JK Rowling’s latest transphobic tweets have once again highlighted her exclusionary behaviour and put her in a spot. This isn’t exactly shocking because Rowling has faced ire for propagating transphobic and trans-exclusionary radical feminist opinions earlier as well. One look at the Harry Potter series can tell you how embarrassingly undiverse it is — afterthought, postscript revelations on Twitter about her characters do not count.
Declaring Dumbledore as queer and endorsing a Black Hermoine are the most prominent examples of Rowling retrospectively trying to add diversity in the otherwise white hetronormative wizarding world she first created.
Queer Baiting
The Harry Potter series has been constantly accused of queerbaiting— a marketing ploy used to lure an LGBTQ+ fan base by teasing the possibility of non-heterosexual characters, without the intention of ever developing it into an actual element of the story.
Here’s a classic instance of queerbaiting. Before Harry Potter and the Cursed Child — the play that tells the story of Harry Potter 19 years later — was even published, there was a tonne of fanfiction ‘shipping’ (when fans wish for two characters to be romantically linked) Draco Malfoy’s son Scorpius with Harry Potter’s younger son Albus. When the play finally came out, the bonhomie between the duo was far more intense than the relationship between Harry and his best friend, Ron, ever was.
Nymphadora Tonks and Remus Lupin, two characters from the series who were thought to be queer by fans, were married out of the blue and made to settle down as as a typical hetronormative family. Tonks, a Metamorphmagus — a witch who can change her appearance at will, was considered to be gender fluid. Lupin’s struggles as a werewolf were seen as deliberately framed to highlight the plight of HIV/AIDS patients. But even these prominently queer characteristics pointed out by Potter fans, weren’t enough for Rowling to properly assert and develop these traits in later books.
It’s not fair for Rowling to keep adding queer elements the Harry Potter fans root for after the books have been published in ways that suit her interest, but fail to actually bring diversity and inclusivity to her writing.
Let’s wait and watch what she does with Dumbledore and Grindelwald in the upcoming Fantastic Beasts films, where she has the opportunity to explore their sexual relationship.
Also read: Daniel Radcliffe, Eddie Redmayne, Beckham bring Hogwarts home with Harry Potter readings
Culturally tone-deaf wizard world
The wizarding world first created by Rowling is of, for and by White people. I don’t think there’s much to argue there.
The few non-White characters she does introduce in the books are underdeveloped lazy additions that highlight her prejudice.
Take for instance the Patil sisters. Remember their agonising outfits at the Yule Ball in the Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire — dull, unflattering lehengas, which seemed like a mockery of Indian culture. A lot of us are still and will always be unforgiving of that travesty.
Then comes Cho Chang. In a world full of fantastical names like Severus Snape, Albus Dumbledore, Dolores Umbridge, Nymphadora Tonks, Luna Lovegood and so on, Rowling settled on mixing two Korean surnames to portray the only visible Asian character. Rowling may as well have introduced another Karen or Susan type character instead of creating a token Asian character she clearly put no thought into.
Many defend Rowling by begging critics to judge the series according to the time period it was written in — the first book was released in 1997.
But the late 90s weren’t exactly the Victorian era. Besides, the last Harry Potter book was published as recently as 2007. Proving that time was never really the issue, Rowling was also accused of racism in her 2016 Pottermore essays about the History of Magic in North America. She was slammed for the way she wrote about ‘Native American wizards’, and was attacked for “using an ancient culture as a convenient prop”. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, her ongoing series, also lacks diversity. Casting a South Korean woman as Nagini — Voldemort’s pet snake, and her subsequent defense of the choice, served as another example of her blatant ignorance of the issue of cultural appropriation.
For a book that highlights class struggles, centres on the battle against a Fascist megalomaniac and constantly takes on prejudice and discrimination in the wizarding world , the lack-of-diversity and cultural appropriation problems are disheartening.
J.K. Rowling’s transphobic tweets don’t make me question my love for Harry Potter one bit, like Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe fears. Potterverse has been shaped as much by fan fiction as it has been by the books. So, in this case, I have no qualms separating the art from the artist. Rowling may have given us the boy who lived, but we were the ones who made him immortal.
Views are personal.
Also read: J.K. Rowling releases first two chapters of her new book ‘The Ickabog’ online for free
This mediocre opinion piece exemplifies all that is wrong with cancel culture. I am an introvert and naturally enjoy nuance and complexity. I am now thinking of JK Rowling is some sort of genius mastermind who purposely became involved in controversy to open the eyes of people like me about how problematic things have become in public discourse. And, you know? I love her all the more for it. Social media and the extreme reactionary socio-political propaganda it breeds and festers (on both sides of the political spectrum, btw) is absolutely corroding to democracy. Don’t believe me? Please do your research. It is all backed up by science.
