Froggy's Response to J.K. Rowling's Transphobia

     For many years, I proudly called myself the world's biggest Harry Potter fan. As a writer, it was the series that inspired me more than any other, and as a millennial, the Wizarding World was very deeply embedded into my generation's culture. It would probably take me a lifetime to adequately explain how much Harry Potter means to me, and even then I'm not sure I'd be able to do it justice.

     So, bearing in mind that I'm nonbinary and the author of Harry Potter has revealed herself to be a major transphobe... Now what?

► Emotions

     My initial feelings about the situation were mainly shock and confusion. Bigotry of any kind blatantly violates one of the main themes of Harry Potter. There have even been psychological studies showing that reading Harry Potter makes people less prejudiced towards minority groups. Not to mention the fact that J.K. Rowling had expressed support for the gay community in the past, so she was considered to be a queer ally at the time. The idea that she could teach those values so beautifully, but not hold them herself, was completely baffling to me.

     The next emotions to settle in were devastation and a sense of betrayal. These are pretty self-explanatory. I had devoted a massive chunk of my life to Harry Potter, and now I know that my childhood hero thinks that I'm a delusional, anti-feminist pervert who shouldn't exist.

     Lastly, I simply felt stupid. After all, I don't know J.K. Rowling personally. She's just a celebrity. The emotional reaction that I was experiencing was probably my own fault for holding a complete stranger in such high regard. I truly believed that she was a good person, but it was ridiculous of me to come to that conclusion when we had never met. This feeling of stupidity increased after talking to another nonbinary person who "already knew" that J.K. Rowling was transphobic and didn't seem to care, which reinforced the thought that I was foolish for being emotionally affected by her, and also pointed out that I must have missed some signs.

► Still a Harry Potter Fan

     After the news of J.K. Rowling's transphobia broke, I saw a lot of people online coming out of the woodwork to say things like "Harry Potter was never that great anyway," or "Harry Potter was always problematic." In my opinion, statements like this make the speaker sound like one of those guys who asks a girl out, gets rejected, and then tells the girl that she's ugly. I can understand that the series has been ruined for a lot of fans who won't be able to read it or watch it without thinking about the author's cruel views, but let's not try to rewrite history just because we're hurting.

     Harry Potter is good literature. It wouldn't have achieved such widespread popularity and become a household name if it wasn't. It is very unfortunate that it was written by a hateful person, but to suggest that Harry Potter is a mediocre piece of media is to deny reality. This is especially the case since the topic of gender identity never comes up in the books, so the story itself does not showcase J.K. Rowling's specific brand of bigotry. Let's not forget why we fell in love with this tale in the first place.

     J.K. Rowling is definitely not the only person ever to have unacceptable morals and also create incredible art. There are examples all over Hollywood, the music industry, and every other sector of society where creativity happens. And yet, despite how frequently it occurs, folks still seem to have a difficult time accepting it. I have seen first-hand the kindest of individuals defend the most heinous of crimes, just because they enjoyed the work that the perpetrator created. They didn't want to give up their love for the work, but they also didn't want to seem like they supported the artist's behavior, so the easiest thing to do was to act like the behavior either didn't happen or wasn't that big of a deal. The sooner we accept that bad people can create good art, and the sooner we stop pretending that loving someone's work means condoning everything that they do, the easier it will be to grapple with these types of scenarios.

     Of course, there is the issue that engaging with art in certain ways— namely financial ways— directly benefits the creator, which puts a bit of a damper on the concept of separating the art from the artist. I'll dive into that more in the next section, though. For now, I just want to acknowledge that I still love Harry Potter, despite my outrage and disgust towards J.K. Rowling.

     My Harry Potter experience has been soured. I won't deny that. But I'm also finding it impossible to extinguish all the positive feelings, associations, and memories of it that light up the very core of my soul. Even if I could, truth be told, there is a sense of power in channeling my passion for Harry Potter against its own author's hatred. It is deliciously ironic to me that J.K. Rowling forged her own enemies, in a way, since the Wizarding World helped inspire so many of us in the queer community to be open and proud about who we are. She may have created that world, but not even she can take it away from us.

► To Boycott or Not to Boycott

     In a capitalistic society, we are all hypocrites to a certain extent. For example, if you were to poll a random group of people and ask them whether or not they supported slavery, most would say no, but those same people probably buy products that were made in overseas sweatshops. Much of this is due to ignorance of course, but even for those who know, sadly there are too many mainstream companies with unethical business practices for us to boycott all of them; especially considering that the more ethical options are often more expensive.

     Being an ethical consumer also gets tricky when multiple individuals are involved with whatever you're buying. In the case of Harry Potter, the books are one thing, but boycotting other aspects of the franchise affects more than just J.K. Rowling. Is it worth punishing all the actors, all the video game developers, all the theme park workers, and everyone else whose livelihood relies on Harry Potter in some way, just for the sake of punishing J.K. Rowling? I'm not entirely certain that there's a right or wrong answer to that question.

     All of that being said, I have made the decision to boycott anything that gives J.K. Rowling more money.

     As established in the previous section, I still love Harry Potter, so I will still buy fan-made or second-hand merchandise. I pirated the last Fantastic Beasts movie, and plan to pirate the HBO show when that comes out as well. I have continued wearing my Harry Potter apparel that I acquired prior to learning of J.K. Rowling's transphobia. However, I am avoiding anything that will make the numbers in her bank account go up, because I know that those numbers are contributing towards causes that actively hurt trans people. 

