#hermione is a black trans woman fight me

[logan-the-artist]

hermione’s off to do some light reading

[punkeropercyjackson]

Hot take but Percy Jackson actually isn't anything like Harry Potter and the reason they're popularly compared is due to the mass mischaracterization and misenterpretation that leads to sanatization of Percy to turn him into a more standard protagonist despite the whole point his character being that he's NOT normal while Harry's is that he IS and that made him into a very bland and lowkey passive aggressive bigot that's an awful example for kids while Percy is the perfect role model.Like let's look them over.Percy:

Was born poor and never becomes rich

Is a child abuse victim with consistent trauma responses and unhealthy coping mechanisms all the way starting at The Lightning Thief

Beat up bullies as a kid,was targeted by them to begin with because he's neurodivergent and his teachers picked on him too

Has nothing but love and respect for his fellow minorities,women especially thanks to being a mama's boy with no positive older male figures in his life except Beckendorf

Is pessimistic,sardonic,anger issued,bad at socializing and gets embarrased to be overly open with his emotions but none of this turns him into a bad person but instead makes him realistic and relatable

And he's also kind,gentle,nurturing to the point of basically adopting younger demigods as his found siblings and pseudo-kids if they don't have positive adult figures in their lives already,encouraging,loyal to a literal fatal fault and has a distinctive and iconic sense of humor that never dosen't land

Didn't like Annabeth or Rachel for shallow reasons and instead for their personalities and only wasn't into Reyna because he was taken at the time and treats all three of them very nicely

Is an instigator who's driving point as our hero is taking down corrupted figures but also does activism for the lesser treated people in his world by helping out every time he gets a chance to,has one of his core trait's being that he's COMPLETELY devoid in power hunger and pretty arguably counts as an anarchist because of this

Relating to the sense of humor thing again,his whole PERSONALITY is distinctive-He's not just some fantasy protagonist,he's PERCY JACKSON.The name alone gives everybody who's read the books flashbacks to all his crazy ass shit(affectionate)and that's how you know you've got a well-written protagonist

And Percy is legitimately transfem-coded,because i've met so many trans women in the Pjo fandom and every single one of them without exception have said that she's a femme trans woman egg.This also applies to black/afrolatino folks and autistics in the fandom like me to a less near universal extent

While Harry:

Grew up middle class and then got riches out the ass when the series started

Is a very poor attempt at positive abuse survivor rep because he uses his mental health as an excuse to a huge dick with no consequences given to him afterward

Had no tormenters other than the Dursleys

A 'dosen't know better and refuses to learn' typa bigot with tons of passive aggressive remarks about girls and ableism and fatphobia thrown in too,not to mention racist moments like hating Dean for dating Ginny

Is the quintessential young male fantasy protagonist and this is exactly his problem because it makes him boring asf and we're dealing with so much fucking damage in the kids fantasy genre thanks to his musty ass

All his crushes were shallow(Only liked Cho for a pretty girljock and only noticed Ginny when she became one too and prioritizes looks and society's idea of 'coolness' on the other girls his age too like damn i wonder why he only ever saw Hermione as a sister,surely it can't be connected /s)

Never does actual justice fighting unless he's required to and don't tell me he shouldn't have needed to because this wasn't real life,it was a magics series so he should've fought evil on purpose like Percy did and so did Katniss Everdeen and the Pevensie Siblings and all the other actual good kids books protags.This genre is supposed to be a power fantasy for kids that they can be heroes too and Harry failed big time at his job just like he did at everything else

Again,he is VERY mediocre as a character but mediocrity sells and now we have a million clones of him instead of real mcs

Is part of exactly zero minorities,neither intentionally or accidentally,and that made him grow up to be a cop.Douchebag ass white straight boy Harry vs Autistic afrolatina transfemme slay Percy.No competition,Percy's punk so she'd kill Harry to earn her blue laces

And before Maraturds and Luke/gods stans get bold,you're literally him irl but worse besties♡

[anime-villian-irl]

The big three

Or: harry , Hermione , Ron

Hari Evans

One hundred and ten percent done

Permanent stank face

Mixed part desi part black British

Bisexual, nonbinary, he/him or they/them

Some days they just want to face plant on their bed and fall into a coma

Weird parental relationship with snape

Does not think just does

Dating Drea Malfoy

You can't see it cause this is a picrew but their scar is like that scar you get when hit by lighting

Is am actual cryptid like literally a strange phenomenon

Hermione Granger

She is the only one in this group with brain cells

Arguably one of the most powerful in the group

She may or may not be considered a symbol of death by the wizard community

Crippling anxiety and inferiority complex meet to make "gifted kid"

I hope you can tell i tried to make her plump she isn't supposed to be skinny

Yes that is the bigender flag but she only uses she/her

Her magic is inherently black magic (no this is not a black joke) it's because of how her body is literally cursed to hold magic

Dating pansy parkison

Robin Weasley

The forgotten child

Really good at charms , shit at potions though

Fully ready to fight a grizzly bear but will shit her pants seeing a tiny spider

Trans woman she/her

Complicated relationship with her parents

Dating Blaise Zabini

Was fully ready to fist fight snape in first year

Scabbers wasn't a hand me down pet she just found up one day and kept him like the fuckin weirdo she is

Feral little girl

[rudolphsboyfriend]

JKR’s chamber of secrets: the racist undertones in the harry potter books

The harry potter book series is arguably one of the most popular works of modern fiction. It is widely regarded as essential reading for children all over the world, and has one of the biggest fan bases of any book series. Despite it being one of the biggest phenomena of English literature, the series and the author often showcase and promote bigoted opinions, such as racism, and transphobia. In this speech I will be discussing JKRs chamber of secrets: the underlying tones of racism in the Harry Potter books.

