#and i know how much of a transphobic jkr is AS A NONBINARY PERSON

[incorrecthpjo]

I know JKR is an asshole and Hogwarts Legacy sucks and shouldn't be played at all costs but there are more than 20k deaths in Turkiye, and i feel like people care more about cancelling Rowling and pretending to care about human rights than actually caring about people and making help

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for implying my sister’s a transphobe?

For context: i’m a nonbinary girl and at the time had recently broken up with my trans girlfriend of a year. I also have very different political stances than my sister, which historically makes me very frustrated (she’s a liberal so very into making sure people have rights but never acknowledging the structural problems that cause minority hatred/prejudice).

So my sister and i were playing a videogame together and having a great and fun time. We were switching the game and there was an add for Hogwarts Legacy on her home screen, which we both saw. I genuinely don’t remember who commented on it first. Either i said something like “ugh, please don’t get that godawful game” or she said something like “oh i wanna get/play this game”. Knowing me it was probably the former. A throwaway comment for sure. Either way, that started a little argument between us.

More context: my sister and i both grew up as avid potterheads. I was even more obsessed with it than her, as a lonely middle schooler with no friends, harry potter was my favorite avenue of escapism and basically my main coping method. Which is why i was so devastated when, in 2020, i found out about all the terf shit jkr had been posting and supporting. It felt like losing a close friend, and so it’s a subject around which i have a lot of pain thinking/talking about. But my sister (cishet) usually thinks I’m overreacting. She doesn’t support jkr’s rhetoric but doesn’t think that supporting her or her work monetarily is a bad thing whatsoever. Mainly she believes it simply won’t make a difference to her bottom line.

Anywho, we were arguing about Hogwarts Legacy and how i think that she shouldn’t give jkr any money regardless of how closely she was involved with the production, since she’s getting profit from it regardless. Sister brings up that she’s seen trans people who want to buy and play the game, and that i’m not the authority on the issue. I tell her that the people saying that are not the majority of the community, and that maybe she should listen to the person who’s actually trans and sitting right next to her. She disagrees, and i say “then just don’t call yourself an ally”. I don’t quite remember what she said, but the argument didn’t last long after that.

We continued playing whatever videogame, and then i excused myself to have dinner. When i came back k stopped by her room to share a fun fact, and she confronted me about how much it hurt her that i said she wasn’t an ally. She told me that she had put in real work by taking an intersectionality class in college, and by attending trans rights protests — all of which i’ve never done (mostly because of mental health issues i won’t get into). She was crying and upset, and i told her i was sorry for having that conversation at a bad time, and for how i phrased my thoughts, but that i didn’t take back what i said about her not being an ally and to say i was would be lying. I didn’t say much more because i saw how upset she was and didn’t think that was a good time to argue about my opinions - so we decided to talk about it later when she was calmer.

I still haven’t started that conversation because i haven’t decided if what i said was unnecessary and made me an asshole, or if what i said was justified and she needed to hear it. It’s been a few months now and we’re both back in college and living hours away from each other in different countries.

So, tumblr, AITA?

What are these acronyms?

[lostandfem]

Do you seriously think trans people all are gender conforming? Lol gnc trans people exist lmao. I know a transfem who is a butch bisexual who I'm happily married to. She has short hair, loves wearing long sleeved plaid shirts and some jeans. You transmisogynists love talking about trans women as men in dresses without considering how people can also be GNC. Being transgender is also not innate. I'm a genderfluid bisexual person who often identify as a cis woman but sometimes I identify as a binary man. To say transgender is innate erases the identity of multigender people, who falls under the nonbinary umbrella, which also falls under the trans umbrella. Lol even as an AFAB identifying as a man, I sometimes wear skirts cause I'm GNC. Trans people I know also acknowledge GNC cis people. I know lots of GNC cis women who identify as woman and don't like skirts or dresses and even know some women who take part in masculine activities like boxing, basketball and etc. I don't know much about GNC cis men but I have a friend who is a GNC cis man. He loves to cosplay as his favorite anime characters. He cosplays as anime characters who are not only men but women and still identify as a man. See? Trans people acknowledge that GNC cis people exists too. Do better in discussing trans people and our ideologies, you radfems. Also, as a trans person of color, it's funny how you radfems love JK Rowling, the woman who is transphobic, racist, antisemitic and orientalistic when writing Harry Potter. Oh and JK Rowling also associates herself with conservatives. Associating yourselves with such a bigoted woman, how are you going to use that to explain your feminism that is supposed to liberate marginalized people?

Never said gnc trans people dont exist, I was trans long enough to know that and considered myself one of those because I wasn’t particularly masculine but rather androgynous (in clothing anyway). My post questioned the application of the label ‘trans’. What I did say was that for males it seems to be an opt-in scenario. Option 2 in the post I assume you saw mentions the “take my word for it” self-id, which includes trans women who in no way look feminine/conforming to female gender roles. It’s up to them to tell you how they feel about their gender. Even your friend can dress up femininely in cosplay and not be accused of being trans. However, I’ve noticed the opposite for women. If you’re a gender noncomforming ‘cis’ woman, you are questioned if you’re actually a woman at all. The label of “trans” is seems opt-in for males but not for females.

The incompatibility I mentioned was about incompatible philosophies on gender. No where did I say there was a hatred for them or you couldn’t be friends with them.

What on earth does JK Rowling have to do with this conversation? You assume I worship her or something. JKR isn’t the founder of radical feminism, and I personally feel pretty neutrally about her, and I do feel kinda weird about some of the aspects of her writing. It’s like how nonbinary people have been like “man i hate that I’m in the same category as ezra miller”— you can be in the same group as someone but still not really be associated with them personally or even like them. But it feels to me like you needed to let off steam so I hope you got it all off your chest.

