Stop Making Me Talk About JKR
If you were sent here, then a boundary of some kind is being set. Read through this in its entirety, and check to see if any of your questions are answered here. The person that sent you this post might not wish to continue talking about Harry Potter, Hogwarts Legacy, or anything related to JK Rowling, in any context. Please confirm their comfort levels, after you have read and reflected, if they have not already been stated.
Respect their decision, even if you do not like the answer you receive.
Now, with the standard, trademark disclaimer-slash-introduction neatly out of the way:
Some Points of Clarification
The LGBTQIA+ community, self included, has been attempting to point out the red flags of JKR’s dangerous beliefs for years. These attempts have largely been in vain until she published the essay in 2020.
JKR owns Harry Potter. She profits monetarily off of everything associated to the franchise. She is Harry Potter, and she has worked hard to ensure this.
Having no creative control is not the same as making zero profit. Neither of these things detract from her continued relevancy in the global consciousness.
There is a long history of tokenism, retroactive virtue signaling, regular virtue signaling, fatphobia, homophobia, transphobia, misogony, and many, many other things present in all of her works, social media, interviews, etc. Some of these are mentioned in the link above, the rest is easily found with a Google search.
JKR also publishes under the penname Robert Galbraith. Some of these themes are more apparent in those titles, as they are intended for adult audiences.
Including the option to have trans characters in Hogwarts Legacy is problematic because of its execution, the controversy around it from within the studio, and furthermore, is not the gotcha one might think it is. JKR does not believe that she is a terf. She fully believes that she is acting in the best interest of the trans community. You can’t pull a fast one on somebody that fully believes themselves to be an ally.
Why are people tired of talking about this?
A myriad of reasons, some of which are alluded to or stated outright above, or in the link at the top of the post.
JKR is celebrated, loudly, not just for her body of work, but for these opinions that cause real world harm to the trans community. It is exhausting to explain the reasons, scientific or otherwise, that she is wrong, how she is causing harm, and why it feels like a betrayal.
It is exhausting to spend all of this time, effort, and energy justifying and defending your very existence and extremely real emotions, just to hear “well I still like Harry Potter” at the end of it.
It is exhausting to feel like your emotions do not matter, particularly while trying to tackle your own grief and conflicting desires to separate the franchise from its creator.
It is difficult to try to remember that your friends, family, and people who otherwise support you entirely are not trying to hurt you. That it probably isn’t willful ignorance that leads to them ignoring you.
It is possible to be rationally and logically aware that someone who supports you is defending Harry Potter because of their own hurt feelings, and still be hurt by the fact that they’re trying to defend it to you.
We know that we have no recourse. Frankly, it sucks.
We can’t boycott Harry Potter in any meaningful way. Unfortunately, we do not live in a world where harmful rhetoric and transphobia will nuke you from the global consciousness.
An entire essay full of hatred and misinformation would, in a perfect world, remove you so thoroughly from pop culture you suffered the same fate as Game of Thrones: never discussed again, not even to say how much you hated the ending.
This is not what happened here.
People will continue to support her. People will continue to support the franchise. We can not hurt her financially, and we know this. Somebody with millions of subscribers and followers might be able to convince a fraction of their fans that she should not be supported. Even if that scenario is replicated a thousand times over, it’s not enough.
Because nobody has a platform that can realistically rival hers.
This unfortunate reality means that every article, every Tweet, every video essay only serves to grow or maintain her platform. Every time that Harry Potter is mentioned, her relevancy is ensured to continue.
And she will always win while she is relevant, such is the strength of her platform. She is, and always will be, Harry Potter and the Wizarding World.
Even if she never earns another penny from her IPs, she will never suffer financially. Even if she is never discussed again, the damage she has already caused will take years, if not an entire lifetime, to erase.
All of this is adds to our exhaustion and burnout.
In the end, it’s a zero sum game with no clear answers.
Consume consciously. Respect the trans people in your life. Respect the trans people in your online communities. Elevate their voices. Remember that the trans community is burdened significantly by constantly being put in a position where they must educate others. Remember that there is significant emotional labor that goes into this education, justifying your existence, and also with justifying your emotions. Respect our boundaries. Listen to what we have to say. Take the things that you learned and put it into action.
As always, reblogs and shares are welcome. Safeguard your mental health. Guard your boundaries. This was, once again, written with the express purpose of helping people within the community do both of those things.
Here’s a Tiny URL to make that easier:
https://tinyurl.com/ebmsusa
