One look at Rowling’s Harry Potter franchise can tell you how embarrassingly undiverse it is — afterthought postscript revelations about characters do not count.
Disenfranchisement by institutional fiat is profoundly undemocratic. The effect of the ECI's new documentary process in Bihar will tilt the scales in favour of the BJP.
Mini deal will likely see no cut in 10% baseline tariff on Indian exports announced by Trump on 2 April, it is learnt, but additional 26% tariffs are set to be reduced.
India-Russia JV is also racing to deliver 7,000 more AK-203 assault rifles by 15 Aug. These are currently being made with 50% indigenisation and this will surge to 100% by 31 December.
Public, loud, upfront, filled with impropriety and high praise sometimes laced with insults. This is what we call Trumplomacy. But the larger objective is the same: American supremacy.
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.
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/
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?
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.
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…
Now theprint had turned into daily prophet and you have became Reeta skeeter in fact half the world is now condemning JK Rowling based on these stupid articles. I am not saying she is absolutely correct but you people are taking it too far by dissecting every part of a book I love.
whd_die
I mean Cho and Chang aren’t Koream surnames. The most common surname in Korean are Kim Lee and Park. I meanshe could have chosen names like Hermione!!
So much blablabla. Get over. Harry Potter is not real life is a book it does not have to be your way hating just because one or two chareters weren’t gay and got married the most bullshitting thing I’ve heard in this decade.
Of course your opinion is valid, but I feel like this article isn’t really necessary or helpful to anyone, and seems heavily biased against the art of JK because of her recent tweets. Some of your points seem like stretches, and you reiterate things like the racial diversity in Scotland in the 90s, thinking it’s offensive to portray it the way it actually was.
Your weakest point is and remains my biggest pet peeve: cultural appropriation. Since when is it a bad thing to share our cultures with each other? You complain about the lack of racial diversity, but when they cast an Asian woman, you complain about CA? There’s no pleasing some people.
Chin up author. Your article was good and your opinion matters. While I will always be glad that JKR gave us Harry Potter, it was the fandom that breathed beauty, depth and inclusivity into the HP world. After 6 years in this fandom I can confidently say that most of the HP fandom do not stand behind JKR and her bigot opinions.
Surely there are more important things in this country to focus on .the Harry Potter people are just stirring things up.Why don’t people get on with their lives and help rather than stir up trouble.
Are you serious? You’re really even bringing this up? No I’m pretty sure you’re not and this is just for clicks and so you get money around the recent tweet.
But just in case you seriously believe what you wrote let’s look deeper than the looks of a “modern” person who believes each of the 5200 or however genders should be included in a book. First: Cultural diversity. Why aren’t there more non-white people? Because, now this might seem crazy, Hogwarts. Is. In. Scotland. Now why would people from Asia want to go to Scotland for education especially when there are already schools in Asia? The answer is they wouldn’t or only a couple would, just like we see in the books. Besides that Cho Chang is not the only “diverse” character. There’s Sue Li, the Patil twins and that’s only if we leave out the two whole schools that came for the tournament. Now this means one of three things you don’t consider them “diverse”, you haven’t done your research or you’re lying on purpose and I’m not sure which is better.
Now let’s take a look at the lack of trans and gay characters. First let’s look not only at when the book was written but when the events of the book actually happened, because when it was written doesn’t matter. We start around 1991 (first year) and end 1998. Now I couldn’t find any actual data but it’s safe to assume the amount of gay and trans people was way lower than it is today simply because it wasn’t as accepted. So let’s look at the wizarding world, it’s really small compared to the Muggle world. And outside of being really we see an even smaller part and since Rowling doesn’t take the time to establish the sexuality of every side character (which she shouldn’t) That means that the chance of us actually seeing a gay character are quite low. But do you know what makes them even lower? The fact that the wizarding world is behind the Muggle world since a lot of the wizards consider them beneath their notice. So make the story actually take another 50-100 years earlier and do you see how your argument doesn’t work now?
Now I’m not even going to touch on the mess that was your part about Lupin’s werewolf part being like AIDS. But I have one last question for every triggered person and whoever wrote this article:
Why does every book have to have gay and trans characters? You push for this a lot but is there any actual reason besides stroking your own egos about how you’re “helping the trans people” or something like that? So what if the book doesn’t have all 15 thousand genders? Does that make the story any less good? Why aren’t we going after Shakespeare because Romeo and Juliet are not two gay people of non-disclosed gender?
I’m no hp expert, but isn’t Hogwarts the only wizarding school in Britain? Not that Scotland is as peelywally as you may believe, there are people of all colours, already when I lived there around the time the series was starting. Pointing at background characters, most of who get added as an afterthought later, is not really the same as having diversity in the main cast, the people who actually have characters. It’s like claiming James Bond has true diversity because he gets various brown people to make his martinis. But that franchise is its own can of worms.
Then, I am pretty sure it was jk Rowling herself who claimed lycanthropy is like the wizarding world AIDS.
Why should there be gay people in Hogwarts, you ask? Why not? Why make Dumbledore posthumously gay, if not to make up for this mistake. With such a large cast, unless wizards have some sort of hetero-sorting hat, if this was real, some people would have been gay just by laws or probability. Trans is somewhat rarer, but would the story be any worse, if just one person in the cast of thousands had been a transperson? Wouldn’t it be easier for wizards anyhow, surely there is a polymorph potion for sex change. And, no one curious enough to use one? Pfft, shows a lack of imagination is nothing else.
And because JK Rowling is transphobic suddenly people criticizes her books on Harry Potter. Wow! Just wow!
So Ernest Hemingway, Mark Twain and other straight or heterosexua authors’ works are also no good because, yes, it doesn’t contain diversity or it doesn’t have trans characters in it?
Shame on you critics!
Talking about sex based rights to prevent sex based discrimination (yes, it’s real, female genital mutilation, female foeticide, untouchability against menstruating women are just *few* examples) doesn’t make you a transphobe. Her books have many poc who are freaking awesome (Kingsley and Lee Jordan are my personal favs). She actually bothered to even mention poc and reflect on diversity which many authors don’t bother with.
Gosh you people are truly terrible. Ffs a person’s sexuality doesn’t define them! I thought it was amazing Dumbledore was gay AFTER. It meant gay people can achieve great things without ever having their sexuality define them. They have a life outside sexuality.
Secondly, A born woman doesn’t need to pander to feelings of other people to talk about what affects her. Stating a biological fact- women menstruate- is Not transphobia! Saying that same sex attraction is real, is not transphobia! What is wrong with you people. Womanhood is not a freaking feeling or abstraction. It’s a BIOLOGICAL REALITY. The Gender debate is about equality between the SEXES. Get rid of gender socialization and you won’t even have men who feel like they’re “women”. Womanhood is not a feeling. FEELINGS don’t result in female foeticide, menstruation shaming, or lack of abortion rights. REAL MISOGYNY DOES. MALE PRIVILEGE does that puts female bodied people on a lower status. Talking about this is NOT TRANSPHOBIA. trans people are an important part of fight against GENDER NORMS. They open our eyes to how men can be empathetic soft spoken or wear dresses and makeup. And how women can be resilient, strong and wear trousers. How these traits are not “feminine” or “masculine” but “human”. But trying to pretend that sex based differences don’t exist is STUPID. Women need sex based rights! Like maternity leaves or menstrual rights or right to life, or freedom against female genital mutilation.
The amount of arrogance, ignorance and entitlement in this article is shocking.
Btw, the Patil sisters wore robes in the books. Why are you blaming JKR for the costume designers shoddy idea of Indian clothes? Oh and LEE JORDAN was an AWESOME character and HE WAS POC. PATIL SISTERS, KINGSLEY SHACKLEBOLT, ANGELINA JOHNSON were all amazing, strong, capable characters in the books! And her depiction of house-elves shows how deeply brainwashed exploited populations can be, who believe their marginalisation is only right. The untouchables in India were the same, never raising a voice against their persecution for fear of reprisal and brainwashing into Karma Theory. And Goblins were an amazing race but their values were different from wizarding folk, so much so, that wizarding folk believed them to be greedy or recalcitrant leading to prejudice, when Goblins were simply living by their own morality. There is so much nuance in her books but I suppose you would need to read it first.
I find all this JKR hate to be laughable. You want drunk tweet equality for some odd reason. There is a simple solution to your plight. You want more gays, gender fluidity, or racial diversity in your Potter stories? Fan fiction has what you crave. Why not? It was good enough for JKR to stamp her name on some fan fiction & label it a Cursed child.
You are confusing the books and the film’s. The books make no mention of the race of the majority of the characters and as JKR pointed out the description of Hermione is nearer to a black girl than a white girl. JKR is hardly the first to (possibly) bow to pressure from Hollywood over the colour of the cast.
Although some kids are aware they are gay around puberty, very few discuss it. Certainly very few teachers are openly gay even now. The books were aimed at the kids and later the YA market. Can you imagine the storm if she had included gay couples in the first couple of books?
As for all the puff about JKR’s position on trans gender issues, I’ve seen nothing to indicate trans PHOBIA. Her views on bathroom rights are well argued even if I don’t necessarily agree with them but they do not advocate marginalisation. Merely that trans gender people don’t fit into easy categories. Doesn’t mean they don’t deserve rights and support and protection from descrimination.
I have no problem with the Harry Potter series as a whole. But it is sad to see someone try so hard to make an agenda out of what I am assuming was her passion project/magnum opus. Just don’t come out to be political and leave it as is, or do what she just did and make yourself look like a terribly out of touch and ego bound person.
I try to seperate the art from the artist, but sometimes the artist just turns out to be so batcrap that it does affect my viewing/listening experience.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE NEVER WRITE AGAIN!!! You are a hypocrite!! Why are you allowed to express your opinion in an article and criticise her life’s work in a few paragraphes, while she isn’t allowed to have her own opinion!!
She didn’t even offend or belittle anyone, she only expressed her own opinion in the name of the same freedom that gives everyone the right to choose whichever life they want!
She exposed a very vulnerable and raw part of her, why are you people so cruel!
Didn’t you even think how hard it must’ve been to make such a personal and painful experience public to the world?! Did that thought never cross your mind?
And now you’re ruining one of the most unique experiences that came into this world for many people around the world!
Just because Harry potter has been so successful people think the have the right to pick holes in J K Rowling and the story, and it’s just a story, an epic and successful one at that, and I always will love the story . The films left out so much and certain things were changed from the books.
Nothing but a shitty hate piece, this article. Not every piece of art has to be a social commentary and Rowling just wanted to bring a little magic to the world – she had no idea she’d become so successful and was barely afloat when she penned this story.
Her lack of need/desire to promote other races in Harry Potter isn’t the issue here, it’s people like you unnecessarily highlighting it, making it a real thing when it wasn’t before, that keeps fuelling the hate and the disharmony in the world. Are you personally affected here? I highly friggin doubt it.
Wake up and just see it for what it is, a kid’s fantasy story about the underdog who never gave up.
How bout this… write your own goddamn book, with as many gay characters as you want, quit picking apart other people’s work because there wasn’t one of every kind of person in it. This shit is getting fucking old everything does not have to cater to everybody, don’t go to a steakhouse and demand more vegan options. Its her world she can do whatever she wants in it, if you don’t like it DON’T READ IT!!!!!