[daughter-of-sapph0]

the safety of women and women's rights are in no way threatened by trans people. women's rights and trans rights go hand in hand. she is not protecting anyone.

also, you wanted sources? here you go, since apparently I have to do your own research for you.

here's her lobbying the UK government

here's her not only being transphobic, but also supporting and funding homophobia and sexism against women

here's an explanation on how exactly her policies and views are tied to white supremacy

https://www.radicalhistoryreview.org/abusablepast/j-k-rowling-and-the-white-supremacist-history-of-biological-sex/

and here's her being best friends with Matt Walsh, an alt right figurehead who is very strongly and openly sexist, homophobic, racist, antisemitic, Islamophobic, and who literally self describes himself as a fascist

these are not attacks on her. these are actual real facts and real things she is doing. if you think that simply saying exactly what she is doing is an attack on her, that says all you need to know about her.

I'm all for people expressing their feelings and opinions. but the moment your "opinion" starts actively harming people, you are no longer just stating an opinion.

the paradox of intolerance is the idea that a tolerant society that values and respects everyone's opinions cannot allow actions that are dangerous to others. you cannot say "I value your opinion just as much as everyone else's" to a person who claims that women are inferior to men. because by supporting his views, even if you don't actually agree with him, you are making the world a less safe space for women.

jkr is doing that exact thing right now. her actions speak louder than her words. and her actions show that she actively contributes to racism, antisemitism, sexism, ablism, and especially transphobia.

if you actually gave a shit about people negatively affected by bigotry, you would understand that jkr is not the victim, but the perpetrator of violence and bigotry.

but I know for a fact that you don't give two shits about anyone other than yourself and a multimillionaire who doesn't even know you exist.

I hope you have the life you deserve.

She ain't even subtle anymore lmao

[olderthannetfic]

RE enjoying HP content: Personally I don't give two shits about HP, but I'll admit, I have a hard time justifying the "Don't engage in HP fandom!" stance. Not giving the creator money and only pirating stuff from the franchise, fine, makes sense. But the argument that people shouldn't even engage in fandom feels strange, because I can't really separate it from the age-old "You shouldn't participate in X fandom because one of the people involved in it is a rapist/wifebeater/union-buster/was abusive towards their actors/[insert long list of other ways people can be shitty]". Is the singular focus on JKR due to her disproportionate impact and celebrity status? The reach of her platform? Even there, I hardly doubt that she is unique in her evil, there are doubtless many others who don't get the same publicity due to not being involved in something central to the pop culture background for so many Westerners.

I can see three arguments for not participating in fandom: One, to punish, and the other, to reduce impact. First argument has the consistency issues I highlighted above, the second one I COULD see, but at the same time, don't we as fans tend to overstate our own importance? (In censorship discussions we frequently discuss that fanfiction has very little power to normalize anything and is ultimately a drop in the bucket.) HP gave rise to a massive mount of licensed spinoff content from videogames to multiple blockbuster movies, including a new franchise that collects millions at the box office each time. In light of the overwhelming marketing and reach, it's hard to see how some people making fanart on Tumblr or whatever matters, and as much as I side-eye HP fans, I find it very hard to actually judge them for the extremely bland crime of not wanting to sacrifice a source of entertainment for some abstract moral good.

The third argument for abstaining from HP fandom is to make nonbinary people feel safer (both people in your circle and strangers coming across your content), but this feels really circumstantial. Abandoning the HP fandom to take a stand with trans people is a nice gesture, but ultimately it's just a gesture, and one that doesn't actually mean anything outside of very specific circumstances. Someone NOT being an HP fan doesn't mean they can't be a transphobe, and someone being an HP fan doesn't have to mean they're anything worse than maybe a little bit selfish/unwilling to sacrifice a source of entertainment and comfort for the sake of other people. This kind of selfishness may be something to judge, but it's also extremely mundane and common, and hardly more offensive than, say, refusing to put content or trigger warning tags on your blog because it's your blog and you just can't be bothered.

To conclude, I personally share the distaste for HP content but I'm not convinced I'm actually being rational in it. At the same time, I'm very much a person driven by hyperfixations, and the fact that I dodged a bullet in not caring about HP is just sheer dumb luck. I do have a lot of sympathy for people obsessed with HP and drawing joy from it, because god knows I can't imagine myself simply forcing myself to stop caring about the thing that's held my imagination in a vice grip for the past few years and inspired me to create so many things. I have a lot of nb friends, so I like to think that if I were interested in HP, I'd be able to choose their sense of security over my hyperfixation. But that's a much more personal argument that can't really be generalised to fandom as a whole...

End ramble. Thanks for reading, and I'd love to hear your thoughts.

--

My argument about fandom participation is that you, the fan, have limited time and brainspace.

If you want to support some other less known creator, put your time and emotions towards that. Don't carve out 50% of your free time for HP or Supernatural or whatever canon we're mad at today.

"I'm not paying them" is a weak argument when you put that much of yourself towards having whatever thing as a lifestyle. "I read the occasional fic. You're making too much of it" is a reasonable argument in my book.

Of course, if people don't care, they don't care, but I keep seeing people who are like "I would leave [bad large fandom] if only I could find the same experience in another". But they don't go build that world they want to see, so it continues to not exist.

[nymph1e]

Congrats. You're a TERF apologist.

There's more to validating transphobes than literally giving them money. I know you don't care, but I thought I'd just give it a chance.