The first thing I would like to point out, is that the elves have from the beginning been seen as these happy, carefree slaves, that are completely and utterly against freedom. This to begin with, is feeding into the slaving myth and propaganda that slave owners that told to the general public so they could benefit from free labour. This is very racist as it suggests that JKR believes that slaves were a good thing and should not have been eradicated. Hermione is the only one who seems to care about the elves’ freedom and while fighting for their freedom she is seen as a silly, misguided person for it.

Another problem with this is that while the good guys try to fight back against Voldemort's racist ideology of only wanting purebloods to exist, and wants to eradicate muggleborns, they also complicit with Voldemort's racist ideology. Wizards treat muggles as inferior to them this is shown from the first book, ‘even the muggles have noticed somethings going on’ Professor McGonagall says dismissively and Hagrid tells Harry ‘It’s your bad luck you grew up in a family o’ the biggest Muggles I ever laid eyes on’. It is obvious that the word muggle is not only a description it’s an insult. They also abuse muggles by erasing their memories which is distinctly a violation of consent. The books show an obvious social hierarchy, the idea that some people are better than others: purebloods, half-bloods, muggleborns, muggles, half-giants, werewolves, goblins, elves. And if this way of thinking is applied, as this book is targeted to children it can make them think that some people are better than others and if they apply this to race, sexuality, and transgender people, it can create a generation of bigoted people as so many people see her as a role model that they can copy her bigoted way of thinking. She is one of the main reasons that there are so many transphobic people is because SHE encouraged them to become more radicalised.

J.K Rowling is also anti semantic as she based goblins on harmful Jewish stereotypes. Due to years of anti-Semitism Jews were portrayed as having big noses and being greedy, as they tended to work with money. But at this point who's surprised?

The few people of colour presented in the books were done in a racist fashion. Firstly, the Patil sisters, were the only desi characters in the book and they were sort of prissy and irrelevant to the story, that being said. The outfit they were is a more simplistic, watered-down, unflattering version of actual Indian ethnic wear. In general, Indian clothing is so bright and beautiful, and the designs are so intricate, the designers simply didn’t bother to represent Indian culture, instead chose to focus entirely on Hermione's glow up. Secondly, Cho Chang. WOW! Do I need to say more? This is one of the most openely racist things she has done. She took two Korean surnames mixed them together and called it a day. Especially in a magical world full of mystical names like Luna Lovegood, Albus Dumbledore, and Nymphadora Tonks, she didn’t even give the name even an ounce of thought.

By casting a Korean actress to play Nagini, in Fantastic Beasts, who later on becomes a pet for a white man, when she is the only Asian character is racist. End of story. It is specifically the lack of diversity that makes this stand out. It IS racist to Asian women because Asian women only ever see stereotypes like the exotic Asian woman who is fetishized by white men – which is a REAL thing. Having Nagini being owned and controlled by a white man, is harmful and just racist. Did J.K Rowling not have a single person that could have pointed the problem of having an Asian women end up in permanent enslavement to an evil white guy?

Due to the criticism J.K Rowling received for not including enough diversity in the books, she claimed that Hermione was black, which is great, but did not bother to include this in the books. She thought that by saying that ‘hey guys I now think Hermione is black’ it was enough. She simply wanted those brownie points. It is increasingly obvious that she can never be bothered to write good representation.  She also did this when she made Albus Dumbledore gay, as queer baiting to add more diversity. This could be rebutted with the idea that she does not know how to include more accurate representation. However, Rick Riordan, who in the beginning didn’t have a very inclusive universe, strived and learned to write and include diversity in the Percy Jackson universe. The author of one of the most popular book series is more than capable of learning how to write more inclusive books, she does not though because she is racist, homophobic and transphobic.

In conclusion, there are a lot of racist undertones to the harry potter books, that reflect the authors actual feelings in real life. She does not include enough representation and the few she does are written in a racist manner. In recent years she has also proved to be incredibly transphobic, teaching young children who see her as a role model that trans men are not real men, when they are and the other way round. And this concludes, today’s speech on why JK Rowling is a vile human being.

this is my speech it suck but it drags JKR through the mud and i have no brain cells left over

also @noboren and @sarcastic-sayori heres my shitty speech if you think of ways of making better please tell me

WOOHOO BESTIEEE NICE!!!!! Drag her 😌🙏🏼

[amphtaminedreams]

J.K Rowling & The Echo Chamber of TERFs: Why Nobody Wants your Transphobic “Opinion”

TW// Discussion of Sexual Assault and Transphobia

SO...

I’ve seen the term “allyship fatigue” going round a lot lately on Twitter, since the issues of police brutality, institutional racism, and now transphobia have taken central stage.

And it’s weird. To be honest, hearing other white cis people calling themselves “allies” has always sounded kinda self-congratulatory. Taking this to the level of martyrdom that the phrase “allyship fatigue” evokes makes me want to heave. It’s shit that anyone even has to be saying Black Lives STILL Matter, but it does seem to unfortunately be the case that every time there is a highly publicised murder of a black individual by police, the explosion of us white people calling ourselves allies and retweeting and reblogging statements of solidarity only lasts so long before half revert back to being complacent with and uncritical of a world seeped with casual racism. Is that what “allyship fatigue” is? The excuse for that? Not only does the term take the focus off of the marginalised group the movement is centred around but it makes supporting equal rights sound like some kind of heroic burden we’ve chosen to take on rather than addressing a debt we owe and being not even good but just plain decent human beings. WE are not the ones shouldering the weight here, and if your mental health is suffering, that is not the fault of the people asking for their rights. Log off. We have the privilege to do that. It just doesn’t need to be a spectacle.