     This is incredibly difficult and sad for me, since it doesn't just mean resisting a lot of cool merchandise— it also means things like not seeing The Cursed Child live, and not going back to those areas of Universal Studios. Basically, I'm missing out on participating in the fandom experience, which was almost as fun and meaningful as reading or watching the story itself. I'm not going to lie and say that this decision hasn't been heartbreaking and gut-wrenching for me, but I just can't bring myself to subsidize my own genocide (more than I unknowingly already did).

     I realize that there are many, on both sides of the "to boycott or not to boycott" debate, who disapprove of my approach. In particular, on the "to boycott" side, I sometimes encounter the sentiment that wearing Harry Potter-branded clothing makes one look like a transphobe, and that it's still a bad thing to do even if J.K. Rowling doesn't profit from it, because doing so gives her free advertising. I believe the points I made in the previous section about loving someone's work not equaling condoning everything they do adequately explain why I disagree with the first part, especially when you combine it with this section's observations about the struggles of being an ethical consumer. Not only does that argument have pretty high slippery slope potential, but for those who are hesitant to let go of Harry Potter, assuring them that it's okay to hold on to what they already have seems like a good compromise to encourage them to boycott anything new. As for the free advertising aspect, I might agree with this one if we were talking about an indie series, but Harry Potter is one of the most famous, most successful franchises of all time. The idea of someone finding out about Harry Potter for the first time by seeing a stranger walking down the street with a Gryffindor crest on their t-shirt is silly. That ship has already sailed.

     On the other side of the debate, the majority of the counterarguments I've heard pertain to the question I posed earlier about punishing everyone involved for the sake of punishing J.K. Rowling. Due to the nuanced nature of that question, I can respect those who take the opposite stance, but I will not support that stance myself. I understand that I come with bias here since this is an issue that affects me on an extremely personal level. I understand that for those who are not personally affected, indirectly contributing towards transphobia probably seems just as abstract and unavoidable as contributing towards sweatshops. I understand that I might be a hypocrite for speaking out against the former and not the latter. With all of that in mind, I do my best not to judge those who have made different decisions, but I would like my loved ones to know that I feel incredibly hurt by those decisions.

     On a related note: Please don't buy me any Harry Potter-related gifts if getting the gift means further lining J.K. Rowling's pockets. Ideally, I'd like to raise awareness and beg as many folks as possible to stop helping her earn any more money, but for those in my life who refuse, at bare minimum I must ask you not to involve me in it. I don't mean to sound ungrateful, and I'll gladly accept anything fan-made or second-hand, but otherwise it's kind of a slap in the face. Hopefully, if you've read this far, you can see where I'm coming from.

► My Conspiracy Theory

     In the "Emotions" section of this essay, I mentioned how J.K. Rowling being transphobic seemed wildly out of character for her at the time. Though I chalked this up to not knowing her personally and basically being fooled by her public persona, I'm still having difficulty wrapping my head around it. The fact that it's become such an obsession for her makes it all the more baffling. However, I have a theory that may explain everything.

     I call this theory of mine a conspiracy theory because I'm not one hundred percent certain that I believe it myself. I admit that it might just be wishful thinking on my part, because if this theory does turn out to be correct, it would be one of the few scenarios that could make it possible for me to forgive J.K. Rowling. Pathetic as it may be, I would love to have my childhood hero back. Disclaimers aside though, the idea is still worthy of discussion due to how much sense it makes.

     My conspiracy theory is that J.K. Rowling is a closeted trans man, or possibly a closeted nonbinary person.

     Those thoughts are not unique to me, either. This article from Pink News does an excellent job outlining how J.K. Rowling essentially described experiencing gender dysphoria in her youth, but since transitioning did not feel like an option back then, she compartmentalized it as a mental health issue that she had to get over. She appears to confuse dysphoria with a desire to escape sexism, and operates under the assumption that all little girls go through it at some point in their lives. The most blatant piece of evidence is a quote from her where she straight-up says that she might have tried to transition had she been born thirty years later.

     There are additional signs that the Pink News article doesn't cover, but I don't want to delve too deep into speculation, so I won't go over the entire list. (Using a male-sounding pen name for the Cormoran Strike series is one of the more obvious examples.) The longer and more intensely J.K. Rowling doubles down on her anti-trans brigade, the less likely her coming out probably is, so I'm not expecting a satisfying resolution here, even if the theory is true.

     But what if? What if she did overcome the sunk cost fallacy, swallow her pride, and come out as a transgender man or nonbinary person? As I stated earlier, this would be one of the few scenarios that could make it possible for me to forgive her. However, it would not be an automatic forgiveness. It would require major work on her part to undo all the damage that she's caused to the rest of us. As long as she put in that work though, there's a very good chance that I would be willing to support her again. What can I say? I'm a sucker for a good redemption arc.

► Conclusion

     To summarize: I believe art can be separated from the artist, and I will probably always love Harry Potter no matter what J.K. Rowling does. Despite that, I have made the difficult decision to boycott any Harry Potter merchandise, experiences, etc. that are not fan-made or second-hand. As long as J.K. Rowling is donating her Harry Potter profits to causes that actively harm the transgender community, I see this boycott as a necessary sacrifice, especially since I fall under the transgender umbrella myself.

     I don't really expect anyone to read this entire essay, but I felt obligated to make a statement because Harry Potter is a large part of my identity. (There's even a reference to it hidden in my pen name!) I want my opinion on the matter to be very clear so that nobody thinks I'm endorsing J.K. Rowling or her transphobia.

     Thank you for your attention.