You're part of the reason she's still going.

Congratulations. You just called a nonbinary person a terf apologist. For the crime of *checks notes* still liking something despite the writer thinking that I, personally, should have my rights taken away.

What does this accomplish again? You get to feel good about yourself for.... a cause? You get to harass trans people for... trans people?

Maybe instead of attacking nonbinary people on the internet (wow JKR much?) you could go campaign for trans awareness and education amongst people who AREN'T aware of how much of a problem JKR is?

Nah, too hard for you, right?

[sealbf]

Alright I'm tired of seeing lame ass posts about JKR's transphobia towards trans men and ableism towards autistic people, only for the OP to then undermine people caring about her transmisogyny. For the record I am a white transmasc autistic guy.

It's important for everybody to understand that JKR is a TERF, she is a transmisogynist, she has done unspeakable damage to the rights of trans women in the UK and USA. You should all absolutely keep discussing this, and listening to trans women when they talk about how absolutely VILE jkr is. This post is in no way going to pull a "but yall are too busy caring about trans women :/"

JKR wrote a manifesto very much against trans men and nonbinary people, saying we were autistic ""girls"" who were lead astray, because we're just so Gullible ! This is obviously incredibly transphobic in terms of not taking trans men seriously, and horrifyingly ableist by assuming autistic people are too stupid to know their own genders (or be able to choose their own gender etc etc) which could very much lead to autistic people losing rights since we're seen as incapable. I'm not going to go into too much detail about the whole thing here because the manifesto is extremely upsetting to think about. Furthermore, it's also of the utmost importance we talk about JKR's rampant racism and antisemitism, with the Harry Potter slaves (whatever the fuck theyr'e called, the thing dobby is) enjoying their slavery and the one person who thinks this is bad being shot down (hermione?), JKR having an asian character called "Cho Chang" and the banking creatures being clear antisemitic stereotypes.

Please for the love of God please keep talking about how JKR is a transmisogynist, it's important we keep talking about it. It's also important we talk about her ableism, transphobia towards trans men and tme nonbinary people specifically, her racism and antisemitism as well. She isn't just a terrible person for being a TERF, she's a terrible person for a lot of other reasons that aren't being talked about enough.

[oh2e]

I absolutely do not disagree that we should boycott anything further from JKR - anything Harry Potter related, anything else she brings out, anything that makes her money etc. I do not disagree that a thriving fandom sends the message that the work is still popular, that people are still interested. But I have slightly conflicting thoughts when it comes down to the nitty gritty regarding fan creations and already owned items. This is not what I wanted to say with this post.

I turned 21 last year. When I was 10 I got into Harry Potter. I loved it. I saw the last film in the cinema with my mum and it’s one of the few cinema trips I remember vividly (partially because I was 11 and had it in my head that I would be kicked out for watching a film rated 12. My parents were strict about that). For my 12th birthday we went to the studio tour in Watford. I was obsessed with Harry Potter. I read all the books multiple times, I watched and rewatched the films. I had a few quiz question unofficial books. I bought Lego sets. I did a talk on Harry Potter for a children’s public speaking competition. I bought board games and jigsaw puzzles. I started to make my own trivia game with Harry Potter facts. My eleventh birthday was on a Tuesday - so was Harry’s. I gave up talking about Harry Potter for Lent one year (and reading/watching it for a full year). I visited the House of MinaLima in London and saw the art they’d done. I visited the studio tour in Watford a second time.

Then it became known that J.K. Rowling was transphobic. I couldn't look at the books without feeling sick to my stomach. Despite one of her short stories being exactly what I wanted for a short story anthology exercise for class I refused to include it on principal. I removed the little Slytherin pin I had on my denim jacket. I recently took down a poster I had from the Half Blood Prince. It was about the size of two postcards and unfolded from a activity set I got years ago. I could barely see it most of the time because my nonbinary flag covered it. I stopped mentioning Harry Potter. I couldn't.

As a gift for my 21st birthday my parents got me the first Harry Potter book illustrated by MinaLima. A book I love(d), art I admired. For my 19th I had a Gryffindor cake. My parents know what JKR has said. They know she’s transphobic. They know I am transgender. I love MinaLima’s art. Looking at their illustrations is exciting and interesting and I enjoy it. But I also feel just a little bit sick to my stomach.

How do you explain to people who don’t believe JKR is saying anything particularly incorrect that she doesn’t want me alive? How do you explain that I want nothing to do with something that once brought me so much joy? How do I explain that my silence is no longer a type of penance, that I choose not to speak because I simply do not care what that woman says? How do I tell my parents that their daughter is no more and they cannot make me be the person I used to be?

[transgendeerboy]

(Just me, saving my emotional labor from a Facebook debate again.)

The OP's question: JK Rowling supports the trans community. She only disagrees with them on what amounts to semantics. As a trans person might feel upset by being misgendered, a biological woman might feel upset being called a "person who menstruates." Is it possible to love, support, and protect the trans community while disagreeing on semantics?

Speaking as a trans person, no that is not possible. You can say you love, support, and protect trans people, but those things are all actions, not just words. If trans people are telling you something and you ignore them because it doesn't fit your point of view, if a trans person is asking you to refer to them in a certain way and you refuse, that is the opposite of love, support, protection, etc. Trans people are not asking that all women be referred to strictly as "people who menstruate" or anything like that. I know that's how it keeps being presented but frankly that's absurd. In that case, we are asking for inclusive language to be used by, for example, doctors when referring to us specifically. We are asking for that kind of language to be added, not asking that anything be taken away. Believe me, we know what its like to be referred to by names and terms that make us uncomfortable and we are not trying to do that to other people. We would just like to be respected and included. And beyond that, being misgendered is harmful because it is saying something contrary to what we know is true about ourselves. It is denying us our very identity. A woman who menstruates is, in fact, a person who menstruates because women are people. The fact that she menstruates is not what makes her a woman; many cis women don't menstruate for a variety of reasons and many trans men and nonbinary people do. Boiling down the essence of what it means to be a woman to reproductive function is far more harmful, in my opinion, than the term "people who menstruate." But I'm not cis, so that's not really my territory.