Why do articles like this get published? Does the author even read all books? Harry Potter books are quite the opposite, and one of the best literature for a child. They teach positive things. Don’t try to taint something so beautiful in the name of radical journalism.
You forgot Lee Jordan. Someone clearly did their research.
She’s got such an issue with a kids book, why doesn’t she read something else? Or better still, write her own.
NewYork times complex??? It’s a story jk Rowling is in no way obligated to make HER story more “diverse” It’s a fictional story meant to be enjoyed as is all art
The stupidest article I’ve read in a long time. Shouldn’t Misra have read the actual books? She is setting greater store by the fan fiction and the movies than the books. Why do we need to add a bunch of characters just for the sake of diversity? What does race gender or sexual orientation have anything to do with the Harry Potter stories? Would it have been a very different tale if Ron and Harry hooked up, or Hermione was black and transgender? What a load of crap.
Oops, bet you didn’t expect your little hate article is going to gather so much negative comments.
Bet the only thing you wanted is to feel accepted and loved, but didn’t exactly know how to get there.
That reminds me of a character from fantastic books I’ve read as a kid and which still remain a huge part of my life, as a 32 year old Mom.
The books are cleverly plotted, with great characters and details about that fantasy world, so realistic that you find yourself as a kid getting excited about a cat that doesn’t move from your father’s car whole day, because she could be watching if you’re an adequate fit for a certain school; but most importantly, books are about standing for minorities, choosing “the right, and not the easy” path, about loss and how to deal with it, about courage, and about growing up, about friendship and LOVE.
True love, not likes.
Maybe you’ve heard of them.
Harry Potter, no?
Oh well.
Children’s books are better for leaving out divisive arguments anyway. Though why our society now wants us to cater to the whims of people who base everything they are on feelings with no basis in biological reality is a question that should really be answered. Ten years ago these ‘trans’ people would have been labeled crazy, and rightfully so. I mean, come on. Half of them can’t even make up their minds at all, hence Facebook’s 52 genders.
Let’s trash J K Rowling’s books! Oh my God I will be ACCEPTED if I trash them! It will feel so good to finally have someone to agree with me!
I will pretend to stand for rights that I superficially know about and don’t honestly care about and I will go so far as to say that it doesn’t count anything that might be interpreted as inclusive just to trash them some more. Of course, I did not in fact read the books, but I’ve spent whole night researching what potentially could be wrong with them for my hate article, so don’t tell me that doesn’t count. I think that’s what people want to hear right now. I care about trends and what people think of me, not about the people actually, but I don’t think anybody will notice that, not now. I can always accuse them of being a racist if they don’t agree with me. Yeah, I think I nailed it this time. They are going to like me, for sure.
Haha nicely put. People just like to use big “ism” and “ist” words from the safety of their computers just so they can be seen, even when they are so far personally removed from it. It’s pretty sick when you think about it, all it does is further fuel issues and I can’t possibly imagine what the author actually hopes to achieve or gain, outside of some internet back-pats.
Ask any author, half of the bullshit analysis people do on their stories, the supposed messages and symbolism, the author never even considered. Anti race? Bullshit, Rowling just wrote a kid’s fantasy story ffs.
Please, if you are going to make people to hate this master piece of the whole universe of Harry Potter, is better that you stop writing things that don’t make any sense, because you’re mixing what you want with other things that don’t have any connection. Seriously bro, because one book doesn’t have what you would like to it has, that doesn’t mean that book is wrong, because if that were correct, there are a lot of books that are wrong because I don’t like them. I think is great your opinion, but is only yours, and you’re trying to use it to change the believe of other people :/
What will you target next? Lotr? Why are their no black elves? Good thing Tolkien is dead. Or he would’ve had to deal with such pretentious liberal bullshit.
I’m not sure I would let my kids read the harry potter books if all the characters had to be in relationships, these are kids books, why are we back to opening adult content to kids, they are the heros they go on adventures and fight bad guys. Cant it just be left alone.
No way I would have read these to my daughter if sex were in them. Frankly, any parent that does expose their child to sex at too young an age should be investigated for grooming them for sex trafficking.
And the books occasionally mentioned a person’s skin tone but very seldom. I just assumed, as did my mixed kid, that the people in the book were people with varying amounts of melanin.
If you want to say JK is transphobic, then blame HER… Don’t point out stuff from Harry Potter books! As other people have commented, Harry Potter was set in the 1990s. So, you must know that JK has written her books according to what it was like at that time. So, if you want to write against Rowling, then first learn the truth!! Don’t start randomly expressing your opinion on the Internet!!
This is tagged as an opinion piece by the author. So, why is it okay for you to speak or have your own opinion but you are attacking JK for having her own opinion and ideals? You a the classic definition of a hypocrite. We don’t care about your opinion and we don’t need to live in your vision of the Harry Potter universe.
“And Rachel Dolezal is really black, and parrot man is really a parrot and elf girl is really an elf and this 54 year old dude is really a 6 year old girl.
Self-identification – no matter how sincere, no matter how supported by psychologists – is not the sole criteria on ANYTHING.” Trans women are not women just because they feel like it.
I’m tired of hearing or reading about people who get triggered by HP and JK Rowling. The Potterverse is not meant to imitate real life. It’s FICTION.
I’d like to what University graduated this fool of a writer. Nothing JK Rowling said was wrong, and it definitely was not transphobic.
JK rowling objected to the phrase “People who menstruate…”. She is right. This phrase is as wrong as saying ‘All lives matter’ instead of ‘Black lives matter’ just for the sake of being more inclusive, ignoring the specific discrimination based on race. “People who menstruate” belittles the very, very specific lived experience of discrimination based on menstruation and the fight against it for millions of WOMEN. One well documented instances of menstruation based discrimination specific to women and girls is that every year millions of women lose access to education when they start menstruation.
This line of thinking has other repercussions too – if trans women (who have male biological markers, and therefore the resulting muscle mass, and other male characteristics) are deemed biologically to be women, then essentially they, who are biologically men, can compete in women’s sports. You might as well then just have no separate sports for women, and just include all biological men in womens sports. This is why sportswomen like Martina Navratilova are objecting to this line of thinking.
Further, they also use the ‘Trans women are women’ slogan to ask to be included in women bathrooms and changing rooms. This is dangerous. Trans women are biological males with all the inherent physiological markers including, having a pen!s, their physical strength etc. This is already a problem many schools in America are fighting. Imagine, a biological male using bathrooms used by young girls.
Even further, JK Rowling did not object to any one selecting their gender roles or sexual orientation – she and many of us like her are very supportive of LGBT. But the objection is to refuting biology – your DNA is your DNA – you are predominant male or predominant female. Frankly, why the extreme left and Trans women suddenly feel the need to go with “Trans women are women” slogan but not “Trans men are men” slogan itself is telling. Because they know that trans men are biologically female and can’t physically dominate men, while trans women with their male hormones can easily dominate women. Also telling is that unlike many Eastern nations, they don’t want to identify as a third gender either!
Even worse, in the west, theres been an increased push to get minor children to have elective s3x xhange surgery – something that is severely detrimental to health and potentially irreversible. Example, to provide a fake vag!na, essentially their pen!s is reversed and a hole surgically created. Now because physiologically, this is a wound to the human body, it keeps trying to close it and can exhibit symptoms of putrification that a open wound would be expected to – so you have to spend the rest of your life dilating it open and ensuring it doesn’t smell or catch disease/infection. The hormones that they are provided can cause organs to age and increase co-morbidity. This is what they encourage children to undergo.
To the bright bulb who wrote this article, I dare you to research into these issues and write about it. Otherwise I am afraid you are just anti-women and anti-children, and dare I say anti-humanbeing.
“People who menstruate” is the right term to describe people who menstruate. Not “women”. There are thousands of women all over the world who do not menstruate because of a variety of reasons including age, health issues, medication etc. So according to your definition, they are not women because they don’t menstruate.
There are also transmen who menstruate. I think that’s all the line “people who menstruate” meant. But everyone, starting with JK Rowling, ran away with it and turned it into a whole rant about transwomen trampling all over women’s rights.
Every novel ever written must contain non white person in a prominent role, also there has to be relationships that are non hetrosexual. Fewer white people better it is. Also there must always be non binary characters… These are the parameters for any novels. Anything other than this will be called as transphobic because that’s what matters. Story doesn’t matter, characters doesn’t matter, what matters is that protagonist is a black/asian/brown guy who likes to identify himself as an Apache helicopter and likes to do T90 tanks.
I totally agree with this opinion, harry potter’s world is based on the books jk rowling released, but the fans added the diversity it needed, because the world we live in is diverse. It even opened my eyes about gender-fluid tonks and ill remus, ive never thought of it, and im super thankful i’ve read this.
And if you want to sell an all-inclusive image (remember the criteria for fitting in hufflepuff?) it shouldn’t bother you that the fans actually include diversity in the universe.
Ok, I would like you, for once, to start Reading every single thing she has written. Her “transphobic” tweets are no more than opinions which she has now deeply explained and, sorry to inform you, her explainations make sense. She is not transphobic, she just thinks there is no one side the truth and one side the wrong there are both of them in both sides. What’s the matter in thinking beyond received ideas ?
I recently read the series for the 1st time in many years and did see some problems concerning the ethnic groups and characters described but then again think of British society and the ethnic diversity there. And yet again their attitude towards this and the history where it may stem from. Think of BREXIT and maybe try to tolerate intolerance.
Also maybe cut the over analysis. It’s just a story. It’s a piece of art and it is sure to involve the author’s personal thoughts and values and this is her right. And also I am not sure how you can “tease” someone into believing a character is gay and then “unfairly” disappoint them when it turns out they aren’t. Some people (and characters) are also bisexual and still end up living in a heterosexual relationship without feeling like they miss out on something or are untrue to themselves. Some of us fall in love and keep loving the person and not their gender. Sexuality is not a black and white, straightforward thing and I truly hate it hate it when everything needs to be specified like this.
However I cannot really sympathise with medically unfounded cosmetic surgery to “fix” your gender if you are transgender. Governments and societies are encouraging people to ruin their one-of-a-kind, fertile and perfectly functioning body because their mental or preferred gender needs to match the biological gender.
Sexuality is a spectre and the more we describe individual sexualities the less we see variety. Sexuality shouldn’t be any problem in post-individualist outside-the-box -over analytical society. We shouldn’t need to discuss it, not in these terms like are these genders real or acceptable and how many fingers you need to count every kind and how do we fix those that are nothing yet. What a bunch of bullpoop people.
