By Aja Romano Aja is a culture staff writer for Vox reporting on internet culture. Follow them on Twitter @ajaromano.
Last weekend, as Harry Potter fans the world over were still reeling from the latest round of anti-trans comments made by author J.K. Rowling, I boxed up 21 years of my life.
Over the past few years, Rowling has made several statements that suggest a growing alliance with TERFism — trans-exclusionary radical feminism, or the belief that trans women aren’t women and that biological sex is the only factor that determines someone’s gender. Many Harry Potter fans had previously voiced concerns that Rowling might be anti-trans, but despite their efforts, the author’s apparent TERFism wasn’t widely discussed until December 2019, when she suddenly tweeted in support of a British TERF at the center of a highly publicized court case.
Though Rowling was met with massive backlash at the time, she’s continued to express these views. On June 6, she appeared to openly belittle transgender people when she mocked a news headline about “people who menstruate.”
“I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?” Rowling tweeted, seeming to imply that all people who menstruate are women and that only people who menstruate are women.
Rowling’s comment deeply hurt many of her millions of fans — including me. More importantly, it perpetuated the type of pernicious hate and misinformation that leads to trans women, especially teens and black trans women, becoming victims of sexual assault, violence, and hate crimes at an appallingly frequent rate.
And so, on Sunday night, I removed Rowling from my bookshelf and stored her away: all 11 books in the Harry Potter series (seven novels, plus three supplementary books and one play script); The Casual Vacancy, her scathing satirical foray into “adult” literature; and her four Robert Galbraith mysteries. In boxing up those books, I metaphorically boxed up years of intense participation in the Harry Potter fandom, from writing fanfiction and going to conventions to moderating fan communities online and nurturing the friendships I made within them. I still talk nearly every day to people I’ve known in Harry Potter fandom since my earliest days there. I resolved to compartmentalize my Harry Potter fandom identity as something over and done with, instead of thinking of it as a cornerstone of my identity.
Then on Wednesday, Rowling attempted to explain her stance on trans identity with a long essay full of harmful transphobic stereotypes. It was a profoundly hurtful piece of writing, riddled with hand-wringing, groundless arguments about villainous trans women, outdated science, and exclusionary viewpoints. Especially gutting was the essay’s self-centeredness; Rowling masked obvious transphobia as a personal appeal to reason, rooted in her own experience as a woman and an abuse survivor. She asked for empathy and respect for her experiences while showing none for her targets.