The thing that started all of this with Rowling was that a charity who was providing free menstrual products to people in need tweeted something about the work they were doing in reference to "people who menstruate" and, rather than keep scrolling, rather than appreciating that a charity was doing something to help people, JKR decided she needed to get in a dig about it. There was no fight. She wasn't weighing in on a debate of any sort. It was just that one group decided, of their own free will, to use inclusive terminology and she kicked up a fuss even though it didn't affect her in any way.

I would also say that what seems like semantics to someone that doesn't experience it on a day-to-day basis, is something far bigger to someone who does. To you it seems trivial. But when you're being misgendered and getting those comments from every single person you come into contact with, when it's a constant fight just to be acknowledged and respected, it's not just semantics. It's our lives. For example, I had to fight with my rainbow flag waving college for 2 months just to get them to use my chosen name. No non-trans person has had that problem when going by their middle name or even a nickname, but apparently for no other reason than that I'm trans, it was a fight for me. That's what it's like everywhere. It's exhausting. And knowing that that's what its like at a fairly liberal/inclusive university, maybe you can imagine how much worse it can be with places and people that don't even claim or pretend to be supportive. It's not just semantics for us. It's our lives.

As far as JK Rowling, she has caused a lot of harm to the trans community, around the world and specifically in the UK. Yes, she said she supports us in her ridiculously long essay about why it's okay to be transphobic, but her actions say otherwise. Even the rest of that essay said otherwise. She supports legislation that is harmful to trans people and she has the money and power to make things happen as far as that goes. She supports and advertises for businesses that literally mock trans people. I don't particularly care what she's said at this point. Her actions speak louder. And that's coming from a trans guy with a big Harry Potter tattoo. Those books meant a whole lot to me and in some ways they still do, so I didn't want to believe this stuff about her. I really really didn't. But she's made it abundantly clear that she's willing to die on this hill and I'm perfectly willing to let her. When someone tells me who they are, I listen.

[cosmic-robot-menace]

I think in the two years since I realized I was nonbinary, I've become less and less happy. I hate how much more bitter, resentful and cynical I've been feeling ever since. I don't know if anyone else had a similar experience.

After I finally cut ties with a shitty friend in april 2019, I was slowly climbing up, healing and recovering from the damage that person and his gf did to me.

Then on november of the same year, that little progress just crumbled when I figured out I was trans, and I was subjected to some of the worst emotional abuse I've ever experienced from someone who claimed to be my best friend. It was so bad it really warped how I viewed myself, I was convinced I was a bad person due to all the insane accusations I received, I became suicidal and started to self harm.

Ironically, this ex friend who was spouting straight up tmed and t*rf trash eventually came out as trans, which, I'm not gonna lie, infuriates me. It doesn't wash away the horrific abuse they put me through, and they had no right to take their self hatred on me like that, when I did NOTHING wrong. Then I had to deal with more shitty transphobic friends who called me names, migendered me, or acted like I was "ungrateful" and "whiny" for asking to be properly referred. You know the story already. All these people. Every. Single. One. Were cis people who happily bragged about having trans friends and being trans friendly, yet they turned out to be the most heinous freaks I ever had to deal with.

Then my family... especially my mother. I resent her. The way she doesn't want to give a fuck about how JKR is a massive transphobe and keeps reading her books, how she threw a MASSIVE FIT when I mentionned we talked about inclusive language in class. It sucks, she doesn't care about us, not in the slightest, just a performative "oh that's terrible!" when there's news of a trans person getting attacked or killed. I know she'll hate me when I come out, she'll hate me for not being the eager-to-have-children straight woman she expected out of me.

I'm tired of it. My life has gotten so much worse since I came out. I'm so bloated with bile and I don't know how to get rid of it, I'm in a permanent state of ire after all I had to deal with.

[12blueberriesatbakerst]

Why are you following me if you wanna defend jk rowling? Like you can if you want, but you do know I'm trans and 100% support trans women and hate tefs, right? Anyway, I'm perfectly happy for jkr (or anyone else) to talk about stigma around menstruation, lack of access to abortion, whatever. These are real problems, absolutely! But you can talk about them without being transphobic, I promise. And it's the transphobia that people have a problem with.

@jealousofthetea

women are not transphobic for acknowledging the material reality of biological sex and female sex-based oppression. i have sympathy for people with sex dysphoria or anyone who is uncomfortable with the stereotypical gender roles of their sex (what feminist wouldn’t be?), but that does not mean i am willing to pretend to believe in something that isn’t true. i’m sure you understand why Rachel Dolezal was rightfully called out for racism. i’m just asking for sexism to be given the same courtesy. transgender people have the right to live their lives how they want, the same as everyone else. they don’t have the right to force people to see them as the sex they desire to be. i don’t identify as a woman, i just am one. you understand that transgender ideology falls apart without the existence of stereotypical gender roles, right? if biology is considered irrelevant, how do you define “woman” without using sexist stereotypes? how can women/girls speak about their oppression if they don’t even have the words to define themselves? how are they going to do anything of real substance when even stating that they’re oppressed on the basis of sex is considered bigotry? abortion, menstruation, pregnancy, etc., are not the issues of a random group of people.  they specifically affect women and girls (people of the female sex). if we pretend otherwise then we are unable to discuss the ways women are affected by misogyny. would menstruation be stigmatized if it occurred in men as well? would men be so eager to control who can get an abortion and when if they were able to experience pregnancy? even if everyone in the word identified as transgender or agender or nonbinary and the word “woman” was effectively meaningless, there would still exist a class of people (female) who face oppression by another class of people (male) and we deserve the right to acknowledge that.

