#jk rowling discourse

[werewolf-cuddles]

Oh, cool, apparently JK Rowling is aphobic too.

Just add that one onto the pile I guess

[werewolf-cuddles]

I guess JK Rowling (who is most certainly not a Holocaust Denier 😉) never heard of the Streisand Effect.

She seems to think that by legally threatening someone to stop calling her a holocaust denier, it will make everyone else stop calling her a holocaust denier.

But naturally, all it does is make people call her a holocaust denier even more.

[cheezewhis]

"Seperate the art from the artist!!" Or..... Acknowledge that the creator is terrible and be willing to carefully examine the art? Because artists tend to put a lot of themselves into their work a d ignoring that could potentially ignore harmful messages, subtext, worldviews, etc.

It was until JK Rowling outed herself as a terf that I became consciously aware of how she described evil female characters as looking "manish" or more masculine. But once I knew her real views, I looked back at her work and realized that she was sending a message about what she deems "correct" for women to be like. I never would've seen that if I'd just said "seperate her from the art!" and refused any critical thinking.

It's still possible to love the works of a terrible person. I never loved Harry Potter, but I still love the X-Men movies (most of which were directed by a pedophile) and it seems most people on here loved Deadpool and Wolverine (directed by a zionist). Every Buffy fan I hear from is more than willing to discuss the problems with Joss Whedon and how he left his marks on the show for good and bad.

It's perfectly possible to love work make by a bad person, but ignoring that person and pretending their work has nothing to do with their worldviews is ignorant and frankly, lazy. I know people are fighting about that "Good Omes belongs to us" post and yeah I get it. Because Good Omens doesn't belong to you. But the fandom does. Make that a safe space and to do that start by showing you care about victims more than your media. Start by not making excuses for liking something and instead acknowledge the creator's atrocious actions. Start by trying to figure out what parts of the content you want to be represented by when you say you're a fan. Just don't make excuses.

[ratatattouille]

Harry Potter is a global phenomenon. I don’t think US Americans fully understand how marginal the trans discourse is in the global HP fandom. Like majority of the HP fandom is pro-JKR. You somehow even managed to get religious people, you know, the people that burned her books initially, on her side. 😭 You can’t get this cancelled. Religious people failed and the new gender cult will fail, too.

Also, a grown man calling women getting sex-based protections “awful disgusting SHIT” screams “I have secret abuse allegations that will come up in a few years.” Only the ugliest celebrity men have made JKR their new Amber Heard lol. Like this is your biggest problem, Pedro? I bet it is.

[healingmoth]

so hopefully what we all learn from JK Rowling starting to go after asexual people is that when we bully or exclude queer people in our own communities we make this discourse popular enough for it to eventually spread to homophobes, right?

This is not the first time I've heard people outside the community parroting Ace Discourse talking points either. One of my sister's friend's parents believed that it was a form of social contagion when her son came out as asexual. She said very similar things to people online that I've seen. My mom had to talk her down and discuss it with her, but yeah.

Ace Discourse breached containment a few years ago. They have some of these talking points because of acephobes on this website starting discourse and invalidating peoples' asexuality. When a transphobe as notorious as her starts parroting these points, please know that you fucked up.

When you make fun of poly people or people with neopronouns you're making it more likely for homophobes and transphobes outside our community to spread hate and violence against small, vulnerable communities. I don't care if you think it's cringe or a phase or whatever, don't give homophobes ammo and stand with other queer people, even ones you don't understand/don't like/don't agree with.

[maxdibert]

Oh, the main café she liked to write was owned by her brother in law, that's how she got to ask for a lot of coffees and not get kicked out for staying there for too long. As for her baby, she confirmed that she brought her to the café sometimes, but she also got friends babysitting.

The whole deal is that Rowling found herself in a hellish situation (just escaped her abusive ex, without a house and with a baby? I don't wish that to my worst enemies), BUT she had a good network of family, friends and economic state help to get through very comfortably. She never slept in a shelter, let alone the streets, because her sister had a very expensive flat she could share with her. Her friends lend her money and gave her furniture when she finally got her own flat. She felt comfy (or cocky) enough to throw away toys a charity had brought for her daughter.

