Genuine ideological consistency with progressive values requires questioning things you are told.
Even and especially things that feel true when you hear them.
If you want to defend yourself against conservative propaganda, if you want to ensure that your actions and beliefs remain ideologically consistent with the progressive values that you hold, then you must question things you are told, you must do your own due diligence of fact checking and critical thinking - even when those things come from trusted sources and/or feel right to you in the moment.
Otherwise, you will fall for propaganda, and you will be susceptible to further conservative rhetoric and conservative radicalization.
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Fair warning: I'll discuss an aspect of the tumblr discourse around JKR and the Harry Potter books in the rest of this post, as it provides a fantastic & deeply insidious example of the above point that I have seen propagated on tumblr a lot over the past few years.
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As most people around here likely know, there has been a loud and pervasive messaging on tumblr for years, now, that to even speak of the HP books in public spaces, let alone participate in fandom or even continue to enjoy the books or related fan merch you bought years ago in the privacy of your own home, is tantamount to active ideological support of JKR's horrifically transphobic views and the transphobic violence that her rhetoric encourages and which she herself monetarily supports.
(This message is, overall, a whole can of worms that I will not waste time on a thorough discussion of in this particular post, because there are about a zillion different rhetorical tricks and logical fallacies that can and have been used on tumblr alone to make this argument sound reasonable, and I do not have the time nor the patience to address all of them.)
I will be limiting my discussion to one specific argument for the above which I have seen utilized with disturbing frequency. The argument in question is deeply unsettling and concerning each time I see it, and it cuts right to the heart of the issue in bold at the top of this post - that in order to defend yourself effectively against conservative propaganda, you must question things even when they feel right to you.
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-> The argument appears, generally speaking, as follows:
JKR herself has said that anyone who enjoys the Harry Potter books agrees with her and supports her views of trans people. Therefore, any positive engagement with or discussion of Harry Potter - whether in fandom spaces, in other public spaces, or even alone in the privacy of one's own home - is tantamount to supporting JKR, transphobia, and transphobic violence.
-> The issue:
JKR's views, and transphobia in general, is predicated on the notion that there are certain people who possess the authority to impose their own criteria - criteria not based in objective reality or supported by objective evidence - on the world at large in order to dictate the identity, intentions, and even political ideologies of other individuals in defiance of anything those individuals say about themselves.
-> The logical conflict:
You cannot maintain a consistent progressive ideological argument against JKR's transphobia, when you agree that JKR does have the right to impose her own criteria - which are, again, utterly unsupported by any evidence outside of the presumed authority of her own words - to dictate the identity, political views, and intentions of complete strangers, as long as what she is saying is something you already agree with.
To validate the authority of JKR's words that you agree with in order to deny the authority of JKR's words that you disagree with is a logical contradiction.
There is only way to make this argument logically consistent: to claim the existence of an authority to your words and feelings, in absence of any appeal to objective & veriafiable external evidence, that overrides the authority of individuals you disagree with to define their own views and intentions, for those cases in which their words about themselves contradict your feelings.
And that is an incredibly conservative ideological path to go down.
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(I'm sure many of you may be ready, at this point, to jump in with an, "Aha! I do have external evidence to back up my claim!" At which point I invite you to take a moment and ask yourself the following questions: -> i) "How thorough have I been in fact-checking the evidence I claim to hold?" -> ii) "Is it possible I'm doing the equivalent, here, of using high school level biology as 'evidence' that trans people can't exist?")
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I want to end, now, with the following closing statement: if you have read through this whole post up to here and are currently feeling angry/distressed/upset/attacked/any other slew of negative emotions, that's okay. Please feel free to take space for yourself to sit with your emotions and process through them as you need.
Your emotions are a valid, objective reality when you feel them.
Whether or not the conclusions you draw from those emotions are equally based in objective reality is a separate question.
All I ask is that you take the time, afterwards, to come back, give this another read, and think critically through the logic for yourself, at your own pace, before deciding whether or not you agree.
Question, fact check, and do your own critical thinking before taking other people's words at face value.
Even mine.