First published in the 2020 Summer Issue

Illustration by Ren O’Hare

JK Rowling’s ‘Gender critical’ i.e. transphobic rant on Twitter, and subsequent essay was both upsetting and unsurprising. I will not be quoting her essay here as I do not want to give her destructive narrative more of a platform. However, the gist of her argument is anti-trans bigotry disguised as feminism, with the concern for the safety and wellbeing for cis women at its core. 

As both a fan of Harry Potter since childhood and a genderqueer femme, her essay has been on my mind a lot. It is notable and particularly poignant that she made these statements both during Pride month and  the largest civil rights movement the world has ever seen. Rowling has not spoken any support for Black Lives Matter, or the murder pandemic on Black Trans Lives. Her voice is actively malicious in its  ignorance of how important she and her platform is. Perhaps she sees her voice as only one opinion in the room, but when you have written one of the world’s most popular book series, your voice is inevitably held in higher regard than the general population. Her statements are particularly damaging as she hides behind a supposedly intellectual argument, communicating that her viewpoint is the ‘rational conclusion’ coming from deep thinking; she attempts to hide the discrepancies in her writing behind a  pseudo-intellectual tone. Her essay appeals to many cis women’s valid fears of sexual danger from men, in order to validate violence and exclusion to trans and nonbinary individuals. Yet the existence of trans and genderqueer people is not in opposition to the fight for feminism, women’s liberation or in ending sexual violence, as her essay  suggests. To quote transfeminine writer Alok Vaid-Menon (ALOK), “trans people are leading the way for everyone (once again)... when we see trans people living freely, saying I don’t care about society’s norms, I don’t care about gender norms, I just want to be me, (cis) people are threatened by that, because they have had to repress their own true self…So we (trans people) aren’t just doing this for ourselves, we’re doing this for everyone.” Trans people have historically been a part of the feminist movement and continue to be a necessary voices that need amplification . As ALOK also noted in a podcast with iWeigh, the definition of ‘woman’ must  be expanded; . TERF feminism understands trans women as something other than women, and considers the way that they (white, middle class, straight, cis women) “experience patriarchy is taken as the only way of experiencing patriarchy”. And so trans experience is seen in opposition to a cis women’s experience, and so is something to be feared. Yet feminism that only seeks to liberate and advance cis women is misguided feminism.

Hiram Harrington, who is a trans man,  pointed out to me the transcoding that is prevalent in the Harry Potter books’ villain, Lord Voldemort. To quote them, “I don’t think the transcoding of Voldemort was a conscious decision, queer-coding villains is often subconscious conditioning based on the traits we’re taught to fear from an early age. It’s incorrect to say Voldemort is a trans character, obviously, but it’s very interesting that a character that epitomises evilness possesses a certain range of qualities that are also possessed by transgender people. All children see is: man becomes something that doesn’t look like a man any more = scary. Having androgynous features = scary. Adopting a new name/title = so scary it can’t be spoken aloud. Obviously, Voldemort is bad because he behaves evilly, but because JK Rowling associates typically trans qualities with villainy, it speaks to how her anti-transness subconsciously pervades her work.”

The stories of Harry Potter are something I still take comfort in, and though I would love to separate the art from the artist, I agree with Hiram, who says that “separation of art and artist when it comes to JK Rowling’s transphobia is unfortunately not possible.”  Instead, I have taken to reading queer fanfiction rather than the original works. As I have found myself in perhaps not the unique position of finding what was once a safe place from the world tarnished by active transphobia, it no longer functions as a point of escapism for me. In a world where queer people exist in plentiful amounts with varying experiences, it becomes an act of violence to exclude us from narratives. Cisgender should not be the default; we aren’t on the periphery, and shouldn’t only be included when it goes hand in hand with the presentation of evil. Our inclusion is one which calls for a wider inclusion of human experience and Rowling’s statements have made it impossible for me to look up to her, even if her creation still has some place in my heart. It’s just in a more complicated place.