The time period and place the Harry Potter universe is set in means that there wasn’t much cultural diversity and no one was out as queer, but I still think she should have tried a little harder to make the non-white characters better and more realistic, because its not hard to come up with a Korean name better than Cho Chang, or to give the Patel sisters Yule Ball outfits that weren’t a direct mockery of their race. Just because they’re South Asian/Indian doesn’t mean they have to wear clothes that reflect that. The diversity is amazing for the time it’s set in but that gives her no excuse to be lazy when writing those characters. Not to mention that Tonks and Remus made no sense together when it was clearly alluded to that they were queer. Even if it couldn’t be explicitly said that they were, it didn’t really make sense to put them together, but that’s just my opinion. Some of you need to grow up, someone’s opinion doesn’t invalidate yours, people have different viewpoints, get over it
Not including a queer storyline doesnt render a book tone deaf. A fictional story can be about so much more than raising lgbtq issues. They are relevant issues but they need not be present everywhere. Harry potter has a lot more beautiful lessons and you are invalidating them just because there are no queer storylines? Learn to separate the art from the artist. If a queer book like will Grayson doesnt have black character does it mean its tone deaf to racism? No one would say that. Every book explores a different agenda and a absence of a particular one doesnt make it any less beautiful and nor does it give anyone the right to devalue it based on that absence. This comment on the harry potter franchise only shows the author’s superficial pro trans ideas. If you cant be accepting of different ideas of a book how are you accepting of different ideas of gender i wonder!
THANK YOU, the one person on this article who has actual reasons for their opinion instead of commenting abuse at the author who wrote it. The time period and place the Harry Potter universe is set in means that there wasn’t much cultural diversity and no one was out, but I still think she should have tried a little harder to make the non-white characters better and more realistic, because its not hard to come up with a Korean name better than Cho Chang, or to give the Patel sisters Yule Ball outfits that weren’t a direct mockery of their race. Just because they’re South Asian/Indian doesn’t mean they have to wear clothes that reflect that. The diversity is amazing for the time it’s set in but that gives her no excuse to be lazy when writing those characters. Not to mention that Tonks and Remus made no sense together when it was clearly alluded to that they were queer. Even if it couldn’t be explicitly said that they were, it didn’t really make sense to put them together, but that’s just my opinion. Anyways, good job on actually being mature compared to the rest of the comments.
Not including a queer storyline doesnt render a book tone deaf. A fictional story can be about so much more than raising lgbtq issues. They are relevant issues but they need not be present everywhere. Harry potter has a lot more beautiful lessons and you are invalidating them just because there are no queer storylines? Learn to separate the art from the artist. If a queer book like will Grayson doesnt have black character does it mean its tone deaf to racism? No one would say that. Every book explores a different agenda and a absence of a particular one doesnt make it any less beautiful and nor does it give anyone the right to devalue it based on that absence. This comment on the harry potter franchise only shows the author’s superficial pro trans ideas. If you cant be accepting of different ideas of a book how are you accepting of different ideas of gender i wonder!
You do realize that these books were written in a time when if there was a gay character featured in a story it couldn’t be advertised as or given an age rating for children to read it. Rowling revealed that Dumbledore is gay after this law was overturned.
SOME Points Are Fair…But The Chunk About Not Making The Characters What The Fans Wanted Is Just Beyond Stupid. The Lorax Did’t Make The Once-Ler Have Sex With Himself (Known As Onecest) And Harry’s And Draco’s Kids Should’t Be Gay For Each Other Just Because Some Fans Shipped It.
This article disappoints me. One thing our culture lacks is respect. People might have different opinions than you and that is OK. If Rowling states what she believes about transgender people, you can disagree, but show some respect. She has the right to express her opinion as well, so people should just accept that. Everyone has different views, lets keep that in mind. We dont all have to agree. Lets all respect eachother and our right to choose, and not be jerks to those who dont have the same opinions.
God Bless,
Keagan
This is just a peice of fiction..why would anyone accept anything logical from a fictional story that is just purely based on a fantasy world. It is ok to talk against her anti-trans comments and all but criticising her just for not getting something racially or logically correct from the stories and a fictional fantasy world that she created is just extremely dumb, people are supposed to focus on the plot and stories and not on what is politically correct lol. I’m not tryna defend Rowling but the way you’re criticising her her fictional creation is just dumb and biased..wtf lmao. Maybe you should think before writing on something, it’s all just a little common sense?.
Are you really this stupid or are you just pretending? How can you call yourself a journalist/writer? Most of the 90s films/books didn’t have queer characters so are they all homophobic and irrelevant? HP books are the best series books ever written and an uneducated fool like you can’t change that. Get a life!
Did… She actually read these books? Some of the coolest characters in it were poc- dean thomas, lee jordan, angelina thompson… Kingsley…. Characters that were way better than the trio a lot lol
Also… Um…. So…. HIV/AIDS is… Gay culture now according to this author? That’s… Definitely not a harmful stereotype. Yikes.
And she’s not the costume director for the movies lmfao why are you mad at her for the costume choices?
Like none of this was about her tweets at all it was this person complaining her favorite fanfics didn’t become cannon lol
I really don’t understand why people are writing such rude comments. As a mother and South Asian, I actually had the same thoughts. There is no diversity. All the lead roles are white. I wish they had atleast casted actors from other races and cultures.
J.k.Rowling is an English white woman, she wrote books from her own viewpoint at a time when there wasn’t all this screaming about diversity. Would you admit that there is no diversity in other non-white cultures? Let’s for eg take the Indian Bollywood movie industry – written by Indian writers, acted by Indian actors, largely for Indian people- NOT much diversity there is there. There are plenty of examples throughout Asian countries of this kind of homogeneous representation…..take the Korean K-Pop industry – yep ALL Korean boys and girls….not much diversity. And the same is repeated throughout so-called non-white nation and cultures around the world…they are NOT forced, bullied nor shamed into artificially representing everyone in their cultural expresions of who they are, but are celebrated. So what I’m seeing is that “diversity” is only forced, bullied and shamed upon the largely white European countries, and upon the West, while everywhere else is allowed to continue in their own cultures. So it is a TEARING AWAY and TEARING DOWN OF CULTURES OF COUNTRIES WHERE THE ANCESTRY IS OF SO-CALLED WHITE ORIGIN – English, French, German, Italian, and so on…they are forced to suppress and kill their cultures to ACCOMODATE THE WORLD pouring in, as are the western countries like USA, Canada, Australia etc but for eg. Asian countries ( for now) are still largely allowed to keep their individual, homogenous cultures purist with no screaming, bullying, shaming voices demanding more Italian, French, Australian, English, Spanish, Scotish, Serbian, Russian, Polish, Swedish representation. Interesting….
I was with you until you mentioned Australia and the USA etc as examples of predominantly white countries. Sorry but no…those countries should be showing more diversity as the indigenous population are actually poc and they are very multicultural. The UK is too but I can appreciate that the natives are atleast white in most European countries.
This really annoys me. This is how our world is becoming that people attack children authors and accuse them of being prejudice because they aren’t an activist. If we aren’t an activist we’re are prejudice.
It never comes into people like SHUBHANGI MISRA mind that Harry Potter was a children’s book in the 90’s nowadays you could put diverse characters in books then they would have been a big no no.
You can work out that there are diverse characters in the book and its left open to your interpretation. I think Tonks and Lupin were probably gay; they never sat right as a couple with me, they got together as a relationship of convenience and wanted children like many gay people.
I grew up loving Harry Potter and very confused over my sexually and identity JK Rowling was an hero to me as I could escape the madness in my head!
I personally don’t like shoving gender issues in kids and teens faces. To me it learning and accepting your identity is maddening enough without extra ‘labels’ they was must adhere to.
I say to all people like SHUBHANGI MISRA you preach acceptance and tolerance yet use as a tool to bully. You don’t understand people outside your ‘world’ who have had different experiences of life to you so therefore you label them as a hater.
I’m sorry but fiction and fantasy worlds exist primarly because of the writers trying to reach the readers, not beacuse fanboys and fangirls must be pleased at all costs. An Author has his own ideas, we should appreciate them even if we don’t share exactly the same ideal background. We should be listening to the things that an Author writes…You all keep showing this judgmental attitude according to which you shall have points of view (no one asked you for) even before having a complete idea of the Writer’s will. Maybe you should listen more, and READ more, instead of showing pictures in which you hold some random book in your hand. Have ever even asked yourself what reading is?
Why should J. K. ‘s literature be written all according to the acceptance of everything in every case, with no space at all for real diversity, which is the freedom of the Author to express also a controversial position? You’ re so dumb and acritical you’re accomplishing the oddity of letting sexual diversity become the new guinea pig of your need to have a mainstraming attachment to the more complex social discussion.
Keep your inability of having dialectic skills to yourself. You are damaging the world and normalizing the false myth of the things divided into good and bad at all costs and the disastrous idea that righteousness is achieved only by the unity of intent. I’d want my rights, as a sharer and bearer of a diversity, respected by the actions but I’d never force anyone yo think exactly what I think. It would authoritarian and utterly fascist.
Democratic respect for diversity is very difficult and not mainstream at all: it means being able to respect diversity even when this diversity attacks mine, in a way. As long as we don’t obliterate each other, we should be able to respect our different thoughts.
Do tou really want to start a crusade against all the writers who offended someone? And also, how old are you? If 1997 isn’t an Era ago, then I don’t know where were you when the world historically and drastically changed faster than it ever did.
Please, try to pass your time with more prolific activities.
Don’t judge something if you’re not well aware of it’s diversity.
Through your article it’s quite evitable that you’re just judging JK’s world on the view of movies and had never read the book series.
Talking of diversity?! Characters like Dean Thomas was brownish in colour and had a major role in battle.
In book 4th, the diversity of outside Hogwarts world was seen.
Now fantastic beast series is showing various different countries.
Dumbledore? That’s her own choice how she wants her characters! Her own story! Her own ideas and opinions!
And what has Cho Chang for tho create discrimination. All other different writers have both fantastical and real-works names introduced.
This article is clearly a bunch of nonsense.
I don’t jestify jo but don’t forget Harry Potter was written in the 90s if it was written today she would have made the characters more diversed people should stop looking for mistakes in everything it gets really annoying
The world jk Rowling has created with Harry Potter is fictional. It has captured the hearts and imagination of children and adults a like world wide. It has engaged millions to read and ignited a world of imagination. It is an escape for many from the doom and gloom many live in reality. The author of this articles views are of no interest to me. Sad that they can’t just read a good book.
This article is a trademark of being superficial journalism where nuanced understanding is required. The article starts by calling JK Rowling a transphobe and her tweets transphobic. What is transphobia, dear author? Transphobia is denying a person their gender, not saying that biological sex is immutable, and changing gender doesn’t’ change sex. So she isn’t transphobic but you are unscientific and demonstrably stupid. Any biologist worth their salt will tell you that humans are dimorphic species.
TERF- This word invented by Trans activists to denote anybody who doesn’t agree with them is wrong. Feminism is for those born females, which means in includes Trans-men. Thus feminism cannot exclude trans. That is another self-goal performed by you.
What a shameless propaganda you have engaged in against a woman who is voicing concerns of women, lesbians, and gay people. Shame on you. You are also uninformed and JKR is right about her concerns. Support for her will grow soon and you will be eating your words meanwhile you can revel in your stupidity.
Wow your journalism is composed of policing and labeling people who actually made a difference like JK Rowling. I dont know how ypu are able to live with yourselves.
It’s all nonsense all she did was point out science. I don’t care what you do but you can’t change science however much you want. So grow up.
I agree with you
Everything must be politically correct mimimi ? stop the hate against fantasie Worlds. And i think the Saris from the Pravati Twins are pretty, why hating the culture? India clothes are extreme beautifull
Guys let’s just report this page. No one cares what a useless person like you thinks about the franchise. You are a pile of shit that’s all. This is the most useless and worst article I’ve ever read. Keep your opinions to yourself. No one wants to hear what you think you immature trash heap. Fkn cheap loser.
