Some thoughts on Harry Potter, my complicated relationship with it, and the censorship I grew up with
TW Religion., swearing, and mention of adult content type things
Y'all, if you told younger me that I would one day be too liberal for Harry Potter, I would probably have laughed at you. It is really interesting what things come full circle. Growing up, I had to hide my enjoyment of it because all my friends were like "Magic bad." And now I have to enjoy the bits of it I do enjoy privately because JK Rowling is bad. How did this happen? My life is a joke.
This story has played a very important role in my life and I refuse to let some terf ruin it for me. Especially since my main enjoyment of it has been fan content anyway. But I also refuse to give her any platform or support. Sometimes I'll see merch that I want, but I can't buy it (even if I had the money) because royalties. So yeah basically all I've got now is Etsy and Tumblr, and anything I already had. Honestly the hardest part sometimes is I'll see something and want to get it for the young fans of Harry Potter in my life, but for the afore mentioned reasons can't (Occasionally I'm a bad enby and I breakdown and buy something, but it is rare).
This story did so much to help me break free and pushed me into self discovery.
Sirius Black was my comfort character during covid and helped me through some serious (pun intended) dysphoria, when I was in a really bad place. And long before that, Drarry (I know, I'm not proud of that either) and Wolfstar content was some the first, if not the first, openly gay content I actually allowed myself to enjoy. And I'm not alone in that, I've also seen other conservative Christian young people allow themselves to be comfortable with, or at least permit, the existence of Wolfstar. Do you know how huge that is? How important? You know what? If Rowling makes herself so conservative that the conservative Christians allow their children to start reading those books, maybe that's a good thing. Maybe some more baby gays will see themselves.
Even as a young kid these stories made me work through different things, even if I didn't realize it at the time.
If a conservative Christian kid is enjoying these books, y'all, let them. The fact that they are even allowed to read them is huge. If a conservative Christian adult is enjoying them, let them, the fact that they are willing to read them is huge. Honestly, you might have thought these books would cause you to be possessed by the devil the second you touched them, from the way they were treated when I was a kid.
Even if the author is a massive problem, and she is, there's still a lot of good in these stories. And you never know what could happen, and you never know the risk someone took just to get their hands on that series. In conservative Christian circles, the kind of media allowed in is so controlled. Even once you hit a point where it's no longer so controlled by your parents, picking up a "bad" book or other piece of media, can result in intense shaming and ridicule. As a full grown adult, I still hide things, frequently. I still get "sat down" by my parents for lectures on my "spiritual safety", and I don't even live with them any more.
You never know another person's history. Even if you've walked right beside them the whole time. You can't know everything. For some people just watching Disney Characters kiss is big, because it's something they were taught is dangerous. And everything secular is so... villainized. I honestly thought "Call Me Maybe" by Carley Rae Jepsen was about pr0stituti0n, for years, because what I had learned was that all secular music had adult themes and hidden messages.
Shows making a joke of cross dressing and trans people were some of my favorites, because they were some of the only places I ever got to see myself. Bad representation is still representation, and if it's all you have access to, you cling to it like a life raft. I still have things I watch that are just... honestly awful in some respects, but I watch them because they made me feel seen.
All that said, calling people, media, and fandoms out on their bullshit is still important. It's very necessary. But saying people are categorically this or that for liking something, maybe not. I've said it before, blanket banning or promoting is not often a good idea. Suggesting someone look into why they like something or how they engage with the content? I'd say that's good, important even. I'd say always be mindful of how and why you engage with content as well.