At the same time, this public onslaught of ignorance and hatred that the coverage of the Black Lives Matter movement has triggered (that let me again emphasise, black people have had to involuntarily be on the receiving end of their whole lives) and the frustration and anger that comes from seeing these absolute trash takes from people with no research into the subject who build their argument purely on “what about”isms is do-I-even-want-to-bring-children-into-this-fucking-world levels of miserable. In terms of earth beginning to look more and more like the prequel describing the events which lead up to a dystopian novel, the chaos of the last 4 weeks or so (2020 has not only shattered the illusion of time but also danced on the shards, I know) is the tip of the iceberg. I saw a thread about what’s going on in Yemen at the moment, which I had no idea about, and immediately felt consumed by guilt that I didn’t know. With the advent of social media, there’s been this sudden evolutionary shift where we’re almost required and expected to know about, have an opinion on, and be empathetic with every humanitarian crisis at once. I think young people feel this especially, which is why I say that sometimes it’s worth talking to an older person before you brush them off as a racist or a homophobe and see if they’re open to hearing different opinions-in general, I think we’re a generation that is used to being expected to consume a huge amount of information at once. They are not. For a lot (NOT all) of the older, middle-class, white population, ignorance isn’t a conscious choice, it is the natural way of life. The parameters of empathy until very recently have only had to extend just past your closest circle of friends to encompass people you “relate to”. That doesn’t mean they aren’t capable of caring about other things, and sometimes we owe them a chance to change their perspective first, if for no reason other than to advance the cause of, well, basic human rights for all.

So where does J.K Rowling come into all this? I hear you ask. Why doesn’t she just stop rambling? You potentially wonder. Well, I’m getting to it. 

J.K Rowling isn’t an unconsciously ignorant people. She is what I would call consciously ignorant. And of all weeks to flaunt this ignorance, she chose a time when people are already drowning in a cesspit of hatred. The woman whose whole book series supposedly revolves around the battle between good and evil didn’t even try to drain the swamp. She instead added a bucket of her transphobic vitriol into it. 

Let me preface this by saying that I wouldn’t wipe my arse with the Sun. What they did with the statement she made regarding her previous abusive relationship, seeking out said abusive partner for an interview and putting it on the front page with the headline “I slapped J.K”, whilst expected from the bunch of cretinous bottom feeders who work there, is disgusting. That being said, the pattern of behaviour J.K Rowling has exhibited since she first became an online presence is equally disgusting, and just because the Sun have been their usual shithead selves, doesn’t mean we should forget the issue at hand, that issue being her ongoing transphobia and erasure of trans women from women’s rights.

As I’m sure is the case for many people on Tumblr, J.K Rowling has always been such a huge inspiration for me, and Harry Potter was my entire childhood. My obsession with it continued until I was at least 16 and is what got me through the very shit years of being a teenager, and that will forever be the case. I’m not here to discuss the whole separation of the art from the artist thing because whilst I ordinarily don’t think that’s really possible, at this point the “Harry Potter universe” has become much bigger than J.K herself. I was so pleased to see Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint all affirm their support for trans rights-I was raised on the films up until the 4th one which I wasn’t old enough to see at the cinema, and the DVD was at the top of my Christmas list. They were always my Harry, Hermione and Ron. It was only between the fourth and fifth films that I started to read the books to fill that gaping in-between-movies hole, but as I grew up, I read them over and over and over again. Any of the subtext that people are talking about now in light of her antisemitism and transphobia went completely over my head, though who knows, whilst I can sit here and write that I’m certain I didn’t, maybe I did pick up some unconscious biases along the way? The art/artist discussion is a complex one and I don’t know if I’ll ever read the books again at this point.

There was absolutely no subtext, however, in the “think piece” on J.K’s website addressing the response to her transphobic tweets. There wasn’t all that much to unpack in the first tirade, they were quite openly dismissive-first that womanhood is defined by whether or not one experiences menstruation (I currently don’t due to health issues but I’m betting this wouldn’t make me any less woman in her eyes), and second, regurgitating an article which furthers the fallacy that trans women simply existing erases the existence of cisgender lesbian women. Rowling’s initial response to the backlash was to blame it on a glass of red wine, I think? Which is such a weird go-to excuse for celebrities because not once have I ever got drunk and completely changed my belief system. If you’re not transphobic sober, you don’t suddenly become transphobic drunk. What you are saying is that you’re not usually publicly transphobic (which isn’t even the case with Rowling because this is hardly her first flirtation with bigotry via social media) but that whoopsies! You drank some wine and suddenly thought it was acceptable!

Now what is her excuse for the formal response she wrote to the backlash, dripping with transphobic dog whistles and straight up misinformation (UPDATE: and as of yesterday, blocking Stephen King quite literally for replying to her with the tweet “trans women are women”, in case you thought that this whole thing was a case of her intentions being misconstrued)? Drunk tweets are one thing but if she managed to write a whole fucking essay whilst pissed I imagine there’s a lot of university students out there who’d pay her good money to learn that skill.

Here is the bottom line. TRANS WOMEN ARE WOMEN. There is no discussion around that. And if you don’t understand why, at the very least, you can be respectful of the way a person chooses to identify, especially when that person is an already targeted minority.

Obviously, sex and gender are complex things. Based on the fact that we don’t walk around with our nether-regions out, we generally navigate our way through the world using our gender and the way we present our gender. Gender of course means many different things to many different people; some see it as a sliding scale kind of thing whereas some people can’t see themselves on the scale at all, and choose to use terms other than man or woman to express how they identify. But, whatever gender one chooses to identify as, we live in a modern world-with all the scientific advancements we’ve made and all that we now know about the brain, using what is between people’s legs to define them is an ignorant, outdated copout. You’ll find that a lot of transphobes can live in harmony with trans women who conform, who have classically feminine features, maybe facial feminisation surgery, trans women who keep quiet about how they’re seen by cis women and don’t kick up “too much of a fuss” (which is in itself still a perfectly valid, brave and understandable way to live your life after years of feeling like you don’t fit in btw). The trans women that Joanne and her friends take the most issue with is the ones who want to expand what womanhood means and stretch the boundaries of what is and isn’t acceptable, destroying the confines of simplistic model that TERFs feel comfortable operating within. The ones who fight to be recognised as no “lesser” than cis women. Calling a person a TERF is quite literally just asserting that they are someone who wants to exclude trans women from their definition of womanhood, or in other words wants to cling to the old, obsolete model. If J.K Rowling cannot let the statement “trans women are women” go unchallenged (which we’ve seen from her response to Stephen King’s tweet she cannot), then she is by definition a TERF. It’s not a slur. It’s a descriptor indicating the movement she has chosen to associate herself with. Associating the descriptor of the position you so vehemently refuse to denounce in spite of all evidence and information offered to you with the concept of a “witch hunt” when trans women are ACTUALLY brutally murdered for an innate part of their identity is insulting, at the very least.

