? Yeah, on Twitter. Twitter isn’t the real world. In the real UK, most people believe and stand by her words. In the real UK it’s not safe for trans people.
This is without even mentioning the whole thing with Fantastic Beasts and firing Johnny Depp over being an abuse victim.
Don’t spend your money on it. Don’t let the trailer get views or hype. Of course you not spending money on HP doesn’t mean she suddenly stops being rich. But don’t you guys understand when you post “I’m not a transphobe BUT I LOVE HP so much and I’d buy all the books again I don’t care what she’d spend the money on” how awful that sounds? And again, putting what JKR says outside HP to the side, the books and films contain her racism. The amount of people in the HP tags who have ‘gender critical feminist’ and ‘istandwithrowling’ in their bios isn’t imaginary.
Trans and cis fans who want to like HP and understand the problems with it have to admit the problems with it, not just with JKR. And as a trans person who’s empierced shit in the HP fandom and plenty of other fandoms I can’t see a cis HP fan say ‘oh I don’t agree with JKR but’ and trust them or feel safe around them. If HP is your special interest or hyperfixation I understand, your fine. But I don’t understand the inability to let go for anyone else. Yes it took me years and it sucked but oh well. There’s so many other fandoms and media out there similar to HP. I just can’t understand a neurotypical adult’s in ability to let it go. And I would welcome a good faith explanation. But you know if transphobic replies end up here then replies are going to get turned off.
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