i’m not sure if you’ve read this far. i understand you think i’m being hateful and ignorant. it’s not surprising when so much effort online is spent trying to convince you that anything resembling “terf” speech is evil and should be blocked on sight. i thought the same until i came across radical feminist and gender critical blogs. i found their analysis on sexism/gender really insightful and found myself agreeing with so much of what they had to say. but soon i came across certain posts and thought “oh no, this isn’t a terf, is it?” because i’m a good, progressive person, of course / i / couldn’t be a “terf”. ironically, i was actually looking for pro-transgender analysis because more and more it was starting to confuse me. but the more i read, the more confused i got. there were so many contradictions and seemingly sexist/reductive explanations. and i don’t consider myself a stupid person. it just didn’t make sense. even when i was desperately trying to agree that “transwomen are women”, the arguments backing it up didn’t seem to hold any weight. i wasn’t brainwashed or radicalized by radical feminists (how condescending and sexist). the cognitive dissonance was too much for me and i didn’t let the fear of being branded a “terf” keep me from thinking for myself and trusting my own judgment. if caring about female oppression/liberation really makes me “transphobic”, there’s nothing i can do about that.

if you want to get a better idea of radical feminism (which i consider to be basic, actual feminism tbh) i’d suggest looking through my biological sex, gender,  transgenderism, sex industry, and male violence tags. obviously not all of this will be about transgender people because, contrary to what some might believe, that’s not all radfems talk about. of course, you don’t have any obligation to look through my blog and you’re free to totally disregard this as well.

if you want me to unfollow you, that’s fine and maybe for the best.

[screechingkingdomhottub]

my thoughts on the starkid controversies

{TCB included} yo so i got some opinions that i’m gonna spread...now. So does starkid have some inherently problematic things in their musicals that whether intentionally or not promotes a stereotype? Yeah. Let’s unpack these a little, okay? So let’s start at the beginning with Little White Lie. I think Little White Lie did great, there’s an episode where they defend trans people and the transphobic person is the villain and as a young closeted trans dude watching that...it was totally awesome. Now, AVPM, i dunno mans. I love it, I’ve seen the series many a times and used to watch it to cheer me up at night, I think it critiques JKR’s stereotypes very well and goes full out of “well if dumbledore is gay...let’s make him flaming gay” which is awesome. I saw Devin posted a youtube video talking about how she feels she stole the Cho Chang role away from an Asian actress who is known for playing Lavender Brown called Sango Tajima. I, personally, never got that vibe but I don’t think that’s up to me, I wasn’t there, I’m white, she ended up getting more roles and I encourage y’all to watch Devin’s video on it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fubo7wfGcuo  I’m gonna skip a few cause there’s a lot of musicals and I’m tired. I think a lot of people feel uncomfortable about Umbridge’s portrayal and the way the relationship with Dumbledore is done because it can correlate to the trans women are often seen and portrayed and watching it thinking about it like that...makes it a bit cringey. On a similar note, in Spies Are Forever, Susan is a crossdressing character that has transphobic undertones.  Now, I’m not saying starkid are transphobic or racist or should be cancelled or whatever. And I believe a lot of this stuff they have redeemed and tried to progress forward a lot better and that’s awesome. I am a firm believer everyone should just be judged based on their intentions. If someone has good intentions but does a shite job and people point out they’re not fulfilling those good intentions then they can change and grow and it’s great.  So I love Black Friday but I have a gripe. Can we talk about Gary Goldstein for a bit? Now, I find the character kinda funny, Jon is an amazing actor and his portrayal is awesome. But Gary Goldstein is a lawyer...a very greedy lawyer...with the last name Goldstein. So for those of you that are unaware, Goldstein is a Jewish last name...Jewish stereotypes commonly consist of being very greedy lawyers...you see the issue here? I’m not Jewish, being completely honest I’m still confused about what being Jewish actually means however for Black Friday to take such strong political stances and add to it a so easily avoidable tidbit, literally without the name no one would conflate it with being Jewish but damn. And Hatchetfield names matter so much from what I’ve seen, so there’s thought behind this which makes it worse?  So onto Robert Manion, pitchforks ready? The first controversy I saw about him was to do with something called genderbent pictures. For those that don’t know, it’s when people take someone usually a character from something and switch them to the opposite sex. A lot of the trans community have an issue with this because it kinda eradicates nonbinary people a lot. Really focuses on the binary part, y’know? says “oh now they’re the gender they’re not actually” implying only 2...it’s kinda shitty. For me, personally, it’s dysphoria inducing. It highlights features everyone associates with only each gender and I start recognising all the features on the female version that i have on me and it’s not a fun time. I’m a big boi, i can deal. But many trans people replied to him when talking about this and expressed the dysphoria they were feeling, why promoting those was harming the trans community etc. He apologised but he only apologised for calling it gender bent and not digital drag which...is not what people were saying? I appreciate him making an effort on twitter to promote trans voices, idk much about american politics, so can’t say much on what he’s doing there but at least it’s something. What would be the most awesome thing for him to do is explain what the actual things the trans community told him and promote that to discourage those pictures or to encourage them to also include non binary people in some way cause artistic expression and stuff. More recent Robert Manion controversy is the body positivity pictures. I’m 100% for body positivity, always, anyone body shaming anybody (unless they’re a racist, rapist or general bigot) is a bAD BEAN. However, now this part is gonna get a little nsfw, so if you’re a minor please don’t keep reading, i aint trying to get arrested.  i can’t figure out how to do the keep reading thing so consider this it. Minors leave.  So, onlyfans is a website where you pay for porn basically like a total boomer simp but i digress. Some pages are softcore which is like just outlines of things...like people in their underwear. Robert posted pictures of him in his underwear and tagged it porn and onlyfans. Which if a grown man wants to do sex work I won’t stop him. That’s not the case here, the case here is he posted a picture in his underwear, where his ahem bulge is visible and sexualised it with the tags. There are minors that follow this man, that may have been scrolling through instagram in school and saw oh shit a dong. “But Joey Richter took off his pants in mamd!!!” yeah and that had a ton of warnings, you knew what you were gonna watch was for mature starkids only. “WHat about Lupin!!” couldn’t see the bulge. When I was 17, I went to see a play and a girl in it started stripping right down to her underwear, was just like seeing her in a bikini. The tags sexualised it but so did the bulge outline. He censored it on his story which kinda feels like he knew it was inappropriate. Something else that makes me very uncomfortable about this all is the Body Positivity argument. Now I have gender dysphoria, I have scars, I have stretch marks, acne, I’m so SO for body positivity. I rant so often about how fatphobia shouldn’t happen because weight doesn’t equal health. I’m not saying this is what he’s doing but that argument is used by actual groomers. Like y’know the fucks that groom children? i.e. onision (allegedly) where he’d say it’s just for body positivity and get children to send him pics of them in their underwear? You see why this is a dangerous argument here? I don’t think Robert’s intention was to do that but if you indirectly tell a bunch of teenagers posting pictures in their underwear is a good thing...I can’t be the only one making this link and the fact y’all defend this as “just shirtless pictures” is lowkey driving me wild. He apologised for the tags cause it was making fun of sex workers but please please please think of the risk. Please?  Starkid mess up, they’re human, please stop acting like they do nothing wrong and please stop acting like they’re cancelled forever with no redemption okay bye PS please let me know any trigger warnings to add <3