Was it a terrible situation? Yes. Was it as tragic as the press painted it? Not really. One would think that this experience would have made her more aware of those who have it worse and don't have wealthy friends or family to help, but I guess not.

Look, even if she didn’t have to pay for the coffee, my point isn’t about money spent ñ, it’s about not needing to work in order to survive. I mean, what kind of person can afford to spend hours sitting in a café? Someone who clearly has the resources not to work, even while raising a daughter. And honestly, I’m glad — really — that she had a strong support network and was in a safe, comfortable place after leaving an abusive relationship (even knowing what a shitty person she turned out to be). I’m glad she had people around her and help when she needed it. But that’s not poverty. That’s not being a struggling, working-class single mother.

That’s being a privileged person who didn’t need to work, not even with a child and a divorce to deal with.

When I was a student, I worked in a call center just to earn some extra money for myself, and I saw real economic hardship there. Migrant mothers, with husbands doing double shifts so they could just barely afford a shitty flat and basic things for their kids. They couldn’t take a day off to go write in a café, they had to juggle everything, coordinate with their partners to pick the kids up from school, or rely on a neighbour, and if the neighbour had to work, they had to figure it out themselves. That is what a precarious life looks like.

I have no idea what kind of bubble of privilege this woman was living in, to think that maybe not having access to her usual comforts meant she was poor. I’ve known people in actual poverty — and people at risk of it — and I can assure you they didn’t have the time or the financial safety net to sit for hours writing in a café, much less the ability to not work and still have their children safe, fed, and cared for.

And that says a lot about her, about how little she understands the real social realities of the world she lives in, about her complete disconnect from structural issues, and, frankly, about the deep classism baked into her books.

[werewolf-cuddles]

To be fair, at this point, she's basically made transphobia her entire identity.

Fandom Problem #7306:

Funny how fandoms will overlook other forms of bigotry but the moment a person is transphobic that's the deal breaker. Fandoms have made it abundantly clear antisemitism and racism do not matter to them but will shit themselves over wrong pronouns. JK Rowling is a great example of people ignoring everything else wrong until transphobia made an appearance. Then they canceled her lmao.

[werewolf-cuddles]

But how will people know that you're A Good Person if you don't *checks notes* set fire to your merch you bought years ago whose destruction would have zero tangible benefit for anyone?

Don't you know that enjoying a book that's been your favorite for decades in the privacy of your own home is *checks notes again, I saw the same posts* literally personally assisting in trans genocide?

Don't you know you're not allowed to enjoy stories written by shitty people*, even if you're very explicit that you don't support their views, or support them monetarily by buying anything from them?

*Well, it's just the one shitty person that's off limits. You're still allowed to enjoy Neil Gaiman's work. Or use Facebook. Actually pretty much anything else, you're good. It's just this one very specific case, where if you still enjoy the books that made reading fun again for millions of children, you've literally personally got blood on your specific hands. This makes perfect sense and definitely isn't indicative of tumblr's tendency towards reactionary yet meaningless virtue signaling.

(/end of sarcasm)

It's incredibly frustrating that this website's instinct the second anything bad happens for trans rights is to attack Harry Potter fans who publicly disavow and refuse to support the author. I get that fans are more bullyable than actual transphobes because we're all on the same website, but attacking them specifically is such useless self-aggrandizing bullshit.

People are allowed to be upset, but I wish they'd attack the actual causes instead of just whoever's closest and easiest to attack.

I understand the sentiment, especially given recent events, but yeah, a lot of this does feel rather performative.

The hyperbolic nature of a lot of these comments really doesn't help. In the comments of one post, I saw some people equating owning Harry Potter merch to collecting Nazi memorabilia, and at least one person comparing holding onto childhood copies of the books to "owning a cherished copy of Mein Kampf"

(Because yes, owning a children's book with problematic elements is absolutely equivalent to owning literal Nazi propaganda)

It's just exhausting, honestly, and yet I also feel guilty for feeling that way because I know that in the grand scheme of things, this is absolutely nothing compared to what so many trans people have been going through.