I don’t see anything wrong with an undiverse world. It’s a fucking fiction book series, it’s not real. It’s not set in 2020 so stop expecting it to have ideals of 2020 when it clearly wasn’t made or set in 2020. We don’t need a lgbtq+ community in the Potterverse. It’s perfectly fine as it is.
Why it’s only black Hermione, why it can’t be a black Harry or James and Lily for that matter? Malfoy and Harry’s boys are into a relationship is something really fascinating.
You look for so many reasons to blame JK. That is how it looks like for me. Queer baiting?! People would write fanfics over just any big series story like Harry Potter. Also, I don’t know if you’ve noticed but the conflict is based on racism- the one between witches and non-witches. Sure, it’s not the case in real life but I think it makes a metaphorically beautiful strong point of view. And you accuse her for creating her universe as a white world?? I’ve never heard this mentioned before everyone got crazy over POC being mistreated. But you know what, racism has been in this world for forever. And it’s not only against POC. Now I feel like the ones going so strongly over the “Black lives matter” pandemic are creating a sort of racism themselves. People say that if you are neutral and don’t say anything, you’re a racist. How’s that so?! Maybe some of us just don’t want to come out saying stuff for our own personal reasons. Why can’t we choose not to be racists AND not to go screaming over “Black lives matter”?
Maybe some people are like this, that’s how they express. And maybe JK felt like making her wizarding world just the way it is because that was HER idea, HER view of it. I can only thank and respect her for that and I still believe she couldn’t have gotten a better cast for Harry Potter. She made a wonderful job and she created a world to come back to for all of us kids that needed one and you’re now saying what about her?! If you don’t like it, go make yourself a better story, cast whoever you want and sink into that world of yours. But stop just accusing people just for having their ideas freely expressed and made out into beautiful outcomes.
I’m sorry but I don’t exactly feel your “love for Harry Potter”, the one you say you are not questioning.
“The entire Harry Potter series is set from 1991 to 1998”. Does anything else need to be said? How many people were openly gay in 1998? Just because you don’t like the truth doesn’t make it less true. In reality, a school in 1998 would have approximately zero openly gay people. I grew up in Las Vegas and went to school in the late 90s. I didn’t know any people that professed to be anything other than heterosexual. That’s just how things were.
Racial diversity? England was 91% white in 2001, and even more white in 1991. the amount of diversity in characters already defies reality. Are you saying no one should write a book about a predominately white community, because that’s racist? Under that philosophy, then I guess all Japanese anime featuring school students is also racists, because what the heck?? no diversity! Everyone is Japanese! What were they thinking! That countryside school in Japan should have black students! 😛
Racism and related issues are a problem, don’t get me wrong. However, does that mean we need to scourge our childhood books and see which ones contain racism so we can condemn them? I don’t think so. How does that solve anything? I think there are better ways to approach the problem.
How easy it is to look in hindsight at one aspect of a children’s book series that grew so big in the era of Power Rangers, Dawson’s Creek, Friends, and The Real World… Yeah, JK’s forte is not in culture research -not then and not now. So yeah, maybe you should separate the person from the work, which again, is a children’s book series, and not a treatise on race and gender equality.
Talk about the halo effect backfiring.
Harry Potter had a huge impact during millennial childhood days. Stop ruining our memories for your gender queer propaganda. Snow White is white for a reason, she is a folklore from Europe. Chanakya is a Hindutva Legend for a reason, he pushed back the mighty Greeks. Whitewashing history is not going to help you.
Can we stop with the making-authors-write-about-what we-want-them-to-write-about thing? Guess what? If you dont like the way someone writes or what they write about- you are welcome to put the book down and walk away! Why, why do we have to impose our way of thinking on someone else? I’m not saying that it’s necessarily ok to be anti-trans or racist, but now people are just fishing for those details in these books. Which never would have happened without the tweet. By the way, since when does everyone have to have the same opinions or beliefs? Why do we care so much what other people believe?
You don’t NEED diversity. It’s about the story and you can’t randomly throw an African-American in because people want to. That doesn’t add anything. And ehat’ s wrong with Cho Chang? Harry Potter is a white, Briitsh name. And we especially don’t need sinning queer ones. ?
Are you an idiot or will you just make up anything? There were people of colour in her book’s, if you actually read the books you knew Dumbledore was gay and the movie’s have people of all colours in them.
Views are personal? So, you say this but don’t let her have her vision.
Isn’t this type of sites supposed to be neutral and bias-free? This scream so much agenda.
Jesus. It’s a flipping book. I dont think when she wrote the first book she was expecting her work to be under the scrutiny it is now 20 – odd years later. Just because your not completely inclusive does not mean you are prejudice towards the groups you do not to write about.
I’m sure if she wrote the books now there would be more diverse characters, but in the age of 1997 when the phrase gender fluid wasn’t even in the dictionary, we cannot judge.
You are also choosing to decide someone’s entire opinion based off a tweet. You have had an entire article to say your peace.
Hi,
Do you have nothing better to do than to point out that a book written 20 years ago isn’t diverse enough for you. I dont think J.K. should have ever tried to change the narrative to appease the LGBT community to avoid articles like you. Why does any one have to include diversity or LGBT in something if it might not be relevant to what their writing or what they have experienced. You talk of inclusion but point the finger at those that dont fit your list of what you want. Is everyone supposed to change history so it doesnt offend you?I think it’s sad.
Have a great day,
Chantelle
This is clearly a prejudiced person who doesn’t understand the context in which harry potter was written nor the time. The lgbtq+ community has only been extremely vocal in the past decade. The harry potter series was written last century. As for the racial inclusiveness, is it racist to imagine characters in your story the same race as you?? I don’t think so. Because we tend to imagine characters in our race as an involuntary form of identification with the characters. I’m an indian and my stories are about indian people. Am I racist for that?? I hope not. Of course Rowling tries to include nore people in her further works as people who are straught and older than a certain age tend to be unaware of various gender identities. My mom is touching 50 and the only non straight gender she knows is transgender. That is natural. She does her best to include gay people many years after writing the novel. I appreciate her for that. Her comments also aren’t transphobic at all. She claims that women have periods and only women because transgender people don’t experience the same traumatic experiences that women do when they get their first periods at a really young age. Nowhere is she saying that transgender people are lacking in discrimination or is she actually discriminating against them. They are not subjected to periods the same way natural women are and that is scientific, heck psychological fact. In this attempt at being ‘ woke’, the author forgets to extend the same basic human empathy that she accuses Rowling of not extending. When Rowling has.
When you try hard to blame someone for something like this you’re gonna find something to use. You’re clearly biased for whatever reason. Hermione is purposely not analytically described so anyone can relate to her. Dumbledore is gay. Other people in the story probably are too , we just don’t know about it because they’re not known by their sexuality or race , as they shouldn’t be, they’re simply known just like everyone else. This ‘article’ has nothing to do with what she said , and it’s purpose is to throw dirt . Shame on you
an artist can write what she wants to- and she doesn’t have to pander to “diversity” authoritarians like you who wants to control what she writes/thinks. you people are brainwashed socialist nutheads, who’d beeen sending people to gulag for being enemies of the state back in 50s. Get over your”progressive” thought police ideas. Wanna make a “diverse” universe? write it yourself. We live in democracy and we don’t have to bow down to your desires cause they are simply opnions and not the law.
There’s one thing I can’t get: if gender is not biological reality but rather a social construct, then it means one can question their own or somebody else’s gender. Because questioning social constructs is perfectly legitimate, right? So why can’t J.K.Rowling question it? Please explain.
A well written piece, good work! If I may make an addition, Potterverse could have rivalled Tolkien’s Legendarium with a little bit of planning. After the original 7 books, Rowling had ample opportunity to create the history and back story that the series deserved, she didn’t. Instead of handing out random tidbits and superficial extensions, she could have worked on solid stand alone works within that universe, if not another series. Cursed Child ruined the arc, and many fans like me refuse to recognise that as canon.
I was really looking forward to Fantastic Beasts, hoping for a proper narrative on the War waged by Grindelwald. Because let’s face it, Voldemort was a typical villian, just another bad guy with issues set on world domination. Grindelwald could have been much more! So far, the series have been visually amazing but rather poor on the storyline and generally disappointing with all the messed up details.
Really wish that someone with a greater vision and understanding of the real world could take over…
I’m sorry to say this, but i don’t understand why you should judge an author and her books based on the diversity of the characters of her books! Que imagined them the way she did and we love them as they are. I wouldn’t have wanted J. K Rowling to add some black, asian and transgender or homosexual characters just for the sake of it. Just because there are important issues to talk about, this doesn’t mean that literature should become a mean to win certain battles!
Leave J K Rowling alone and focus on your own dark side! Everyone has one!
So what? Joanne Rowling wrote what she could at the time. Who cares whether it lives up to today’s arbitrary moral standards or not. You know whatever you write today will look dumb tomorrow. Hell, it looks pretty dumb today!
Get over it. Find a real job. You’ll be happier for it.
Bullshit!… you guys are ruining pop culture, how many white characters did you see in Black Panther? How many blacks did you see in The Hobbit?… Just because you don’t like JK Rowling doesn’t mean everything about her is bad, go to Pottermore you ignorant folks, you’ll find separate Asian and African wizardry schools with detailed descriptions. Write some actual news, stop bullshitting around
این نامردیه تمام سال هایی هری پاترودوستانش در هاگوارتز گذراندن تمام خاطراتشان همانند خاطرات خودمان در ذهن ما جای گرفته است ماباآنها در هاگوارتز بودیم باجاروهای پرنده پرواز کردیم وحفره اسرار را کشف کردیم با دیوانه ساز ها جنگیدیم وسپر مدافع درست کردیم دردرمسابقه ی سه جادوگر شرکت کردیم وشاهد بازگشت ولدمورت بودیم وارد انجمن الف.دال شدیم ومرگ سیریوس رابه جان خریدیم پشت دستهایمان را باکلمات من نباید دروغ بگویم کبود کردیم وشاهد قتل اسنیپ بودیم جان پیچ هارا ازبین بردیم و باولدمورت دوئل کردیم به گذشته رفتیم و ویرانی خانه ای آشنا را دیدیم وسکوت
کردیم تا آینده آنطور که بایدباشد
این چنین ما با داستانهای هری پاتر زندگی کردیم وهمه این هارا مدیون خالق آن هستیم
The fact that she says the term people who menstruate is wrong doesn’t make transphobic, it is wrong when you speak about gender violence you can’t say that term to say that population is at risk because elderly women who do not menstruate can also suffer from gender violence and trans women who do not menstruate can also suffer violence from a male partner
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…
Now theprint had turned into daily prophet and you have became Reeta skeeter in fact half the world is now condemning JK Rowling based on these stupid articles. I am not saying she is absolutely correct but you people are taking it too far by dissecting every part of a book I love.
I mean Cho and Chang aren’t Koream surnames! I am definitely a Korean
whd_die
I mean Cho and Chang aren’t Koream surnames. The most common surname in Korean are Kim Lee and Park. I meanshe could have chosen names like Hermione!!