Let’s get this straight: despite transphobes trying to conflate sex with gender and arguing that sex is the only “real” identifier of the two, our existence on this planet and our perception of this world is a gendered experience. It is our brain, where the majority of researchers agree that gender lies, which decides and dictates not only who we are and how we feel but also how we interact with everyone around us. I don’t think it’s an outlandish statement to say that when it comes to who we are as people, that flesh machine protected by our skull is the key player.  PSA for transphobes everywhere: when people say penises have a mind of their own, they are NOT talking literally. The more you know. 

Gender is obviously a much newer concept than sex-it is both influenced by and interacts with every element of our lives. It’s also much more complex, in that there are still many gaps in our understanding. I assume these two factors combined with the familiarity of the (usually) binary model of biological sex are a part of why TERFS fundamentally reject the importance of gender in favour of the latter. Yes, most of the time, we feel our gender corresponds with our sex, but not always, and nor is there any concrete proof that this has to be the case. Most studies tend to agree that our brains start out as blank slates, that we grow into the gender we are assigned based on our bodies. In other words, our sex only defines our gender insofar as the historical assumption that they are the same thing, which in turn exposes us to certain cultural expectations. To any TERFs that have somehow ended up here-if you haven’t already, I suggest looking into the research of Gina Rippon, a neuroscientist whom has spent a large portion of her professional career analysing the data of sex differences in the brain. Whilst she originally set out to find some kind of consistent variance between the brains of the 2 prominent sexes to back up the idea that the brains of men and women are inherently different, she found nothing of significance-individual differences, yes, but no consistent similarities in the brains of one sex that were not present in the other. Once differences in brain size were accounted for, “well-known” sex differences in key structures disappeared-in terms of proportion, these structures take up the same amount of space in the brain regardless of sex. Her findings are best summed up by her response to the question: are there any significant differences in the brain based on sex alone? Her answer is no. To suggest otherwise is “neurofoolishness”. Not only does her research help put to bed the myth that our brains are sexed along with the rest of our bodies during development (this is now believed to happen separately, meaning the sex of our bodies and brains may not correspond), but also the idea propagated by the patriarchy for centuries that basically boils down to “boys will be boys”-a myth used to condone male sexual violence against women and even against each other on the basis that it is inherent and “can't be helped”. That they are just “built differently”. Maybe at one point in human evolution, men were conditioned to fight and women were conditioned to protect, but whilst the idea remains and continues to affect our societal structures (and thus said cultural expectations), we’ve moved on. I mean we evolved from fish for fuck’s sake but you don’t see us breathing underwater. 

Gender identity is based on many things and admittedly we don’t fully have the complete picture yet. The effects that socialisation and gender norms in particular, as much as we don’t want them to exist, have on our brain are huge; there’s evidence that they can leave epigenetic marks, or in other words cause structural changes in the brain which drive biological functions and features as diverse as memory, development and disease susceptibility. Socialisation alters the way our individual brains develop as we grow up, and as much as I’d love to see gender norms disappear, they’ll probably be around for a long time to come, as will their ramifications. The gap between explaining how socialisation affects the brain of cisgender individuals compared to the brains of transgender or non-binary individuals is not yet totally clear, but as with every supposed cause and effect psychology tries to uncover, there are outliers and individual differences. No, brains are not inherently male or female at birth but they are all different, and can be affected by socialisation differently. In one particularly groundbreaking study conducted by Dick Swaab of the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, postmortems of the brains of transgender women revealed that the structure of one of the areas in the brain most important to sexual behaviour more closely resembled the postmortem brains of cisgender women than those of cisgender men-it’s also important that these differences did not appear to be attributable to the influence of endogenous sex hormone fluctuations or hormone treatment in adulthood.

Maybe dysphoria is something that evolves organically and environmental factors don’t even come into it. Like I said, we don’t have the whole picture. What we DO know is that for some people, as soon as they become self-aware, that dysphoria is there, and the evidence for THAT, for there being common variations between the brains of cisgender individuals and transgender individuals, is overwhelming. You can be trapped in a body that does not correspond with how your brain functions, or how you wish to see yourself. Do individuals like J.K Rowling really believe it is ethical to reinforce the idea that we are defined by our sex and that our sex should decide the course of our lives, should decide how we are treated? That we should reduce people to genitals and chromosomes when our gender, the lens through which we see and interact with the world, could be completely different? Do they not see anything wrong with perpetuating the feelings of “otherness” and dysphoria in trans individuals that results from society’s refusal to see them as anything more than what body parts they have? In a collaboration between UCLA MA neuroscience student Jonathan Vanhoecke and Ivanka Savic at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, the statistics collected pointed to what trans activists have always been trying to get at-the areas of the brain responsible for our sense of our identity showed far more neural activity in the brains of trans individuals when they were looking at depictions of their body that had been changed to match their gender identity than when this wasn’t the case; when they saw themselves with a body that corresponded with their gender identity, when they were “valid” by society’s definition, they felt more themselves. When J.K Rowling tells trans people that their “real identity” is the sex they were born with, she is denying them this right to be themselves and due to her large platform, encouraging others to do the same. YOU are doing that, J.K. And who knows why? Where does your transphobia come from? Peel back the bullshit layers of waffle about feeling silenced and threatened, which you know you are directing at the wrong group of people, and admit it’s for less noble reasons. Taking the time to unlearn the instinct embedded into your generation to see people according to the cultural status quo of biological determinism is effort, I know-but you wrote a 700+ page book. I’m sure you can manage it. Or is it an ego thing? You don’t want to admit that you may have been uneducated on gender and sex in the past, and now have to stick by your reductive position so your image as an “intellectual” isn’t compromised. I don’t know. Only you do. But your position is irresponsible and dangerous either way. You can make up bullshit reasons as to why the link between trans individuals and the incidence of suicide attempts and completions isn’t relevant or representative of the struggle that trans people face due to the hatred that people like you propagate but it is there, and you J.K Rowling, someone who has spoken in the past about the horror of depression, should know better. You should know better than to CLAIM you know better than the experienced researchers who have found the same pattern time and time again-that the likelihood of trans individuals committing suicide is significantly higher than that of cis people. 

