But adequately stigmatizing Rowling’s weaponization of childhood not only requires personal withdrawal for most people, it necessitates something much more difficult: being a giant fucking killjoy. You should tell people discussing the show that you’re not watching it, and why, and you should let yourself openly cringe at your sister-in-law’s Harry Potter tote bag, and you should bring up unprompted that the onslaught of legislation against trans people makes you sad and angry, presuming it does, and you should do this because, not despite, the fact that it will make you look annoying as hell and may make everyone present uncomfortable. (You probably won’t even get the kudos of looking like a cool ally, because you’re still ultimately talking about Harry Potter. Sorry about that.)Â
Most trans people, everywhere they go, have to be the outnumbered loser who cares about the anti-trans movement, and who notices how that movement lodges itself in “safe” territory, in order to make calling it out look crazy and unreasonable. The most powerful thing you can do in this situation doesn’t concern your attachments, or even your beliefs. It’s giving up on the idea that there is such a thing as safe territory. A kid’s book, a magic wand, even the idea of joy itself can be a tool used to club a kid back into the closet. Act accordingly.Â
This recent Defector article made something click for me re: my feelings on Harry Potter, which is that every time you encounter someone enjoying it, you as a trans person are reminded that you are completely and utterly alone in caring about your own humanity.
I kind of hate that HP is embedded in the insufferable discourses of “death of the author” / “separating the art from the artist” / “watching children’s programming is a sign of intellectual deficiency” / “let people enjoy things” / etc. All of these conversations are long-dead horses, and I’m probably not alone in saying that I find them very boring. But more fundamentally they feel off-topic when talking about Harry Potter. Framing HP in those terms feels like it’s minimising what is actually being discussed, which is a trans-exterminationist billionaire. The degree and scale of harm makes it feel qualitatively different from other properties that usually get debated within those discourse cycles.
So what I appreciate about this article is that it makes a parallel with common trans experiences, which is 1) having to constantly educate people around you about why they should care about you, 2) being the annoying SJW killjoy for correcting someone any time they misgender you or saying something transphobic. And now HP has become one of those topics in which you need to educate people and be annoying. People who like HP either don’t know about JKR’s transphobia (which strains credulity at this point, but whatever) or they don’t. In either case you are about to have some kind of deeply unpleasant interaction, or, maybe even more soul-crushing, you swallow it and say nothing. Every time I see anything Harry Potter related I am reminded of systemic transphobic violence. The HP fans’ ignorance or apathy re: Rowling is essentially the same, because in either case it demonstrates that they don’t give a fuck. It makes me feel profoundly alone, and the added indignity of it all is that it is a children’s book series that serves as that reminder. It’s just another thing that frames trans people as insane, as annoying, as ridiculous and out of touch with “the normal world,” because the terms of the debate are framed around books for twelve year-olds. It’s brilliant, in a way, because it gives people an easy reason to dismiss you - it’s just a book, it’s just a movie! It can’t hurt you, calm down you freak.
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