So much blablabla. Get over. Harry Potter is not real life is a book it does not have to be your way hating just because one or two chareters weren’t gay and got married the most bullshitting thing I’ve heard in this decade.
Of course your opinion is valid, but I feel like this article isn’t really necessary or helpful to anyone, and seems heavily biased against the art of JK because of her recent tweets. Some of your points seem like stretches, and you reiterate things like the racial diversity in Scotland in the 90s, thinking it’s offensive to portray it the way it actually was.
Your weakest point is and remains my biggest pet peeve: cultural appropriation. Since when is it a bad thing to share our cultures with each other? You complain about the lack of racial diversity, but when they cast an Asian woman, you complain about CA? There’s no pleasing some people.
Chin up author. Your article was good and your opinion matters. While I will always be glad that JKR gave us Harry Potter, it was the fandom that breathed beauty, depth and inclusivity into the HP world. After 6 years in this fandom I can confidently say that most of the HP fandom do not stand behind JKR and her bigot opinions.
Surely there are more important things in this country to focus on .the Harry Potter people are just stirring things up.Why don’t people get on with their lives and help rather than stir up trouble.
Are you serious? You’re really even bringing this up? No I’m pretty sure you’re not and this is just for clicks and so you get money around the recent tweet.
But just in case you seriously believe what you wrote let’s look deeper than the looks of a “modern” person who believes each of the 5200 or however genders should be included in a book. First: Cultural diversity. Why aren’t there more non-white people? Because, now this might seem crazy, Hogwarts. Is. In. Scotland. Now why would people from Asia want to go to Scotland for education especially when there are already schools in Asia? The answer is they wouldn’t or only a couple would, just like we see in the books. Besides that Cho Chang is not the only “diverse” character. There’s Sue Li, the Patil twins and that’s only if we leave out the two whole schools that came for the tournament. Now this means one of three things you don’t consider them “diverse”, you haven’t done your research or you’re lying on purpose and I’m not sure which is better.
Now let’s take a look at the lack of trans and gay characters. First let’s look not only at when the book was written but when the events of the book actually happened, because when it was written doesn’t matter. We start around 1991 (first year) and end 1998. Now I couldn’t find any actual data but it’s safe to assume the amount of gay and trans people was way lower than it is today simply because it wasn’t as accepted. So let’s look at the wizarding world, it’s really small compared to the Muggle world. And outside of being really we see an even smaller part and since Rowling doesn’t take the time to establish the sexuality of every side character (which she shouldn’t) That means that the chance of us actually seeing a gay character are quite low. But do you know what makes them even lower? The fact that the wizarding world is behind the Muggle world since a lot of the wizards consider them beneath their notice. So make the story actually take another 50-100 years earlier and do you see how your argument doesn’t work now?
Now I’m not even going to touch on the mess that was your part about Lupin’s werewolf part being like AIDS. But I have one last question for every triggered person and whoever wrote this article:
Why does every book have to have gay and trans characters? You push for this a lot but is there any actual reason besides stroking your own egos about how you’re “helping the trans people” or something like that? So what if the book doesn’t have all 15 thousand genders? Does that make the story any less good? Why aren’t we going after Shakespeare because Romeo and Juliet are not two gay people of non-disclosed gender?
I’m no hp expert, but isn’t Hogwarts the only wizarding school in Britain? Not that Scotland is as peelywally as you may believe, there are people of all colours, already when I lived there around the time the series was starting. Pointing at background characters, most of who get added as an afterthought later, is not really the same as having diversity in the main cast, the people who actually have characters. It’s like claiming James Bond has true diversity because he gets various brown people to make his martinis. But that franchise is its own can of worms.
Then, I am pretty sure it was jk Rowling herself who claimed lycanthropy is like the wizarding world AIDS.
Why should there be gay people in Hogwarts, you ask? Why not? Why make Dumbledore posthumously gay, if not to make up for this mistake. With such a large cast, unless wizards have some sort of hetero-sorting hat, if this was real, some people would have been gay just by laws or probability. Trans is somewhat rarer, but would the story be any worse, if just one person in the cast of thousands had been a transperson? Wouldn’t it be easier for wizards anyhow, surely there is a polymorph potion for sex change. And, no one curious enough to use one? Pfft, shows a lack of imagination is nothing else.
And because JK Rowling is transphobic suddenly people criticizes her books on Harry Potter. Wow! Just wow!
So Ernest Hemingway, Mark Twain and other straight or heterosexua authors’ works are also no good because, yes, it doesn’t contain diversity or it doesn’t have trans characters in it?
Shame on you critics!
Talking about sex based rights to prevent sex based discrimination (yes, it’s real, female genital mutilation, female foeticide, untouchability against menstruating women are just *few* examples) doesn’t make you a transphobe. Her books have many poc who are freaking awesome (Kingsley and Lee Jordan are my personal favs). She actually bothered to even mention poc and reflect on diversity which many authors don’t bother with.
Gosh you people are truly terrible. Ffs a person’s sexuality doesn’t define them! I thought it was amazing Dumbledore was gay AFTER. It meant gay people can achieve great things without ever having their sexuality define them. They have a life outside sexuality.
Secondly, A born woman doesn’t need to pander to feelings of other people to talk about what affects her. Stating a biological fact- women menstruate- is Not transphobia! Saying that same sex attraction is real, is not transphobia! What is wrong with you people. Womanhood is not a freaking feeling or abstraction. It’s a BIOLOGICAL REALITY. The Gender debate is about equality between the SEXES. Get rid of gender socialization and you won’t even have men who feel like they’re “women”. Womanhood is not a feeling. FEELINGS don’t result in female foeticide, menstruation shaming, or lack of abortion rights. REAL MISOGYNY DOES. MALE PRIVILEGE does that puts female bodied people on a lower status. Talking about this is NOT TRANSPHOBIA. trans people are an important part of fight against GENDER NORMS. They open our eyes to how men can be empathetic soft spoken or wear dresses and makeup. And how women can be resilient, strong and wear trousers. How these traits are not “feminine” or “masculine” but “human”. But trying to pretend that sex based differences don’t exist is STUPID. Women need sex based rights! Like maternity leaves or menstrual rights or right to life, or freedom against female genital mutilation.
The amount of arrogance, ignorance and entitlement in this article is shocking.
Btw, the Patil sisters wore robes in the books. Why are you blaming JKR for the costume designers shoddy idea of Indian clothes? Oh and LEE JORDAN was an AWESOME character and HE WAS POC. PATIL SISTERS, KINGSLEY SHACKLEBOLT, ANGELINA JOHNSON were all amazing, strong, capable characters in the books! And her depiction of house-elves shows how deeply brainwashed exploited populations can be, who believe their marginalisation is only right. The untouchables in India were the same, never raising a voice against their persecution for fear of reprisal and brainwashing into Karma Theory. And Goblins were an amazing race but their values were different from wizarding folk, so much so, that wizarding folk believed them to be greedy or recalcitrant leading to prejudice, when Goblins were simply living by their own morality. There is so much nuance in her books but I suppose you would need to read it first.
Agreed! So sick of this nonsense!
The books were made for children and teens and you’re outraged they didn’t include sexual education? Lol SJW’s are not far from promoting pedophilia
I find all this JKR hate to be laughable. You want drunk tweet equality for some odd reason. There is a simple solution to your plight. You want more gays, gender fluidity, or racial diversity in your Potter stories? Fan fiction has what you crave. Why not? It was good enough for JKR to stamp her name on some fan fiction & label it a Cursed child.
You are confusing the books and the film’s. The books make no mention of the race of the majority of the characters and as JKR pointed out the description of Hermione is nearer to a black girl than a white girl. JKR is hardly the first to (possibly) bow to pressure from Hollywood over the colour of the cast.
Although some kids are aware they are gay around puberty, very few discuss it. Certainly very few teachers are openly gay even now. The books were aimed at the kids and later the YA market. Can you imagine the storm if she had included gay couples in the first couple of books?
As for all the puff about JKR’s position on trans gender issues, I’ve seen nothing to indicate trans PHOBIA. Her views on bathroom rights are well argued even if I don’t necessarily agree with them but they do not advocate marginalisation. Merely that trans gender people don’t fit into easy categories. Doesn’t mean they don’t deserve rights and support and protection from descrimination.
I have no problem with the Harry Potter series as a whole. But it is sad to see someone try so hard to make an agenda out of what I am assuming was her passion project/magnum opus. Just don’t come out to be political and leave it as is, or do what she just did and make yourself look like a terribly out of touch and ego bound person.
I try to seperate the art from the artist, but sometimes the artist just turns out to be so batcrap that it does affect my viewing/listening experience.
Interesting look into the mindset and psychology.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE NEVER WRITE AGAIN!!! You are a hypocrite!! Why are you allowed to express your opinion in an article and criticise her life’s work in a few paragraphes, while she isn’t allowed to have her own opinion!!
She didn’t even offend or belittle anyone, she only expressed her own opinion in the name of the same freedom that gives everyone the right to choose whichever life they want!
She exposed a very vulnerable and raw part of her, why are you people so cruel!
Didn’t you even think how hard it must’ve been to make such a personal and painful experience public to the world?! Did that thought never cross your mind?
And now you’re ruining one of the most unique experiences that came into this world for many people around the world!
What has the world come to? This is just sad.
Just because Harry potter has been so successful people think the have the right to pick holes in J K Rowling and the story, and it’s just a story, an epic and successful one at that, and I always will love the story . The films left out so much and certain things were changed from the books.
Nothing but a shitty hate piece, this article. Not every piece of art has to be a social commentary and Rowling just wanted to bring a little magic to the world – she had no idea she’d become so successful and was barely afloat when she penned this story.
Her lack of need/desire to promote other races in Harry Potter isn’t the issue here, it’s people like you unnecessarily highlighting it, making it a real thing when it wasn’t before, that keeps fuelling the hate and the disharmony in the world. Are you personally affected here? I highly friggin doubt it.
Wake up and just see it for what it is, a kid’s fantasy story about the underdog who never gave up.
How bout this… write your own goddamn book, with as many gay characters as you want, quit picking apart other people’s work because there wasn’t one of every kind of person in it. This shit is getting fucking old everything does not have to cater to everybody, don’t go to a steakhouse and demand more vegan options. Its her world she can do whatever she wants in it, if you don’t like it DON’T READ IT!!!!!
????, here’s an idea…..if you really want inclusion, make your own pinché series of books and movies.
Why do articles like this get published? Does the author even read all books? Harry Potter books are quite the opposite, and one of the best literature for a child. They teach positive things. Don’t try to taint something so beautiful in the name of radical journalism.
You forgot Lee Jordan. Someone clearly did their research.
She’s got such an issue with a kids book, why doesn’t she read something else? Or better still, write her own.
NewYork times complex??? It’s a story jk Rowling is in no way obligated to make HER story more “diverse” It’s a fictional story meant to be enjoyed as is all art
The stupidest article I’ve read in a long time. Shouldn’t Misra have read the actual books? She is setting greater store by the fan fiction and the movies than the books. Why do we need to add a bunch of characters just for the sake of diversity? What does race gender or sexual orientation have anything to do with the Harry Potter stories? Would it have been a very different tale if Ron and Harry hooked up, or Hermione was black and transgender? What a load of crap.
Oops, bet you didn’t expect your little hate article is going to gather so much negative comments.