No, Rowling’s transphobia has never been as upfront as saying “I don’t believe transgender people exist” but she continues to imply that when she makes claims such as womanhood being defined by whether or not one experiences menstruation, and the completely subjective concept of whether an individual has faced sex-based violence from cisgender men. I’m sure she’d be out here taking chromosome proof cards like Oysters if it wasn’t for intersex individuals throwing her whole binary jam into a tailspin. Yep, there’s even suggestions that the binary biological model might not be so binary these days-just because two people have, say, XY chromosomes, does not mean that these chromosomes are genetically identical between individuals-the genes they carry can, and do, vary and so their actions and expressions of sex vary. 

Ideally, what TERFs want to do with their language of “real womanhood” is create an exclusive club that trans women are left out of when they too suffer under the same patriarchal society that those who are born female do. Yes, they might not experience ALL the issues a person born with female genitalia do, but no two women’s life experiences are the same anyway. Trans women also have their own horrible experiences with the patriarchy, and are often victims of a specific kind of gendered violence that is purported by the idea of “real womanhood”. Don’t throw trans sisters under the bus because you’re angry about your experience as a woman on this planet-direct your anger at the fucking bus. Don’t claim that “many trans people regret their decision to transition” when the statistics overwhelmingly show that this is the EXACT FUCKING OPPOSITE of the truth (according to British charity organisation Mermaids, surgical regret is proportionately very low amongst gender affirmation outpatients and research suggesting otherwise has been broadly disproven) because you’ve spoken to a selective group of trans individuals probably handpicked by the TERFS you associate with to confirm their biases, and then have the nerve to claim that trans-activists live in echo chambers on top of that. Don’t use anecdotes and one-off incidences where “trans women” (I say trans women in quotation marks because we’re pretty much talking about a completely statistically insignificant group of perverted cis men who have, according to TERFs, somehow come to the conclusion that going through transition will make their already easy-to-get-away-with hobby of assaulting women even...easier to get away with?) have committed sexual crimes to demonise and paint as predatory group who are largely at risk and in 99.9% of situations, the ones being preyed on. It’s a point so disgusting that trans activists shouldn’t even have to respond to it, but the idea that an individual would go to the pains of legally changing their gender and potentially the hell of the harassment that trans people face, the multiple year long NHS waiting lists to see specialist doctors,  just so that they can gain access to women only spaces is ridiculous. It’s worth noting here just how sinister you repeatedly bringing up this phantom threat of cis men becoming trans women in order to assault women in “women only” spaces is. The implication here is that they should use the toilet corresponding to the sex they were born as, right? Because it’s all about safety? Well, statistically speaking, far more trans women are abused whilst having to use men’s toilets than when they use women’s ones and the same goes for trans men, and yet you don’t mention it once. Your suggestion also puts people born female who identify as women but maybe do not dress or present in a typically feminine way at risk of being ostracised when THEY need to use the women’s bathroom. The idea that by ceasing to uphold values like yours we are putting women at risk is quite simply, unsubstantiated; the legislation to allow individuals to use the bathroom corresponding to whichever gender they legally identify as has been around since 2010 in the UK and yet we’ve yet to see the sudden spike in the number of women being assaulted in bathrooms you imply will exist if we create looser rules around gender identity and let people use whichever toilet they feel the need to. Similarly, in a study of US school districts, Media Matters found that 17 around the country with protections for trans people, which collectively cover more than 600,000 students, had no problems with harassment in bathrooms or locker rooms after implementing their policies. If cis men want to assault women, they will. They don’t need to pretend to be trans to do so. Don’t pretend to be speaking as a concerned ally of LGBTQ+ individuals when you’re ignoring the thoughts of the majority of individuals who come under that category.

(Just Some of the Trans Women Murdered for Being Trans Over the Last Couple of Years, L-R: Serena Valzquez, Riah Milton, Bee Love Slater, Naomi Hersi, Layla Pelaez, and Dominique Fells)

