#hogwarts legacy tag for people who want to avoid that discourse

[theworldgate]

Hate to vagueblog, but the reason a lot of criticism of JKR focuses on her transphobia is because, like. Most of her life now is doing transphobia.

And, in doing so, she is actively endangering trans lives.

Like, sure you can do nuanced critiques of how the construction of the Wizarding World reflects the prejudices of a white British woman with a middle-class social background who was obviously going for whimsy over versimilitude (laziness is the wrong term - e.g. the naming thing is consistent with the sorts of kids books she'd have read and whose atmosphere the HP series emulated).

But... There is a very obvious and direct link between her words and actions (like, literally her words and actions, due to her platform and lingering media fealty) and the current torrent of bills designed to shut trans people out of public life (or worse), as well as the frustration of efforts to make life easier for trans people.

Just as an example: the UK Government (and the Tory party under Rishi Sunak are openly planning to promote and exploit transphobia in the next election) actually used the veto (which, to be clear, hadn't been used ever) on... The Scottish Parliament making it slightly easier to force a birth certificate amendment. (Language being because legally I'm not clear on when a birth certificate can be amended)

But yeah, my point is: JKR's transphobia is at the point of being actively, and proximally, dangerous! And her actions in promoting transphobia are actually making trans peoples' lives worse! Of course people focus on it more!

(note: this is not criticism of people saying that the antisemitic undertones are an additional reason to to buy The Game That Shall Not Be Named, but people being outraged that the thing that is directly making people's lives worse gets more focus than the use of common but dodgy children's book tropes)