Bet the only thing you wanted is to feel accepted and loved, but didn’t exactly know how to get there.
That reminds me of a character from fantastic books I’ve read as a kid and which still remain a huge part of my life, as a 32 year old Mom.
The books are cleverly plotted, with great characters and details about that fantasy world, so realistic that you find yourself as a kid getting excited about a cat that doesn’t move from your father’s car whole day, because she could be watching if you’re an adequate fit for a certain school; but most importantly, books are about standing for minorities, choosing “the right, and not the easy” path, about loss and how to deal with it, about courage, and about growing up, about friendship and LOVE.
True love, not likes.
Maybe you’ve heard of them.
Harry Potter, no?
Oh well.
Children’s books are better for leaving out divisive arguments anyway. Though why our society now wants us to cater to the whims of people who base everything they are on feelings with no basis in biological reality is a question that should really be answered. Ten years ago these ‘trans’ people would have been labeled crazy, and rightfully so. I mean, come on. Half of them can’t even make up their minds at all, hence Facebook’s 52 genders.
Let’s trash J K Rowling’s books! Oh my God I will be ACCEPTED if I trash them! It will feel so good to finally have someone to agree with me!
I will pretend to stand for rights that I superficially know about and don’t honestly care about and I will go so far as to say that it doesn’t count anything that might be interpreted as inclusive just to trash them some more. Of course, I did not in fact read the books, but I’ve spent whole night researching what potentially could be wrong with them for my hate article, so don’t tell me that doesn’t count. I think that’s what people want to hear right now. I care about trends and what people think of me, not about the people actually, but I don’t think anybody will notice that, not now. I can always accuse them of being a racist if they don’t agree with me. Yeah, I think I nailed it this time. They are going to like me, for sure.
Haha nicely put. People just like to use big “ism” and “ist” words from the safety of their computers just so they can be seen, even when they are so far personally removed from it. It’s pretty sick when you think about it, all it does is further fuel issues and I can’t possibly imagine what the author actually hopes to achieve or gain, outside of some internet back-pats.
Ask any author, half of the bullshit analysis people do on their stories, the supposed messages and symbolism, the author never even considered. Anti race? Bullshit, Rowling just wrote a kid’s fantasy story ffs.
Please, if you are going to make people to hate this master piece of the whole universe of Harry Potter, is better that you stop writing things that don’t make any sense, because you’re mixing what you want with other things that don’t have any connection. Seriously bro, because one book doesn’t have what you would like to it has, that doesn’t mean that book is wrong, because if that were correct, there are a lot of books that are wrong because I don’t like them. I think is great your opinion, but is only yours, and you’re trying to use it to change the believe of other people :/
What will you target next? Lotr? Why are their no black elves? Good thing Tolkien is dead. Or he would’ve had to deal with such pretentious liberal bullshit.
I’m not sure I would let my kids read the harry potter books if all the characters had to be in relationships, these are kids books, why are we back to opening adult content to kids, they are the heros they go on adventures and fight bad guys. Cant it just be left alone.
No way I would have read these to my daughter if sex were in them. Frankly, any parent that does expose their child to sex at too young an age should be investigated for grooming them for sex trafficking.
And the books occasionally mentioned a person’s skin tone but very seldom. I just assumed, as did my mixed kid, that the people in the book were people with varying amounts of melanin.
If you want to say JK is transphobic, then blame HER… Don’t point out stuff from Harry Potter books! As other people have commented, Harry Potter was set in the 1990s. So, you must know that JK has written her books according to what it was like at that time. So, if you want to write against Rowling, then first learn the truth!! Don’t start randomly expressing your opinion on the Internet!!
Unpopular opinion-
I liked this article.
This is tagged as an opinion piece by the author. So, why is it okay for you to speak or have your own opinion but you are attacking JK for having her own opinion and ideals? You a the classic definition of a hypocrite. We don’t care about your opinion and we don’t need to live in your vision of the Harry Potter universe.
Here’s a tweet that explains it succinctly.
“And Rachel Dolezal is really black, and parrot man is really a parrot and elf girl is really an elf and this 54 year old dude is really a 6 year old girl.
Self-identification – no matter how sincere, no matter how supported by psychologists – is not the sole criteria on ANYTHING.” Trans women are not women just because they feel like it.
I’m tired of hearing or reading about people who get triggered by HP and JK Rowling. The Potterverse is not meant to imitate real life. It’s FICTION.
I’d like to what University graduated this fool of a writer. Nothing JK Rowling said was wrong, and it definitely was not transphobic.
JK rowling objected to the phrase “People who menstruate…”. She is right. This phrase is as wrong as saying ‘All lives matter’ instead of ‘Black lives matter’ just for the sake of being more inclusive, ignoring the specific discrimination based on race. “People who menstruate” belittles the very, very specific lived experience of discrimination based on menstruation and the fight against it for millions of WOMEN. One well documented instances of menstruation based discrimination specific to women and girls is that every year millions of women lose access to education when they start menstruation.
This line of thinking has other repercussions too – if trans women (who have male biological markers, and therefore the resulting muscle mass, and other male characteristics) are deemed biologically to be women, then essentially they, who are biologically men, can compete in women’s sports. You might as well then just have no separate sports for women, and just include all biological men in womens sports. This is why sportswomen like Martina Navratilova are objecting to this line of thinking.
Further, they also use the ‘Trans women are women’ slogan to ask to be included in women bathrooms and changing rooms. This is dangerous. Trans women are biological males with all the inherent physiological markers including, having a pen!s, their physical strength etc. This is already a problem many schools in America are fighting. Imagine, a biological male using bathrooms used by young girls.
Even further, JK Rowling did not object to any one selecting their gender roles or sexual orientation – she and many of us like her are very supportive of LGBT. But the objection is to refuting biology – your DNA is your DNA – you are predominant male or predominant female. Frankly, why the extreme left and Trans women suddenly feel the need to go with “Trans women are women” slogan but not “Trans men are men” slogan itself is telling. Because they know that trans men are biologically female and can’t physically dominate men, while trans women with their male hormones can easily dominate women. Also telling is that unlike many Eastern nations, they don’t want to identify as a third gender either!
Even worse, in the west, theres been an increased push to get minor children to have elective s3x xhange surgery – something that is severely detrimental to health and potentially irreversible. Example, to provide a fake vag!na, essentially their pen!s is reversed and a hole surgically created. Now because physiologically, this is a wound to the human body, it keeps trying to close it and can exhibit symptoms of putrification that a open wound would be expected to – so you have to spend the rest of your life dilating it open and ensuring it doesn’t smell or catch disease/infection. The hormones that they are provided can cause organs to age and increase co-morbidity. This is what they encourage children to undergo.
To the bright bulb who wrote this article, I dare you to research into these issues and write about it. Otherwise I am afraid you are just anti-women and anti-children, and dare I say anti-humanbeing.
Totally agree. Thank you for this post!!
“People who menstruate” is the right term to describe people who menstruate. Not “women”. There are thousands of women all over the world who do not menstruate because of a variety of reasons including age, health issues, medication etc. So according to your definition, they are not women because they don’t menstruate.
There are also transmen who menstruate. I think that’s all the line “people who menstruate” meant. But everyone, starting with JK Rowling, ran away with it and turned it into a whole rant about transwomen trampling all over women’s rights.
This is shit.
Every novel ever written must contain non white person in a prominent role, also there has to be relationships that are non hetrosexual. Fewer white people better it is. Also there must always be non binary characters… These are the parameters for any novels. Anything other than this will be called as transphobic because that’s what matters. Story doesn’t matter, characters doesn’t matter, what matters is that protagonist is a black/asian/brown guy who likes to identify himself as an Apache helicopter and likes to do T90 tanks.
Do they let literally anyone publish nowdays? Without a spell or grammar check. Yikes – Complete trash.
I totally agree with this opinion, harry potter’s world is based on the books jk rowling released, but the fans added the diversity it needed, because the world we live in is diverse. It even opened my eyes about gender-fluid tonks and ill remus, ive never thought of it, and im super thankful i’ve read this.
And if you want to sell an all-inclusive image (remember the criteria for fitting in hufflepuff?) it shouldn’t bother you that the fans actually include diversity in the universe.
Ok, I would like you, for once, to start Reading every single thing she has written. Her “transphobic” tweets are no more than opinions which she has now deeply explained and, sorry to inform you, her explainations make sense. She is not transphobic, she just thinks there is no one side the truth and one side the wrong there are both of them in both sides. What’s the matter in thinking beyond received ideas ?
Worst article I’ve ever read , worst , worst. Please stop writing . Never write again, if you’re going to write this bad.
I recently read the series for the 1st time in many years and did see some problems concerning the ethnic groups and characters described but then again think of British society and the ethnic diversity there. And yet again their attitude towards this and the history where it may stem from. Think of BREXIT and maybe try to tolerate intolerance.
Also maybe cut the over analysis. It’s just a story. It’s a piece of art and it is sure to involve the author’s personal thoughts and values and this is her right. And also I am not sure how you can “tease” someone into believing a character is gay and then “unfairly” disappoint them when it turns out they aren’t. Some people (and characters) are also bisexual and still end up living in a heterosexual relationship without feeling like they miss out on something or are untrue to themselves. Some of us fall in love and keep loving the person and not their gender. Sexuality is not a black and white, straightforward thing and I truly hate it hate it when everything needs to be specified like this.
However I cannot really sympathise with medically unfounded cosmetic surgery to “fix” your gender if you are transgender. Governments and societies are encouraging people to ruin their one-of-a-kind, fertile and perfectly functioning body because their mental or preferred gender needs to match the biological gender.
Sexuality is a spectre and the more we describe individual sexualities the less we see variety. Sexuality shouldn’t be any problem in post-individualist outside-the-box -over analytical society. We shouldn’t need to discuss it, not in these terms like are these genders real or acceptable and how many fingers you need to count every kind and how do we fix those that are nothing yet. What a bunch of bullpoop people.
The time period and place the Harry Potter universe is set in means that there wasn’t much cultural diversity and no one was out as queer, but I still think she should have tried a little harder to make the non-white characters better and more realistic, because its not hard to come up with a Korean name better than Cho Chang, or to give the Patel sisters Yule Ball outfits that weren’t a direct mockery of their race. Just because they’re South Asian/Indian doesn’t mean they have to wear clothes that reflect that. The diversity is amazing for the time it’s set in but that gives her no excuse to be lazy when writing those characters. Not to mention that Tonks and Remus made no sense together when it was clearly alluded to that they were queer. Even if it couldn’t be explicitly said that they were, it didn’t really make sense to put them together, but that’s just my opinion. Some of you need to grow up, someone’s opinion doesn’t invalidate yours, people have different viewpoints, get over it
Not including a queer storyline doesnt render a book tone deaf. A fictional story can be about so much more than raising lgbtq issues. They are relevant issues but they need not be present everywhere. Harry potter has a lot more beautiful lessons and you are invalidating them just because there are no queer storylines? Learn to separate the art from the artist. If a queer book like will Grayson doesnt have black character does it mean its tone deaf to racism? No one would say that. Every book explores a different agenda and a absence of a particular one doesnt make it any less beautiful and nor does it give anyone the right to devalue it based on that absence. This comment on the harry potter franchise only shows the author’s superficial pro trans ideas. If you cant be accepting of different ideas of a book how are you accepting of different ideas of gender i wonder!
