Trans people are at increased risk of hate crimes and violence, particularly Black trans women. The
Human Rights Campaign counts at least 26 trans and gender non-conforming people who were murdered in 2019, though the real number is likely larger due to non-reporting. Just last week two Black trans women,
Riah Milton in Ohio and Dominique “Rem’Mie” Fells in Pennsylvania, were killed. That same week the Trump Administration rolled back
anti-discrimination laws that protected LGBTQ people (and particularly trans people) from being denied medical care. This is to say nothing 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 cruel and dangerous.
I don’t want to be one of those people who says “I’m an ally!” and does nothing more than attend a Pride parade and feel moved by
Call Me By Your Name. My childhood nostalgia can’t be more important than a trans person’s trauma or physical safety. If continuing to call myself a “Gryffindor” or referring to Hermione as a personal hero valorizes a transphobic figure, bolsters a hate group, and puts people in danger, do I have a choice but to abandon the story?
...
But it is time for
Harry Potter to be dethroned from its place atop the zeitgeist. We can no longer use the series as an ethical yardstick, measuring right and wrong on a scale of Voldemort to McGonagall, or use Patronus quizzes as an astrology-adjacent form of self-assessment. We should consider shutting down
Cursed Child and
Harry Potter theme parks. Because we cannot simply and wholly divorce Rowling from the Wizarding World she conjured. When we patronize
Harry Potter parks or movies like
Fantastic Beasts, she still benefits financially, and her position of power remains unchecked. In doing so, we abandon the trans lives her public statements endanger.