Trans women are not the threat here. Bigots like you are the threat. HOW DARE you use your platform to reinforce this rhetoric that gets trans people killed when there are so many much MUCH more important things going on right now. Two black trans women had been murdered just for being black trans women in the week you wrote your essay defending those initial tweets. This is an ongoing issue. As a cis woman, my opinion should read as sacred texts to you right, Joanne? Because I’ll say with my whole chest that I feel far more threatened by bigots like you who do not care for the harmful impact of their words than I do by trans women. I do not feel threatened by trans women AT ALL. And yeah, to me, unless they tell me otherwise that they like to go out their way to affirm their trans-ness (which I completely respect-it takes a lot of courage to be proud about your past in a world that condemns you for it), they’re just WOMEN like any other. Yes their experience of “womanhood” may be different to mine but no two individuals experiences are the same anyway and our gender related suffering has the same cause. As a rich, white, cis woman, it’s wild that you are painting yourself as the victim in this debate when trans people can face life in prison and in some places a death sentence for openly identifying with a gender different to their sex in a lot of countries. Nobody is saying that you can’t talk about cis women. Nobody is saying you can’t talk about lesbian issues either, though it’s a bit of a piss-take that you like to throw that whole trans women erase lesbian existence argument out there as a kind of trump card to say “look, I can’t be a transphobe, I’m an LGBTQ+ ally!”, an argument akin to the racist’s age old “I can’t be racist, I have black friends!”. You know from the responses you get to your transphobia that majority of the LGBTQ+ community are very much adamant that trans women are “real women” and that the same goes for trans men being “real men”, so don’t claim to speak for them. You cannot simultaneously care about LGBTQ+ rights and deny trans people their right to live as who they are, however veiled your sentiments around that may be. The whole gay rights movement of the 60s and 70s exist partially BECAUSE of black trans women such as Martha P Johnson if you didn’t know, and though it’s kinda common knowledge I’m doubting that you do because very little of what you tout is backed up by any kind of research. The articles you retweet, echoing the views of lesbians who also happen to be TERFs do not count-the idea that trans people existing simultaneously erases the existence of lesbians only applies to individuals such as yourself who don’t see trans women as women in the first place. That is the problem! Most people don’t have an issue with the fact that you may have a preference for certain genitalia, but I would argue that ignoring exceptional circumstances related to trauma or some other complex issue, relationships are supposed to be with the person as a whole, not their “organic” penis or vagina and it’s kind of insulting to anyone in a same sex relationship to reduce their bond to that.

Back to my point though, of course there are issues that cis women and lesbians face that need talking about, but trans people are affected by the same patriarchal system. You don’t need to go out of your way to mention that they’re not included in whichever given specific issue when there are also cis women who may not have experienced some of the things TERFs reference. You especially don’t need to act as if trans women are the reason we need to have these discussions in the first place. As I’ve said, as MANY women have said, repeatedly-they are NOT the threat here. It is disgusting to see someone I once had so much admiration for constantly punch down at a group that is already marginalised.  It’s 2020, J.K, there’s so much info out there. YOU’RE A FULLY GROWN WOMAN. There’s no justification. We get it, you had a tomboy phase. You weren’t like “other girls”. You didn’t like living under a patriarchal system. So you think you understand the mindset of people who want to transition. You think you’re not doing anything wrong by helping to slow the advancement of trans rights because well, you turned out fine? But you clearly fundamentally misunderstand what being trans is. It’s not about your likes and dislikes and having issues with the experience of being a woman (god knows we all do but I doubt anyone truly thinks for one moment that being trans would be any easier), it’s about how you think and feel at your core. It’s such a complex issue, and all the majority of trans people are asking you to do is LISTEN to them. You may be determined to live in binaries, yet the bigger picture is always more complex and fluid and it’s ever-changing, so all we can do is keep an open mind and keep wanting to know more and gather more evidence. If you’re capable of the mental gymnastics required to retcon the piece of work you wrote in the 90s to make it seem as if you were “ahead of the diversity game”, to the extent that you are now claiming Voldermort’s snake has always actually been a Korean woman and see nothing wrong with that when paired with the fact that the only Asian character you originally included was called Cho Chang, then well…I’m sure you can put your ego aside and do the groundwork to understand what trans people are trying to tell you too. You inspired a lot of children and teenagers and even adults, and got them through some very difficult times, taught that the strength of one’s character matters far more than what anyone thinks of you. You claimed you wanted to stand up for the outcasts.

Well, stand up for the outcasts. Now’s a better time than any. And once again: TRANS WOMEN ARE WOMEN AND TRANS MEN ARE MEN. They shouldn’t have to hear anything else.

Lauren x

[DISCLAIMER: shitty collages are mine but the background is not, let me know if you are aware of the artist so I can credit!]

[bafflinghaze]

As inspired by @rose-grangerweasleyisbae‘s HP Femslash rec lists (part 1, part 2), here are some of my recs!

*

Distractions - @morningsound15​

Ginny sighed and slumped back in her seat. “You’re letting him win. He’s winning the breakup!”

 “Everything you’re saying is ridiculous! You can’t win a breakup.”

 “Obviously you can, and Ron is doing it!”

 “You’re being childish. Not everything is about winning and losing.”

 Ginny frowned at Hermione’s nonchalance.

--

Ron and Hermione have recently broken up, and Ginny — concerned for her best friend — has decided that the only thing for Hermione to do now is to date someone new to make Ron jealous. And who better than Hermione’s best friend (and coincidentally Ron’s younger sister) to drive him absolutely mental?

Fake Dating AU

8.4k, Mature | Contains: Fake/Pretend Relationship and all it’s associated angst! Add it with disapproval from the Weasley family and drama and yesss.

*

Independent Love Song - @writcraft

Millicent Bulstrode is a tailor and Ginny is losing her mind over a woman in a tweed blazer and burgundy brogues.

6.2k, Explicit | Contains: Queer themes and BUTCH Millicent. Which is now absolutely canon in my head.

*

Live Wire - jamiesfreckles

In which there are explosions of all kinds.

“Shut the doors," Cho said.

Pansy shut the doors. It didn't even occur to her to argue with that tone, and Pansy spent most of her life arguing with all sorts of tones.

2.6k, Explicit | Contains: Spies and secret agents, badass Cho and Pansy!

*

Slytherin Altruism - @owlswithfins

“I’m sure he’ll be here soon,” the waitress said.

Suddenly someone slid into the booth across from her. “She,” the woman corrected, setting down her purse and smoothing her skirt. “Sorry I’m late, babe. You know how it is down at the Prophet.”

Hermione’s mouth fell open as she stared dumbly at one Pansy Parkinson. Pansy sent her a look that said, “just go with it” and took Gryffindor’s hand in her own. Hermione shut her mouth.