What utter shite. Never seen so much desperation in finding fault in someone. You gender evangelists judge transphobia based entirely upon whether someone agrees with gender ideology or not. A belief not all trans people themselves hold. The sooner you gender kids grow up, the better.
Sorry, what? JKR is a TERF, yes, and prone to seeking inclusion points she didn’t work for, especially in the case of Dumbledore in the Fantastic Beasts series.
But the idea that someone writing a globally popular story for children in the 90s should’ve included queer characters is ridiculous. Ridiculous. Do you remember the 90s or even the early 2000s? My friends and classmates thought being gay was a disease. They were wrong, utterly and completely, but no way would they have read a book with a prominent character that was queer.
The entire Harry Potter franchise would’ve ended up some niche story relegated to some queer intellectual corner of England where parents did not mind exposing their children to “the gays”, and it would not have become popular enough for people to pull apart it’s characters and the motivations of its writer nearly two decades later.
Not denying that JKR is very wrong about trans issues, but it does not have any bearing on her writing, again, a children’s book in the 90s.
You’re making it sound like it was normal for kids to think being gay was a disease around the millennium. Wtf?!
I grew up in a working class town and it wasn’t seen as a disease, it was pretty normalised as lots of celebrities and even tv characters were known to be gay. I mean shows like will and grace were on e4 all the time.
Sounds like you were a very homophobic kid even for your time
I think the issue isn’t that there was no gay characters in the story, it’s that JKR is trying to persuade us that the characters were lgbt despite there not being any evidence in the books
You are an !diot. Being pro-female DOES NOT equal being anti-trans. If you think it does, then you are a misogynist.
You conveniently chose to forget Lee Jordan. Or maybe because you clearly sound like a person who hasn’t read a single HP book but has just seen the movies . Maybe next time you think of writing something, do some more homework, and maybe, for a change, read and educate yourself more.
God remember when she was THE feminist icon?
This is ridiculous what she said was her opinion nothing more. Great art is great art regardless. I don’t agree with Tom hanks about his political opinions, but he’s still a great actor. Same as JK and will always be regardless of people all of sudden having too much time on their hands and being upset with the whole covid situation steaming in their homes with nothing better to do. And as child reading I’m glad I could just enjoy a book without political agenda to include all lesbians and trans people out their like almost all the Netflix shows. I never been prejudice towards any group of people and as kid it was nice just to have an innocent life where no other views even my parents were shoved down my throat in school, books, or tv. I feel sorry that adult opinions are being shoved into art and down kids entertainment. And never once as a kid did I think their was hints towards any of this crap in her books. Thank God for the innocence and great art of this book which got me through lonely and tough times at school.
You really lost me at Tonks and Remus being queer. Never did it cross my mind either were queer. Werewolf and HIV/AIDS comparision? Furthermore as an adult reading the series characters sexuality never crossed my mind. I was more involved in the storyline and where it was going.
Were you concerned because Bilbo and Frodo weren’t queer? Or Strider wasn’t black in the LTR?
Unless it’s a love story character sexuality means nothing to me. Their race means even less. Good or bad isn’t defined by race, color or ethnicity.
The werewolf/HIV parallel comes directly from Jo’s own Quick Quotes Quill – because she apparently didn’t think of how it would look to have a species which, with a few notable exceptions, goes around infecting others as a stand in for people with HIV.
‘“Lupin’s condition of lycanthropy was a metaphor for those illnesses that carry a stigma, like HIV and AIDS,” Rowling reveals in the book.’
https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2016/09/08/jk-rowling-reveals-remus-lupins-werewolf-condition-metaphor-for-hiv/
What a shit article.
If gay people, transpeople, nonbinary & people of color want more representation, they’re free to write their own books. Or fanfiction – what they already do. That’s it, everyone is happy. As a heterosexual I don’t feel offended a single bit by LGBTQ authors writing LGBTQ characters, as well as I wasn’t offended by Jordan Peele movie with only African-American actors starring. He’s black, he’s filming a movie, it’s his choice to take only blacks. Why doesn’t it work vice versa?
what a load of keek I got half way and gave up, getter a better day job ya loon
This article is something like, “looks jk rowling made a mistake, lemme dig out more mistakes from her” that’s not mistake, that’s just different opinion and sadly enough the opinion does not satisfy your sides and you guys attacking her? Shame.
Another article from the category “her opinions are trash, my opinions are good just because mine are according to the times”. To make it clear, JK Rowling was not transphobic in her comments, she just had an argumented opinion.
This article sucks big time.
Please leave HP novels out of these kinds of debates..if not anything these novels were a constant source of imaginative fodder and optimism during my childhood years…I do not think by reading these novels anyone could possibly develop any negative traits… there’s so much diversity…so much to explore in them…