-I am 100% a Harry Potter fan.
I'm a huge --
I'm a proud Hufflepuff,
to be honest with you.
-Yeah.
I'm like a Gryffindor
with a Slytherin rising.
-Me and my roommates, we have --
Our key ring says
"Alohomora" on it.
-I love the characters,
and I love the story,
and I love talking about it.
But it also symbolizes something
in my own life
that's, like,
so important to me.
-I've been a Harry Potter fan
for longer than I've been out
as trans, for longer
than I even know I was trans.
-I was really into it, um,
when I was a teen.
Slowly it's just been chipped
away over the decade since.
-For the influential author
of children's literature
to be so vehemently anti-trans
and to so publicly shame,
ridicule, and invalidate trans
people is -- is lethal.
And I can't talk about it
without getting mad.
-I mean, the best way to put it
without being super eloquent
is it sucks.
It sucks.
-We would honestly prefer
to never talk about her
ever again, honestly.
-There's, like, a very big,
serious, global conversation
that needs to be happening
right now
in terms of the uprising
around protecting black lives,
which includes in a huge way
black trans lives.
And so, like, this is
a very specific act of violence.
-It's using her voice that
so many people listen to --
so many people listen
to her voice --
to actively attack trans folks.
That [bleep] me off.
-Yeah.
It's so tough to see someone
that you idolized as a child
say something so --
just so hurtful and damaging.
-If she's saying that trans
women aren't real women,
then she's also saying trans men
aren't real men,
that trans men aren't part
of the conversation.
I don't know what's worse --
feeling invalidated
or feeling invisible.
-As trans people and as trans
young people especially,
we walk around
with our guard up all the time.
And there are so few spaces
for a lot of us
where we feel like
we can let our guard down
and really be ourselves
and feel safe and affirmed.
And the Harry Potter fandom
is one of those places.
And then JK Rowling comes in
and takes that away from us.
-For so many people,
Harry Potter is,
like,
something that they consider
to be a part
of their foundational identity.
-I grew up with Harry Potter
as a kid.
You know, I was about
the same age as Harry
when the books were coming out
and grew up with him.
So there's a part
of Harry Potter
that is deep within the core
of who I am and my identity.
And I did wrestle
with the fact of, like,
what does this mean
for my fandom?
What does it mean for me?
Is my engaging with this
financially benefiting someone
who actively hates me?
-Don't give JK Rowling
any of your money.
Stop buying the books.
Don't download the games.
-I think it's incumbent on us
to name that we can still love
and cherish the story
but we can
no longer economically
support the franchise.
-I don't know if it's because
I've been aware of this
with her for so long
and I've had,
like, breathing time.
Now I don't want anything to do
with the franchise.
-In my mind, I've kind of,
like separated Harry Potter
from JK Rowling entirely.
Like death of the author
except she has done it
entirely by herself.
-However way that, like,
people are individually,
you know,
interpreting Harry Potter,
however they feel about it
in their personal lives,
like,
that is a deeply personal thing.
Like, my love of Harry Potter
and what I love about it
is my own.
-While she may be able to be
the one
to sell rights to Warner Bros.
to make movies, she doesn't own
the rights
to what Harry Potter meant to
so many people, myself included.
-One thing that was nice is that
it meant that several, like,
major members
of the "Harry Potter" film
cast have spoken up in response.
And it's like, would they have
explicitly spoken up so strongly
in support of trans
rights right now if JK
Rowling hadn't spoken up
against them?
I'm not sure.
Like, I'd rather we were talking
about it
than not talking about it
at all.
