As A Trans Person, I Am Never, Ever, Ever Giving Up Harry Potter. And Our Fandom Isn't Going Anywhere.

As a trans person, I am never, ever, ever giving up Harry Potter. And our fandom isn't going anywhere. Fucking deal with it.

Around this time last year, when JKR made some stupid comment (totally forgetting which one, there's just been so many at this point), I wrote a defense of Harry Potter fans' decision to remain in the fandom that essentially boiled down to this: giving up this fandom means giving up our people. In the wake of JKR's horrendous role in the anti-scientific UK Supreme Court ruling conflating sex with gender, this sentiment remains exactly the same.

I don't begrudge any HP fan who can no longer engage with JKR's IP due to this vile development. But I remain loud and proud in my support of the ✨community✨ that Harry Potter has brought together. As I mentioned in my last post, this community is not only full of the funniest, nicest, cleverest, and most creative people I've ever met in my life, but it is also the most diverse I have ever been a part of — and as an extrovert and community organizer who has lived in four different countries and speaks three languages, I have met a shit ton of people and been a part of lots of communities, significantly more than the average person. You are out of your mind if you think I am going to turn my back on the community that has been so critical to my survival as a queer, brown, neurodivergent, depressed, burnt out, poor Muslim femme in this capitalist, fascist hellscape. Day in and day out, my friends and I are pushing forward some of the most powerful narratives about queer, trans, and colonial liberation that society has to offer, which will have ripple effects on media and pop culture in the time to come (as is the nature of fandom). Nothing JKR can do or say will take that away from us. Nothing.

So to everyone who wants to claim that we're being transphobic for FREELY engaging with JKR's IP and doing things with it that would make her combust — that we're transphobic for wanting to keep this beautiful, generous community in tact — I not so kindly ask you to fuck off and leave us the fuck alone. You resist your way, and we will continue to resist in ours.