[weed-cat]

It's so fucking difficult being a trans person living with a transphobic mother who won't just come out and say it.

She let me go on T (albeit made me wait until I was 17,) never misgenders me or my friends or my partner, lets me use her insurance to see a queer-specialized therapist, and a lot of surface-level stuff.

But then she's in all of these r*dfem facebook groups and thinks that JKR hasn't done anything wrong and misgenders nonbinary celebrities and wants to put a hard definition on gender tries to debate me about trans issues and then berates me if I do anything but listen and agree with her.

I think that I'm actually just about as non-radical as trans people come. I do believe that some spaces (not many, but some) should be sex-based, I believe that trans women who are perpetrators of sexual assault against women shouldn't be incarcerated in women's prisons (neither should cis sexual predators), I believe that if trans people want to be allowed access to vulnerable gender-specific places they need to go a bit further than just saying that they identify as that gender. And she knows that. We've had many conversations about it. And I think that she's taken advantage of that, because she wants me to be her little token trans child who who sympathizes with r*dfems and she can use to further their agenda.

and she gets so mad and so mean when I won't be that. Yesterday she asked me if I wanted to set up our old Harry Potter advent calendar, and I said no (just no, didn't make any sort of statement), and she took that as an invitation to launch into a rant about a (and I quote) "meme she saw on Facebook about how JKR actually feels about trans people." I did not want to have this conversation. I did not ask to have this conversation. I was sleep deprived and hadn't eaten all day and I was socially starved and my myelopathy was acting up and I was not in the mood to be her little token. So I told her that I've seen the little 'well she also said THIS about trans people!!' infographics and how I wasn't interested in sympathizing with someone who has done so much damage to my community.

And then she got really angry and said "well she's never said anything about trans people that I disagree with, so if you hate her then I guess you hate me, too" and that just felt SO fucking unfair and manipulative and I just said "well maybe I hate your views on trans rights" and left the conversation to go play Zelda but honestly I just felt incredibly shitty for the rest of the night because of that interaction.

So this morning I was like "I don't want this to be a conversation, I just want to say something and then we move on; I don't like it when you randomly bring up trans issues with me because then I feel like I need to justify myself for thinking that trans people deserve rights and autonomy," and she said "well I hate talking about trans issues with you, too."

And that just got to me, because CLEARLY she doesn't. 9/10 of the interactions we have about the subject, she initiates. She doesn't hate talking about it with me, she hates it when I disagree with her and I say it. She hates when I'm not her little validation machine. She hates it when I tell her that I think she's wrong. She hates it when I refuse to sit there and sympathize with her while she's spouting harmful rhetoric about my community.

I know that I'm lucky in that she even let me socially and medically transition while she still had medical control over me and she respects my pronouns and isn't overtly aggressive. But I don't feel lucky. I feel manipulated when she implies that if I hate outspoken r*dfems, that means I hate her. I feel disrespected when she makes me listen to her opinions and then gets mad if I express mine. I feel gaslit when she says hateful things about my community and gets mad when I express my disagreement and hurt, and then says that we just had a nice conversation or that I'm the one who who initiated it or made it go sideways.