4.3k, Teens and Up | Contains: Fake/Pretend Relationship and Pansy saving the day (I love Pansy)!!

*

pure temptation - SkyRose

A series about the relationship between domme Narcissa Black and blackmailed Minister of Magic Hermione Granger.

3.5k, Explicit | Contains: ...Smut. This is smut, y’all.

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Blood Will Out  - @frnklymrshnkly 

Marietta Edgecombe doesn’t need re-education. She’s done nothing wrong. She just wants to keep her head down and keep her job. At least until Pansy Parkinson starts acting weird and a visit to the Healer suddenly brings the post-war conversation too close for comfort.

21k, Teens and Up | Contains: Candid talk about menstruation, and the patriarchy, amazing Pansy, and banter and flirting and a great slice-of-life-y fic!

*

No Dead Lesbians  - @frnklymrshnkly

That one where Fleur joins in the Order, falls arse over teakettle in love with Tonks, becomes bffs with Sirius Black, and accidentally gets Tonks pregnant, all while banterously fighting the good fight against Big V.

43k, Teens and Up | Contains: Soft Butch Fleur, amazing Tonks, the great F/F version of mpreg! And as always, candid talk about life.

*

the old men call me by my mother's name - theviolonist

[Trans!Ron; Ron/Hermione, various pairings] He learned his lesson a long time ago. Boys are boys, girls are girls. And Ron, Ron makes a good boy. He's tall, sturdy, manly, not like some of those long-haired Slytherins he sometimes mistakes for girls when they slink in the dark corridors with their robes floating behind them. He plays Quidditch. He loves Hermione, with a little too much intensity and adoration for a boy his age, but that's what constant brushes with death do to you. He shaves; he doesn't jerk off, granted, but apart from that, he's pretty much the poster boy for healthy, honest masculinity.

So why is it, then - why is it he can't believe it, not for one second?

25.5k, Teens and Up | Contains: Okay, not a standard femslash fic, but LGBTQ Themes, Transwoman!Ron, and supportive characters all round????! Anyone who knows me knows I have a huge soft spot for queer/trans/nb fics, and this is absolutely lovely.

*

There are only eight on here, for now, and there is so much more I love (but need to track down!). Please add love ❤️

[drpepperhateblog]

In light of the Maya controversy, I just want to say that I think misgendering on purpose is cruel and her workplace is absolutely allowed to fire her over it. I think Tumblr sometimes picks silly fights, but this isn’t one of them. I also can’t say I’m surprised that JK Rowling holds these beliefs. I remember when I was a child and I read the Harry Potter books and found that the boys can’t enter the girls’ dormitory but the girls can enter the boys’, and of course the entire creepy love potion concept and Voldemort’s mom not being treated as Kilgrave 2.0 but instead as some poor lovesick woman. She seems to hold very old-fashioned views about men and women.

It also did seem odd that the supposedly “woke” JK Rowling never had any stories about, say, women “becoming men” through magic or potions? I believe there was some potion in the books that could transform the wearer to look like someone else. Obviously this wouldn’t be the perfect politically correct way to present trans people, but it would have been a simple way to “sneak in” trans representation into the books without raising huge controversy. I mean, if Dumbledore could be gay... (Which also, conveniently, has no proof in the text, same goes for Black Hermione. It’s almost as if JKR’s wokeness is fake...)

As for the “trans women are just men pretending to be women” argument I keep seeing... Sure, there’s probably someone out there pretending to be trans. But for each one of those pretending there’s at least 100 more pretending to be cis in order to not face discrimination, violence, or worse, and I think it’s more important to protect them.

In short: I may share different opinions than the majority of Tumblr on some political issues, but in this case I think they are 100% correct. Trans people may have different experiences from cis people, but there’s more to being a woman or a man than what’s between your legs. Being a good writer doesn’t mean being a good politician. I’d argue that JKR is neither and there’s probably someone who wants me beheaded for that, but I digress.

[chthonic-cassandra]

I read 482 books in 2018, which is pretty similar to 2017. I rated just under 30 of them 5 stars on Goodreads. They are (with the caveat that the list is skewed; I’m more likely to rate memoirs 5 stars for reasons of nebulous principle):

Hermione Lee, Virginia Wolf James Baldwin, Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone bell hooks, Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood Samuel Delaney, Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand Tatyana Tolstaya, White Walls: Collected Stories (trans. Jamey Gambrell) Svetlana Alexievich, Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster (trans. Keith Gessen) Sister Dianne Ortiz, The Blindfold’s Eyes: My Journey from Torture to Truth Marcus Rediker, The Slave Ship: A Human History Camilla Townsend, Malintzin’s Choices: An Indian Woman in the Conquest of Mexico Laurie Ann Pearlman & Karen W. Saakvitne, Trauma and the Therapist: Countertransference and Vicarious Traumatization in Psychoherapy with Incest Survivors Peter Orner, ed, Underground America: Narratives of Undocumented Lives Elisabeth Tova Bailey, The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating Suzette Boon, Otto van der Hart & Kathy Steele, Treating Trauma-Related Dissociation: A Practical, Integrative Approach and Coping with Trauma-Related Dissociation: Skills Training for Patients and Therapists Jesmyn Ward, Men We Reaped Vincent Woodard, The Delectable Negro: Human Consumption and Homeroticism within US Slave Culture Sofia Samatar, The Winged Histories Claudia Rankine, The End of the Alphabet Hisham Matar, The Return: Fathers, Sons, and the Land In Between Annie G. Rogers, Incandescent Alphabets: Psychosis and the Enigma of Language Deb Perelman, Smitten Kitchen Everyday Arundhati Roy, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness Carmen Maria Machado, Her Body and Other Parties Nadia Murad, The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity and My Fight Against the Islamic State Akwaeke Emezi, Freshwater Pat Barker, The Silence of the Girls Henry James, Portrait of a Lady (reread)

I rated over 100 books 4 stars and so cannot list them all here, but it included many very excellent things that I feel bad about leaving out of this list.