THANK YOU, the one person on this article who has actual reasons for their opinion instead of commenting abuse at the author who wrote it. The time period and place the Harry Potter universe is set in means that there wasn’t much cultural diversity and no one was out, but I still think she should have tried a little harder to make the non-white characters better and more realistic, because its not hard to come up with a Korean name better than Cho Chang, or to give the Patel sisters Yule Ball outfits that weren’t a direct mockery of their race. Just because they’re South Asian/Indian doesn’t mean they have to wear clothes that reflect that. The diversity is amazing for the time it’s set in but that gives her no excuse to be lazy when writing those characters. Not to mention that Tonks and Remus made no sense together when it was clearly alluded to that they were queer. Even if it couldn’t be explicitly said that they were, it didn’t really make sense to put them together, but that’s just my opinion. Anyways, good job on actually being mature compared to the rest of the comments.
Not including a queer storyline doesnt render a book tone deaf. A fictional story can be about so much more than raising lgbtq issues. They are relevant issues but they need not be present everywhere. Harry potter has a lot more beautiful lessons and you are invalidating them just because there are no queer storylines? Learn to separate the art from the artist. If a queer book like will Grayson doesnt have black character does it mean its tone deaf to racism? No one would say that. Every book explores a different agenda and a absence of a particular one doesnt make it any less beautiful and nor does it give anyone the right to devalue it based on that absence. This comment on the harry potter franchise only shows the author’s superficial pro trans ideas. If you cant be accepting of different ideas of a book how are you accepting of different ideas of gender i wonder!
You do realize that these books were written in a time when if there was a gay character featured in a story it couldn’t be advertised as or given an age rating for children to read it. Rowling revealed that Dumbledore is gay after this law was overturned.
Please you are no one to say bullshit about J.K. Rowlling…She’s the best author ever known
Why was this even published?
SOME Points Are Fair…But The Chunk About Not Making The Characters What The Fans Wanted Is Just Beyond Stupid. The Lorax Did’t Make The Once-Ler Have Sex With Himself (Known As Onecest) And Harry’s And Draco’s Kids Should’t Be Gay For Each Other Just Because Some Fans Shipped It.
This article disappoints me. One thing our culture lacks is respect. People might have different opinions than you and that is OK. If Rowling states what she believes about transgender people, you can disagree, but show some respect. She has the right to express her opinion as well, so people should just accept that. Everyone has different views, lets keep that in mind. We dont all have to agree. Lets all respect eachother and our right to choose, and not be jerks to those who dont have the same opinions.
God Bless,
Keagan
Splash splash your opinion is trash
Isn’t this taking a work of FICTION too seriously ?
Don’t people have better things to do ?
This is just a peice of fiction..why would anyone accept anything logical from a fictional story that is just purely based on a fantasy world. It is ok to talk against her anti-trans comments and all but criticising her just for not getting something racially or logically correct from the stories and a fictional fantasy world that she created is just extremely dumb, people are supposed to focus on the plot and stories and not on what is politically correct lol. I’m not tryna defend Rowling but the way you’re criticising her her fictional creation is just dumb and biased..wtf lmao. Maybe you should think before writing on something, it’s all just a little common sense?.
Are you really this stupid or are you just pretending? How can you call yourself a journalist/writer? Most of the 90s films/books didn’t have queer characters so are they all homophobic and irrelevant? HP books are the best series books ever written and an uneducated fool like you can’t change that. Get a life!
Did… She actually read these books? Some of the coolest characters in it were poc- dean thomas, lee jordan, angelina thompson… Kingsley…. Characters that were way better than the trio a lot lol
Also… Um…. So…. HIV/AIDS is… Gay culture now according to this author? That’s… Definitely not a harmful stereotype. Yikes.
And she’s not the costume director for the movies lmfao why are you mad at her for the costume choices?
Like none of this was about her tweets at all it was this person complaining her favorite fanfics didn’t become cannon lol
The Print should not have dignified this trash piece by providing it space in its publication.
I really don’t understand why people are writing such rude comments. As a mother and South Asian, I actually had the same thoughts. There is no diversity. All the lead roles are white. I wish they had atleast casted actors from other races and cultures.
J.k.Rowling is an English white woman, she wrote books from her own viewpoint at a time when there wasn’t all this screaming about diversity. Would you admit that there is no diversity in other non-white cultures? Let’s for eg take the Indian Bollywood movie industry – written by Indian writers, acted by Indian actors, largely for Indian people- NOT much diversity there is there. There are plenty of examples throughout Asian countries of this kind of homogeneous representation…..take the Korean K-Pop industry – yep ALL Korean boys and girls….not much diversity. And the same is repeated throughout so-called non-white nation and cultures around the world…they are NOT forced, bullied nor shamed into artificially representing everyone in their cultural expresions of who they are, but are celebrated. So what I’m seeing is that “diversity” is only forced, bullied and shamed upon the largely white European countries, and upon the West, while everywhere else is allowed to continue in their own cultures. So it is a TEARING AWAY and TEARING DOWN OF CULTURES OF COUNTRIES WHERE THE ANCESTRY IS OF SO-CALLED WHITE ORIGIN – English, French, German, Italian, and so on…they are forced to suppress and kill their cultures to ACCOMODATE THE WORLD pouring in, as are the western countries like USA, Canada, Australia etc but for eg. Asian countries ( for now) are still largely allowed to keep their individual, homogenous cultures purist with no screaming, bullying, shaming voices demanding more Italian, French, Australian, English, Spanish, Scotish, Serbian, Russian, Polish, Swedish representation. Interesting….
I was with you until you mentioned Australia and the USA etc as examples of predominantly white countries. Sorry but no…those countries should be showing more diversity as the indigenous population are actually poc and they are very multicultural. The UK is too but I can appreciate that the natives are atleast white in most European countries.
This really annoys me. This is how our world is becoming that people attack children authors and accuse them of being prejudice because they aren’t an activist. If we aren’t an activist we’re are prejudice.
It never comes into people like SHUBHANGI MISRA mind that Harry Potter was a children’s book in the 90’s nowadays you could put diverse characters in books then they would have been a big no no.
You can work out that there are diverse characters in the book and its left open to your interpretation. I think Tonks and Lupin were probably gay; they never sat right as a couple with me, they got together as a relationship of convenience and wanted children like many gay people.
I grew up loving Harry Potter and very confused over my sexually and identity JK Rowling was an hero to me as I could escape the madness in my head!
I personally don’t like shoving gender issues in kids and teens faces. To me it learning and accepting your identity is maddening enough without extra ‘labels’ they was must adhere to.
I say to all people like SHUBHANGI MISRA you preach acceptance and tolerance yet use as a tool to bully. You don’t understand people outside your ‘world’ who have had different experiences of life to you so therefore you label them as a hater.
I’m sorry but fiction and fantasy worlds exist primarly because of the writers trying to reach the readers, not beacuse fanboys and fangirls must be pleased at all costs. An Author has his own ideas, we should appreciate them even if we don’t share exactly the same ideal background. We should be listening to the things that an Author writes…You all keep showing this judgmental attitude according to which you shall have points of view (no one asked you for) even before having a complete idea of the Writer’s will. Maybe you should listen more, and READ more, instead of showing pictures in which you hold some random book in your hand. Have ever even asked yourself what reading is?
Why should J. K. ‘s literature be written all according to the acceptance of everything in every case, with no space at all for real diversity, which is the freedom of the Author to express also a controversial position? You’ re so dumb and acritical you’re accomplishing the oddity of letting sexual diversity become the new guinea pig of your need to have a mainstraming attachment to the more complex social discussion.
Keep your inability of having dialectic skills to yourself. You are damaging the world and normalizing the false myth of the things divided into good and bad at all costs and the disastrous idea that righteousness is achieved only by the unity of intent. I’d want my rights, as a sharer and bearer of a diversity, respected by the actions but I’d never force anyone yo think exactly what I think. It would authoritarian and utterly fascist.
Democratic respect for diversity is very difficult and not mainstream at all: it means being able to respect diversity even when this diversity attacks mine, in a way. As long as we don’t obliterate each other, we should be able to respect our different thoughts.
Do tou really want to start a crusade against all the writers who offended someone? And also, how old are you? If 1997 isn’t an Era ago, then I don’t know where were you when the world historically and drastically changed faster than it ever did.
Please, try to pass your time with more prolific activities.
Don’t judge something if you’re not well aware of it’s diversity.
Through your article it’s quite evitable that you’re just judging JK’s world on the view of movies and had never read the book series.
Talking of diversity?! Characters like Dean Thomas was brownish in colour and had a major role in battle.
In book 4th, the diversity of outside Hogwarts world was seen.
Now fantastic beast series is showing various different countries.
Dumbledore? That’s her own choice how she wants her characters! Her own story! Her own ideas and opinions!
And what has Cho Chang for tho create discrimination. All other different writers have both fantastical and real-works names introduced.
This article is clearly a bunch of nonsense.
I don’t jestify jo but don’t forget Harry Potter was written in the 90s if it was written today she would have made the characters more diversed people should stop looking for mistakes in everything it gets really annoying
The world jk Rowling has created with Harry Potter is fictional. It has captured the hearts and imagination of children and adults a like world wide. It has engaged millions to read and ignited a world of imagination. It is an escape for many from the doom and gloom many live in reality. The author of this articles views are of no interest to me. Sad that they can’t just read a good book.
This article is a trademark of being superficial journalism where nuanced understanding is required. The article starts by calling JK Rowling a transphobe and her tweets transphobic. What is transphobia, dear author? Transphobia is denying a person their gender, not saying that biological sex is immutable, and changing gender doesn’t’ change sex. So she isn’t transphobic but you are unscientific and demonstrably stupid. Any biologist worth their salt will tell you that humans are dimorphic species.
TERF- This word invented by Trans activists to denote anybody who doesn’t agree with them is wrong. Feminism is for those born females, which means in includes Trans-men. Thus feminism cannot exclude trans. That is another self-goal performed by you.
What a shameless propaganda you have engaged in against a woman who is voicing concerns of women, lesbians, and gay people. Shame on you. You are also uninformed and JKR is right about her concerns. Support for her will grow soon and you will be eating your words meanwhile you can revel in your stupidity.
Wow your journalism is composed of policing and labeling people who actually made a difference like JK Rowling. I dont know how ypu are able to live with yourselves.
Can the author of this article do the world a favour and never write again?
Why does a book need “diversity” for it to be accepted?
JK Rowling spoke sense, something Misra doesn’t possess.
It’s all nonsense all she did was point out science. I don’t care what you do but you can’t change science however much you want. So grow up.
I agree with you
Everything must be politically correct mimimi ? stop the hate against fantasie Worlds. And i think the Saris from the Pravati Twins are pretty, why hating the culture? India clothes are extreme beautifull
Yes very true!!!
Guys let’s just report this page. No one cares what a useless person like you thinks about the franchise. You are a pile of shit that’s all. This is the most useless and worst article I’ve ever read. Keep your opinions to yourself. No one wants to hear what you think you immature trash heap. Fkn cheap loser.
Where is the barf bag?