My moms is cool in a lot of ways, but dear lord this is not fucking one of them

[infernal-violinist]

In light of JK Rowling just being unabashedly a transphobe as of late (and always but you know what I’m talking about) I wanted to repost some thoughts I had from the last time this happened.

With everything that’s happened lately with JK Rowling, I know lot of us are angry. A lot of us are mourning. And it’s okay. And as counterproductive as it is for people to respond by saying “oh my god, go read another book,” there *are* other books. There will always be other books. And none of them can replace Harry Potter because, let’s be real, it was kind of a cultural zietgiest, and nothing can replace the memories of being a young child reading those books. But we’ve grown up and as much as it hurts now, we will move on.

I have so many thoughts about JKR being a terf. For years and years Harry Potter was a huge defining part of my personality. To this day, I use the trick of telling job interveiwers my Hogwarts house characteristics when asked what qualities best define me as a way to avoid floundering for an answer. I was so excited to have my baby sister read the books, and she loves them! I love them! I was nine years old when I read them for the first time and I had no way of knowing how riddled with bigotry the books and the author were. As a child and a teenager I idolized JKR. I wanted to be a writer, and who better to look up to than the woman who wrote your favorite books?

Now I am an adult and I’m going to school to be an author. Now I am an adult who is nonbinary and queer and whose best friends are trans, and I, just like a lot of us, am heartbroken that JKR isn’t the person we all wanted her to be. But we can learn from heartbreak.

As writers and artists, we are often told that we “stand on the shoulders of giants.” There are other deeper meanings to this saying, but in general it means that we are lifted up by the greats that have come before us. And we are to some degree. But realistically, those who have come before us are not giants. They’re not. They’re humans. J K Rowling, for all I put her on a pedestal as a young adult, is not a giant. She is a human. A painfully, heartbreakingly bigoted human.

But I am human too. We are human too, the creators that are coming next, we who they say stand on the shoulders of giants. We do not. We stand on the same ground as them and we can and should and will look them in the eyes and say “I see what you have made and I am just as skilled as you, and I am going to be better.”

We can love Harry Potter and think critically about its bigotry. We can learn lessons about kindness and hope and joy and love from Harry Potter, and acknowledge that it was written by a hateful, bigoted woman who refuses to change her ways. We can share the books with the young people we love and teach them what we did not know was wrong with it as children. We can teach them about death of the author and we can teach them how to mourn. We can give them more books to read written by BIPOC, LGBT people, and other marginalized authors. We can teach them to read critically and intersectionally. We can teach them not to make a book series written by a flawed human being their whole identity. And we can do better. That’s all we can do.

[generallygenderless]

An AFAB genderqueer adult on JKR

Hey! In case you don’t have any of these tags blocked, I’m going to hide this under a read-more

So as some of us H*rry P*tter fans have been disappointed by recently, Judgy Karen Ranting has explicitly outed herself as a terf/fart recently, as opposed to being “hopefully only terf-adjacent”.

Well, I have some comments about her open letter that I want to address, myself. 

Warning: Not all of yall will relate to this at all. That’s alright. If you do, feel free to chime in.

This is explicitly about one part in which JKR states that previously, the majority of trans people were trans women, whereas now, it seems to be trans men, and the entire concept of Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria. 

I really don’t know whether to unpack this, or toss the entire suitcase, so let’s examine it: 

We’ve seen that historically, there’ve been people who were likely trans and whose identities were explained away. How many trans men were explained as “just disguised themselves as a man to achieve their goals”? Dr. James Barry, for example, who didn’t start living as a man until probably around 20 years old, and lived his entire adult life as a man, requesting to be buried in his bedsheets and pajamas so no one would discover that he was AFAB.

This is an interesting discovery, in my opinion, because it’s further proof that there have always been trans people. They just either lived very unhappily as their assigned gender, or lived as stealth as they could. 

In my own experience growing up in Miami, where there were a lot of LGB people I could’ve seen, I had a very odd understanding of trans people growing up. Up until I was 12 and started to consider myself LGBT ally, I didn’t know much about “that stuff”. That was also the same time my “hmm why does gender matter and how does it affect me” brain turned into “shitshitshit i don’t like how clothes look on me anymore” brain, and I started refusing the color pink and clothes I found too “girly”. 

I learned a little bit about trans people between 12 and 15 (pre-tumblr era, basically), and while I knew that there were trans guys and trans girls, to some degree, I basically felt that since I wasn’t a trans guy, I must be a cis girl. Then I joined tumblr and my first mutual reblogged a lot of LGBT stuff, and that’s how I learned about more LGBT things. first I found out I was asexual. then I started suspecting I was bi/pan-romantic. Finally, I began to question my gender identity. I started suspecting I was nonbinary. 

Had I know that nonbinary people existed when I was 8 or 9, I would’ve identified as such then. It took coming to terms with it, like, a lot. I had the same amount of friends before this as I had after (like 4, at this point), and there’s definitely a lot to be said on that topic. I knew exactly one trans person at this point. I’d felt weird about gender from the time I was at least 6, if not younger. 

This is definitely an issue I have with the idea of ROGD. In my entire time of identifying as transneutral, I’ve had exactly two people come out to me. One was a camp buddy at the time and we’d both secretly been on gender journeys at the same time. The other is my partner. Everyone else identified as trans before I knew them, and still do. I’ve had two friends revert back to she/her pronouns, and upon asking, they revealed they don’t identify as cis, they’re still nonbinary, but it’s too much of a hassle to deal with transphobes all the time. 

Additionally, of the two people that have come out to me, they both had gender issues starting pretty young. It was by no means late-onset or rapid-onset, but rather they’d repressed it until their options were self-destruct or come to terms with it. 