[gendereuphoriaa]

a letter to jk rowling

don’t quite know where to start with this one. I’m a transgender girl. I’m 24 and live in London. We actually went to the same university which is cool! I used to get really drunk at Gandy Street which I think was an inspiration for Diagon Alley? I just wanted to reach out for my own peace of mind really. I’ve felt quite hurt and scared by some of the comments you’ve made. I have always idolised you. 1. You’re a female author (amazing!) 2. You are an extremely successful woman 3. You wrote Harry Potter. Harry Potter was one of the few places I could escape to growing up. I experienced abuse from my older brother and as a closet trans girl feeling intense dysphoria (but with no understanding of who I was or what I meant) it has been a hugely important, significant part of my life. I have always felt a distance from my dad but him reading Harry Potter to me was one of the few moments where we could just connect. It always felt like just a warm embrace. Harry Potter 4 (the movie) was my favourite. Hermiones reveal with the dress was gorgeous and Harry and hermione talking through the tent while he was waiting to fight the dragon was amazing. Also cho Chang loved her. And the beauxbatons were amazing. It was like a perfect trans girl safe space where before I knew I was a woman I could feel gender euphoria in a space I could control. Also what’s his name the super hot guy from twilight was awesome. My favourite book was Harry Potter 7. That was just so epic throughout I adored it! I am honestly so grateful for all the joy you brought to my life growing up. It allowed me to dream and escape and that is so valuable and I think it helped shape me to where I am today.

I am a feminist. I always have been. It was how my mom raised me and I’m so glad she did. I sincerely and emphatically support women’s rights and that will never change. I’m glad you’re a feminist. I do strongly believe that you have made an amazing impact on this world with the work you’ve done. You have probably allowed me more opportunities in my life as a woman and in my career as a woman. That’s amazing! And you paved the way for other female authors and that’s amazing too! In part I do feel that this year you have got a lot of shit. Tones of abuse and negativity from the public. Regardless of my views on trans issues, I really genuinely feel for you. It must fucking suck to have worked so hard over such a long time to now have your reputation dragged through the mud. And it is also my view that you have been made a scapegoat. There are people who have been a lot worse, a lot more outwardly transphobic, and done a whole lot worse for the trans community than you (I.e. Donald trump comes to mind). I think the way the world is set up as male dominated, a woman speaking their honest, genuine truth is more likely to be scalded than a man saying just the same things. Again as a feminist I hate that this is the case and I really feel empathy for you. It’s a struggle I experience as a woman and I feel solidarity with you. Donald Trump’s words have hurt me. And yet I am not as pained by his words as I am by yours. And I think that is because I never LOVED him. I have always LOVED you. Me and the Harry Potter books came into this world only a few months apart. I grew up with them as family. You have always been family to me. Like an aunt to guide me through my struggles. My equivalent of sirius black. And THAT is why it is truly devastating to hear now that you don’t acknowledge my existence as a woman. Because I love you and I care what you think. Your words, although they sting, do not invalidate me as a woman. Nothing can. I have been a woman since the moment I was born and even before then. I genuinely couldn’t be male if I tried (and believe me I did for 23 years). I am female. I am a feminist. To finish I just want to say that I adore you. As toxic as this feels I love you so dearly. And I think you’ve been kind of fucked over by the media. Which is a fucking insane double standard as the media has been slagging off trans people for decades and now that it has become fashionable or profitable they are supporting us. Oh and I find bathrooms really scary. I’m desperately frightened of someone thinking I’m a man. I’m working through that. So please if this ever finds you, know that I’m not a predator, deep down I am a frightened woman who just wants to use the bathroom.

You have helped me so much. I’m gushing just thinking of how much joyful time I have spent dancing through the leaves of your books, high on the crystal lettering and the joyous parchment underfoot. I have spent days, weeks, months, even years, of my life immersed in the wonderful world you have created. I have lived the experience of Harry Potter always dreaming of something else and now finally being taken to a magical world for myself.

From a lifelong fan of you and your work,

Maya

[aroacehogwarts]

concept: demiro bi trans woman hermione, biro ace trans man ron, and panro demi agender harry.

Demiro bi trans Hermione always has time to go to Hogwarts or anywhere else asked to go speak about being queer. She shares her struggles in coming out and being accepted. She shares how these identities intersect with her being black. She shares how long it took to accept herself and demand respect from others. She shares how it was easier to fight for others at first. She shares how happy she is now, and that “I’m just an owl away if any of you want or need to talk to me”.

Biro ace trans Ron always has time for fanmail. He’s still just astounded that anybody would look up to him, nevermind take time out of their day to write to him. He answers each and every single question he gets. He tells kids time and time again how he realized he was trans, when he realized he was ace, how he realized he was bi. He comforts kids and tells them that he sees them - they are real and valid and he sees them. He signs autographs when requested. He listens to their stories and frames the letters that make him cry from happiness.

Panro demi agender Harry always has time to chat with folk who stop zem on the street. At first ze hated it. It’s too much attention, and it’s awkward, and ze doesn’t feel ze deserves it. But slowly ze comes to see this as something they need, and some of it actually helps zem begin to heal. It’s actually a little queer wix on the street who wants to thank zem and shake zer hand who helps zem realize ze is agender, a feeling that’s been tickling zer brain for years now. Ze loves the younger ones the most, but some of the older wixen who come out to zem and thank zem for being a queer role model in so many ways and help them come out decades into their life, touch zem and stay with zem.

Sometimes, even though it’s all very rewarding, it’s exhausting. Those are the nights when they forgo separate rooms and beds and huddle up in front of their fireplace, just like old times. Holding hands and snacking on junk, they talk about their days until they can no longer keep their eyes open.

“Good night,” the last one of them awake whispers, but they’re soon to join the other two.

~Hufflepuff Mod