Then don’t read her books. She doesn’t have to conform to anyone else’s opinions. That’s the definition of freedom.
Have you actually read the books or is this based on the movies you have watched?
This is the dumbest thing I’ve read in quite a while.
I don’t see anything wrong with an undiverse world. It’s a fucking fiction book series, it’s not real. It’s not set in 2020 so stop expecting it to have ideals of 2020 when it clearly wasn’t made or set in 2020. We don’t need a lgbtq+ community in the Potterverse. It’s perfectly fine as it is.
Why it’s only black Hermione, why it can’t be a black Harry or James and Lily for that matter? Malfoy and Harry’s boys are into a relationship is something really fascinating.
You look for so many reasons to blame JK. That is how it looks like for me. Queer baiting?! People would write fanfics over just any big series story like Harry Potter. Also, I don’t know if you’ve noticed but the conflict is based on racism- the one between witches and non-witches. Sure, it’s not the case in real life but I think it makes a metaphorically beautiful strong point of view. And you accuse her for creating her universe as a white world?? I’ve never heard this mentioned before everyone got crazy over POC being mistreated. But you know what, racism has been in this world for forever. And it’s not only against POC. Now I feel like the ones going so strongly over the “Black lives matter” pandemic are creating a sort of racism themselves. People say that if you are neutral and don’t say anything, you’re a racist. How’s that so?! Maybe some of us just don’t want to come out saying stuff for our own personal reasons. Why can’t we choose not to be racists AND not to go screaming over “Black lives matter”?
Maybe some people are like this, that’s how they express. And maybe JK felt like making her wizarding world just the way it is because that was HER idea, HER view of it. I can only thank and respect her for that and I still believe she couldn’t have gotten a better cast for Harry Potter. She made a wonderful job and she created a world to come back to for all of us kids that needed one and you’re now saying what about her?! If you don’t like it, go make yourself a better story, cast whoever you want and sink into that world of yours. But stop just accusing people just for having their ideas freely expressed and made out into beautiful outcomes.
I’m sorry but I don’t exactly feel your “love for Harry Potter”, the one you say you are not questioning.
“The entire Harry Potter series is set from 1991 to 1998”. Does anything else need to be said? How many people were openly gay in 1998? Just because you don’t like the truth doesn’t make it less true. In reality, a school in 1998 would have approximately zero openly gay people. I grew up in Las Vegas and went to school in the late 90s. I didn’t know any people that professed to be anything other than heterosexual. That’s just how things were.
Racial diversity? England was 91% white in 2001, and even more white in 1991. the amount of diversity in characters already defies reality. Are you saying no one should write a book about a predominately white community, because that’s racist? Under that philosophy, then I guess all Japanese anime featuring school students is also racists, because what the heck?? no diversity! Everyone is Japanese! What were they thinking! That countryside school in Japan should have black students! 😛
Racism and related issues are a problem, don’t get me wrong. However, does that mean we need to scourge our childhood books and see which ones contain racism so we can condemn them? I don’t think so. How does that solve anything? I think there are better ways to approach the problem.
This is shit.
No faggets in my Harry Potter
How easy it is to look in hindsight at one aspect of a children’s book series that grew so big in the era of Power Rangers, Dawson’s Creek, Friends, and The Real World… Yeah, JK’s forte is not in culture research -not then and not now. So yeah, maybe you should separate the person from the work, which again, is a children’s book series, and not a treatise on race and gender equality.
Talk about the halo effect backfiring.
Hahahahahaha far left- wing fanatics lol
Harry Potter had a huge impact during millennial childhood days. Stop ruining our memories for your gender queer propaganda. Snow White is white for a reason, she is a folklore from Europe. Chanakya is a Hindutva Legend for a reason, he pushed back the mighty Greeks. Whitewashing history is not going to help you.
Can we stop with the making-authors-write-about-what we-want-them-to-write-about thing? Guess what? If you dont like the way someone writes or what they write about- you are welcome to put the book down and walk away! Why, why do we have to impose our way of thinking on someone else? I’m not saying that it’s necessarily ok to be anti-trans or racist, but now people are just fishing for those details in these books. Which never would have happened without the tweet. By the way, since when does everyone have to have the same opinions or beliefs? Why do we care so much what other people believe?
You don’t NEED diversity. It’s about the story and you can’t randomly throw an African-American in because people want to. That doesn’t add anything. And ehat’ s wrong with Cho Chang? Harry Potter is a white, Briitsh name. And we especially don’t need sinning queer ones. ?
Are you an idiot or will you just make up anything? There were people of colour in her book’s, if you actually read the books you knew Dumbledore was gay and the movie’s have people of all colours in them.
Parvati was wearing robes not lehengas as potrated in the movies
Views are personal? So, you say this but don’t let her have her vision.
Isn’t this type of sites supposed to be neutral and bias-free? This scream so much agenda.
One of the worst articles I’ve ever read
Jesus. It’s a flipping book. I dont think when she wrote the first book she was expecting her work to be under the scrutiny it is now 20 – odd years later. Just because your not completely inclusive does not mean you are prejudice towards the groups you do not to write about.
I’m sure if she wrote the books now there would be more diverse characters, but in the age of 1997 when the phrase gender fluid wasn’t even in the dictionary, we cannot judge.
You are also choosing to decide someone’s entire opinion based off a tweet. You have had an entire article to say your peace.
Whiners gonna whine.
Hi,
Do you have nothing better to do than to point out that a book written 20 years ago isn’t diverse enough for you. I dont think J.K. should have ever tried to change the narrative to appease the LGBT community to avoid articles like you. Why does any one have to include diversity or LGBT in something if it might not be relevant to what their writing or what they have experienced. You talk of inclusion but point the finger at those that dont fit your list of what you want. Is everyone supposed to change history so it doesnt offend you?I think it’s sad.
Have a great day,
Chantelle
This is clearly a prejudiced person who doesn’t understand the context in which harry potter was written nor the time. The lgbtq+ community has only been extremely vocal in the past decade. The harry potter series was written last century. As for the racial inclusiveness, is it racist to imagine characters in your story the same race as you?? I don’t think so. Because we tend to imagine characters in our race as an involuntary form of identification with the characters. I’m an indian and my stories are about indian people. Am I racist for that?? I hope not. Of course Rowling tries to include nore people in her further works as people who are straught and older than a certain age tend to be unaware of various gender identities. My mom is touching 50 and the only non straight gender she knows is transgender. That is natural. She does her best to include gay people many years after writing the novel. I appreciate her for that. Her comments also aren’t transphobic at all. She claims that women have periods and only women because transgender people don’t experience the same traumatic experiences that women do when they get their first periods at a really young age. Nowhere is she saying that transgender people are lacking in discrimination or is she actually discriminating against them. They are not subjected to periods the same way natural women are and that is scientific, heck psychological fact. In this attempt at being ‘ woke’, the author forgets to extend the same basic human empathy that she accuses Rowling of not extending. When Rowling has.
When you try hard to blame someone for something like this you’re gonna find something to use. You’re clearly biased for whatever reason. Hermione is purposely not analytically described so anyone can relate to her. Dumbledore is gay. Other people in the story probably are too , we just don’t know about it because they’re not known by their sexuality or race , as they shouldn’t be, they’re simply known just like everyone else. This ‘article’ has nothing to do with what she said , and it’s purpose is to throw dirt . Shame on you
an artist can write what she wants to- and she doesn’t have to pander to “diversity” authoritarians like you who wants to control what she writes/thinks. you people are brainwashed socialist nutheads, who’d beeen sending people to gulag for being enemies of the state back in 50s. Get over your”progressive” thought police ideas. Wanna make a “diverse” universe? write it yourself. We live in democracy and we don’t have to bow down to your desires cause they are simply opnions and not the law.
There’s one thing I can’t get: if gender is not biological reality but rather a social construct, then it means one can question their own or somebody else’s gender. Because questioning social constructs is perfectly legitimate, right? So why can’t J.K.Rowling question it? Please explain.
Bro you look like someone who has seriously never read the books and bases her judgement on trending hashtags. Get a life, and maybe a brain?
A well written piece, good work! If I may make an addition, Potterverse could have rivalled Tolkien’s Legendarium with a little bit of planning. After the original 7 books, Rowling had ample opportunity to create the history and back story that the series deserved, she didn’t. Instead of handing out random tidbits and superficial extensions, she could have worked on solid stand alone works within that universe, if not another series. Cursed Child ruined the arc, and many fans like me refuse to recognise that as canon.
I was really looking forward to Fantastic Beasts, hoping for a proper narrative on the War waged by Grindelwald. Because let’s face it, Voldemort was a typical villian, just another bad guy with issues set on world domination. Grindelwald could have been much more! So far, the series have been visually amazing but rather poor on the storyline and generally disappointing with all the messed up details.
Really wish that someone with a greater vision and understanding of the real world could take over…
I’m sorry to say this, but i don’t understand why you should judge an author and her books based on the diversity of the characters of her books! Que imagined them the way she did and we love them as they are. I wouldn’t have wanted J. K Rowling to add some black, asian and transgender or homosexual characters just for the sake of it. Just because there are important issues to talk about, this doesn’t mean that literature should become a mean to win certain battles!
Leave J K Rowling alone and focus on your own dark side! Everyone has one!
This article is really insensitive. I really would prefer it it was removed.
So what? Joanne Rowling wrote what she could at the time. Who cares whether it lives up to today’s arbitrary moral standards or not. You know whatever you write today will look dumb tomorrow. Hell, it looks pretty dumb today!
Get over it. Find a real job. You’ll be happier for it.
Bullshit!… you guys are ruining pop culture, how many white characters did you see in Black Panther? How many blacks did you see in The Hobbit?… Just because you don’t like JK Rowling doesn’t mean everything about her is bad, go to Pottermore you ignorant folks, you’ll find separate Asian and African wizardry schools with detailed descriptions. Write some actual news, stop bullshitting around
این نامردیه تمام سال هایی هری پاترودوستانش در هاگوارتز گذراندن تمام خاطراتشان همانند خاطرات خودمان در ذهن ما جای گرفته است ماباآنها در هاگوارتز بودیم باجاروهای پرنده پرواز کردیم وحفره اسرار را کشف کردیم با دیوانه ساز ها جنگیدیم وسپر مدافع درست کردیم دردرمسابقه ی سه جادوگر شرکت کردیم وشاهد بازگشت ولدمورت بودیم وارد انجمن الف.دال شدیم ومرگ سیریوس رابه جان خریدیم پشت دستهایمان را باکلمات من نباید دروغ بگویم کبود کردیم وشاهد قتل اسنیپ بودیم جان پیچ هارا ازبین بردیم و باولدمورت دوئل کردیم به گذشته رفتیم و ویرانی خانه ای آشنا را دیدیم وسکوت
کردیم تا آینده آنطور که بایدباشد
این چنین ما با داستانهای هری پاتر زندگی کردیم وهمه این هارا مدیون خالق آن هستیم
The fact that she says the term people who menstruate is wrong doesn’t make transphobic, it is wrong when you speak about gender violence you can’t say that term to say that population is at risk because elderly women who do not menstruate can also suffer from gender violence and trans women who do not menstruate can also suffer violence from a male partner
A clearly biased and one sided opinion. Take a hop. :/