[vampire-mina]

it is honestly kinda wild seeing the reaction to two different cancelled and wildly popular authors (J.K Rowling & Neil Gaiman). I don't support either of them but it's a bit weird how people were so quick to discredit all of Rowling's work but still uphold Gaiman's genius.

[humunanunga]

"allowed" is an interesting way to put that. And considering I'm visibly trans, it's especially interesting to assume I would've been in any way including Harry Potter in this statement.

tl;dr Harry Potter specifically has become a sewer. If you splash around in the sewer, you're gonna smell like a rat.

When JKR drank the koolaid and started using the profit she earns from her series to fund legislation that targets trans healthcare, everyone who gave a shit about the safety of trans Europeans stopped funding her success. When she points to the popularity of her series with blood libel, and the "ugly" professor having a hooked nose, and slave races that are happier as slaves, she uses her fandom's continued survival as proof that the fans of her books still agree with her political beliefs, that some fans are just quieter about their endorsement now "because of woke" or whatever.

Plenty of autuers have publicly expressed their political views, but they don't all use their social platforms to tell their audiences who to vote for or what bills to pass. HP Lovecraft is dead. He can't influence antisemitic policies from the grave. JKR is alive and using her literary success to empower transphobic politicians.

And therein lies the difference between praising fanon over canon and... this.

This isn't some corporation that owns all the brands of food you can afford, or that you can tolerate putting in your mouth, or that don't include a niche allergen. Because JKR explicitly makes Harry Potter politically-involved, all the Potterheads who didn't want to show support for the same policies as her left the fandom. And that's okay. You can feel hurt by the fond memories she betrayed by exploiting something you cherished for a vile goal.

What it comes down to is that JKR pissed in the pool, and now all the swimmers that didn't get out are doing it too.

Because of what she's done, Harry Potter has evolved into a safe space for terfs. Your association with Harry Potter signals to terfs that you must have stayed in the fandom because you're One Of Them.

If you don't want anyone to tell you what you smell like, it's time to get out and wash off.

[azure-arsonist]

Hot take: Hetalia and Harry Potter are both problematic. but as far as I know, only one of those IPs is funding actively harmful legislation, and it's not the country yaoi show

[murmurandum]

i hate when i go on the fuck jkr tag to reblog some good jkr hate and half of it is people talking about the books. brother can you read ANY other book its literally not that hard

[revengebarbie]

I'm going to say something that might ruffle a few feathers because I'm brave enough to do it. Everyone loves to scream "JKR is a TERF!!!!!111!!!!~!1!", but... hear me out.... what if she actually isn't, and her cause was badly misconstrued?

I don't believe she was saying “trans people don’t matter.” She was trying to ask, “Why is there no room for women to process how we’re impacted by these massive shifts in language, policy, and cultural norms?” And that’s a fair question. Even if people disagree with the conclusions, the question itself shouldn’t be radioactive.

JKR stepped into that minefield and, yeah, a lot of people felt hurt. And also—a lot of people felt seen. But somewhere along the way, it stopped being about what she said and became about what people decided it meant. Any attempt to clarify got flattened under slogans and assumptions. And the digital discourse around her is no longer about dialogue, it’s a purity litmus test. You either denounce her entirely or you’re cast as anti-trans. That’s not just intellectually dishonest—it’s a chokehold on honest engagement.

The deeper issue here? Society has a hard time holding two truths at once. That you can support trans rights and still question what it means to safeguard sex-based protections. That you can want bodily autonomy for everyone and still be deeply uncomfortable with fast-tracked medicalization of youth. That you can love inclusion and still feel unease when female identity is reframed as “a feeling” instead of a material reality shaped by oppression.

What gets erased in the noise is context: that women, especially older women, have spent decades fighting to name and own their experience. So when language gets restructured—when “woman” becomes controversial or sanitized into neutral clinical terms like "person who menstruates" or "chest feeder" or "birth giver"—it can feel like hard-won ground is being silently pulled out from under them.

