I feel obligated to say something about the fact that the longest lasting part of my online identity, my tumblr and Ao3 accounts, both have users related to the harry potter franchise and therefore joanne rowling. please keep in mind two things when I picked exslytherin.
firstly (and importantly) I was genuinely a child. this isn't an excuse for everything, but I think I picked exslytherin when I was 16 or maybe 17? either way, I'm 27 now (INSANE!) and still here! obviously, as a 16 year old I knew a lot less than I do now. like, there's a lot of blatant antisemitism in harry potter literally like a beacon made of anuses. prejudice against the irish (is racism the right word?) between the weasleys and seamus finnegan. I rewatched the whole movie series and I completely forgot how spectacularly cruel the ideology it contains is toward children (thank you ursula k. leguin). like, all adults are kind of evil and if they aren't they'll die or abandon you with evil adults (the weasley parents are perhaps an exception, but as mentioned there's evil problems). I don't know, there's probably a spreadsheet out there with how many problems the series exacerbated without remark. again: I was a child the last time I reread the . I have read more books now. I'd like to think I know better, because everyone should know better when they grow. as of the time I changed my user there was absolutely bad things targeted at trans people as they began to have more visibility, but I think most people in and out of the community will agree that it was not at the fever-pitch it is now. I hope this is evident by the way I phrase things, but I am a cis person trying to be the best ally I can be. I've always been an ally, with varying success. maybe half of my friends are some shade of transgender. I've had trans partners. obviously "I have a trans friend" is no guarantee, but I am trying to tell you that this is not a far-off issue for me. secondly, if my memory doesn't fail me there was more plausible deniability around Joanne's political identity. there were clues she wasn't great (her entire body of work), but she at the very least was not publicly funding efforts to deperson transgender women. I will say, I remember reading the cormorant strike books and being disgusted at the transphobia. I think it was around the time I read the third one I was clued in there was something very, very wrong. when I was younger I took a lot of online quizzes. I think a lot of kids do, it's not a bad way to explore yourself. I was sorted into Slytherin on the "official" Sorting Hat quiz many times. eventually, I was consistently sorted into Gryffindor. it made me feel good, honestly. I spent a lot of my childhood feeling inherently evil (mixed race in very white area, ignored/undiagnosed autism). I felt like there was some recognition that I could be brave, and in fact I was being very brave considering what laid ahead of me. so I changed my user to something meaningful and unique and fandom-y to me, like many people did. I was actually shocked it was available with no dashes.
at this point, I'm not sure what to do. again, I've had this user for over 10 years. there are more sinister ways the franchise is being used, and AFAIK Joanne has gotten no money from me in years. changing a URL is the definition of performative, but not all performative actions are bad. sometimes there needs to be a visual demonstration, but I'm not sure if that's the right course for me. my whole archive is more or less under this URL-- and I think there needs to be visual evidence of dissent against Joanne under the banner of something she created. if you have constructive feedback, I'd like to hear it.