My friend group has absolutely queered itself up, and I’ve noticed that I attract people who are LGBT+ and mentally ill/neurodivergent (usually both). That connection between trans people and being autistic? Pretty sure that’s caused by the fact that autistic people have to yell so loud to be heard, so they’re more visible when they come out. As far as ADHD people (of which I’m pretty sure I am one), we can hyperfixate on LGBT topics and tend to know way too much about gender and sexuality. 

This queering of the group is not because we’re turning or pushing each other. We’re just drawn to people like us. We tend to like media we’re reflected in to some degree. We escape into similar fandoms. We like similar music. It just happens. 

And besides, JK, lemme ask you this: why in the world would I want to be nonbinary? Why would I think this is easier or more fun than being a girl? It’s really not. I have lost friends over my gender identity, I’ve been told off, and I have one friend who I had to avoid the topic with altogether. I’m not nonbinary because of gender roles; I am just as miserable being a girl as I am being a guy, no matter how gender-nonconforming that image may be. I know that girls can do or be anything, and I know the same is true of guys. If it was just a matter of mental illness or gender roles or sexuality, why would I open myself up to this? Why would I want to see your commenters or comments under people like me being told that we don’t exist or that we deserve to die? I haven’t gotten special attention, and I’m actively scared of being out at school. Why would I take a risk like that if I wasn’t reasonably sure that this is who I am? I have more reasons to not identify as nonbinary, in all honesty. The only reason I use that label is because it is me. It’s who I am, it’s who I’ve always been. 

And for the record, thanks to my PCOS, I only menstruate half the year at best. If I were cis, I would only be a woman half the year anyways.

Endnote: to all yall wonderful ladies, gentlemen, and bees out there, you’re valid. She can’t change your gender identity. No one can. Keep being yourself, and do your best every day. 

[rabbityshen]

honestly as someone whose position isn't even this hardline, some of y'all in the notes need to take a hard look at yourselves

one time when i was at work, where im out as nonbinary, a former coworker mentioned that for her birthday, she did an hp movie marathon and she loved the movies. i didnt have some kind of breakdown or freakout! i didnt die! but i sure did wonder if she was actively transphobic, passively transphobic, or a normie who just had no idea of anything about jkr now. it is a lurking anxiety and calculation i have to think of whenever i run into hp fans i dont know very well. im sure this is the case for many other trans people.

hp may be a cultural institution bigger than any one or even group of fans and no one's morality, ethics, trans allyship, or whatever live and die by harry potter fandom. but if you can't internalize the fact that harry potter fandom is a genuine transphobic dog whistle/red flag for a lot of trans people, and esp transfem people, i dont know what else to say.

and no one is saying it's your fault for liking hp as a kid! but whatever choices you make as an informed adult (which most of you all are) are yours to own up to. clinging so tightly to childhood nostalgia as if a person who refuses to change their behavior from when they were a child is not some kind of virtuous principle.

like whatever myopic internet circles you congregate in, it is not some massive stigma to like harry potter right now. it is extremely normal and mainstream to like harry potter and that's the crux of why this is so noxious. no one is even obligated to clarify that they're not transphobic or that they dont support jkr's politics when they mention how much they love the books or movies.

hell, if you look in the notes you can find terfs repeating of y'all's exact defense of "well separate art from the artist like a well adjusted person" this cannot be some blanket defense, otherwise you are disregarding how art actually works and the ethics of art production and discussion.

and im not denying at people's relationships to art, the communities and relationships they build, are meaningless. i do not care to evaluate who is individually and morally approved to engage with harry potter and who isn't. everyone has a personal relationship to some art by people who have harmed or are evening still harming others that they have to negotiate with. that is Life, living in a society, etc.! but the circumstances around jkr's current terf activism are blatant. she is alive, wealthy, culturally powerful, and still making harry potter media. (and this isnt even digging into the fact how intense transphobic politics and culture wars are right now globally. maybe this would be a completely diff convo if trans rights and liberation were unuversally popular lol!)

you can have your own meanings and approaches to how hp fits into your life, but at the very least, sit with your discomfort and negotiate it on your own time. dont make it a problem for other trans ppl who are uncomfortable to soothe your ego. (and if you find trans ppl actively engaging with hp fandom and having fun, go hang out with them. stop bothering ppl who, god forbid, are drawing their own boundaries and rightfully raising questions.)

there's something truly miserable about JK Rowling being, at this point, the most prominent public figure associated with a hate movement but facing effectively no consequences for it because it's an issue that only a small fraction of the population is passionate about.

Like it's one thing if you have someone who's said or done some "problematic" things in the past. It's one thing for a media figure to be beloved by annoying MAGA chuds but despised by anyone even a hint left of center. It's one thing to consume art from someone who was a monsterous bigot in their lifetime but has long since passed.

But with Harry Potter it's just.... nothing. There's not even a conversation to be had. Aside from people who are online enough to care, everyone else just carries on as before. There is no cancelation to come back from, there is no smaller audience the work is restricted to, there is nothing to contend with unless you're friends with a specific kind of person. I still see people on dating apps who put BLM or ACAB or some other progressive slogan in their bios, but list Harry Potter as their favorite books. There is no shame in this. They see no contradiction because to them it is a non-issue.

Rowling is the face of a hate movement and most people who like her work don't even realize it. They don't have to realize it. And if they did, they probably wouldn't understand why what she's saying or doing is wrong.

I think about this every time I see new Harry Potter media coming out. Society does not care enough about people like me to even question if the people who hate us should face consequences for it.