And if we can’t even say that out loud without being dogpiled, something’s broken.

You don’t have to be a fan of everything Rowling’s said. You don’t have to endorse the way she’s framed every argument. But to reduce her to a cartoon villain or insist that any woman who asks “but what about us?” is automatically hateful? That’s not justice. That’s erasure by another name.

We have to be able to hold tension. To listen without always agreeing. To believe people can care about multiple groups at once. And if the culture can’t allow for that? Then maybe it’s not as progressive as it thinks it is.

The real crime wasn't hatred, but her refusal to stay silent. And whether folks agree or not, that deserves more honesty and less dogma.

People on the internet may be quick to flatten me into a villain for voicing a concern, completely ignoring the fact that my track record is one of empathy, curiosity, and allyship. I didn’t just jump on some late-stage “woke” bandwagon, I was already there when it was still risky and confusing and uncool to care. Yeah, the early 2000s. I lived the awkward years of learning how to show up, how to listen, how to be there for my queer friends before the world even handed me the language to do it perfectly when I was barely a teenager.

So when people act like I'm suddenly sus because I’ve grown into more complex thoughts, more layered questions, or because I don’t toe the party line 100% of the time, that’s not justice. That’s revisionism.

It’s not that I've turned my back on inclusion. It’s that my idea of inclusion includes women, includes nuance, includes being allowed to question without being exiled. I didn’t stop caring. I started caring more deeply, more holistically. And that’s what hurts, that I gave my heart early, and now you're being told it’s not good enough unless it conforms completely.

But the truth is? I was already doing the work before it became a social currency. And now that I'm asking harder questions, I'm being treated like you’re betraying the cause—when in reality, I'm just refusing to silence parts of myself in order to be accepted.

[violet-phoenix-nebula]

Something just occurred to me re: JKR and her seeking validation and relevance and I'm gonna try to put it in a way that makes sense.

You know what people say about kids throwing tantrums and acting out because they want attention?

Bad attention is still attention.

Boycotting the entire HP fandom as a whole qualifies as bad attention. It tells her she has power over you and your life choices. It tells her she's still relevant.

Shit, we saw that mindset how many years ago when someone tweeted her saying they were burning their books and her response was basically "well I already have your money so I don't care".

She doesn't give a solitary flying rats ass about the fandom or the fans or the boycotting. She does not give a damn whether you engage with the work or not.

She cares if you give her your money, and she cares that she has power over you.

OBVIOUSLY don't put a penny in her pocket that's a fucking given. I'm saying that to clarify because if I don't, someone is guaranteed to claim I'm saying otherwise.

[werewolf-cuddles]

the thing is, i dont think people who like still engage in harry potter are literally hitler or anything but like, like it or not harry potter is the platform she stands on and whether you give her money or not its still aiding in her platform by keeping harry potter around in the public zeitgeist. sure you specifically may not have much of an impact just blogging on your blog about these things but it does add up. its like with scott cawthon and five nights at freddy's the harm they are doing wouldnt be possible without both monetary and social acceptance. As a former harry potter and fnaf fan myself, i just wonder how much does it take to just cut it from ones lives. Like is it even bringing any joy to anyone anymore

I appreciate where you're coming from, but if I may be blunt, that ship has sailed. Harry Potter as a franchise is already so thoroughly embedded in the public consciousness that nothing any of us could do would make a difference either way. We're about 25 years too late.

And if I may continue to be blunt, the calls for people to abandon Harry Potter and let it fade from the public consciousness is, ironically enough, also keeping it in the public consciousness. If you want people to stop talking about it, then practice what you preach and stop constantly bringing it up at every opportunity.

[6b4tgsl]

TRAs: "women can have penises & men can have vaginas", "clothes don't equal gender"

ALSO TRAs:

Idk why yall keep saying "being gay or trans is illegal in Algeria" like what tf does that have to do with anything!? No one is saying Imane is gay. JKR never said Imane is trans! Pls stop being slow!