Evanesco, Rowling!
ADVERTISEMENTJ.K. Rowling has been airbrushed from a US museum due to her “hateful” anti-trans rhetoric.
The curators of Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP) decided to remove Rowling artefacts to “reduce her impact”.
“It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s what we were able to do in the short-term while determining long-term practices,” they stated.
Their initiative follows a May blog post, entitled "She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named", written by project manager Chris Moore, who is transgender. Moore criticised the author for her “transphobic” views and explained how the museum would handle Harry Potter displays moving forward.
“There’s a certain cold, heartless, joy-sucking entity in the world of Harry Potter and, this time, it is not actually a Dementor,” the blog post reads. “We would love to go with the internet’s theory that these books were actually written without an author, but this certain person is a bit too vocal with her super hateful and divisive views to be ignored.”
While memorabilia from the Harry Potter films will still be displayed in the museum's "Fantasy: Worlds of Myth and Magic" exhibit, any mentions of the author have been scrubbed from the exhibit.
“While the Harry Potter series is a major player in the pop culture sphere, we wanted to give credit to the work of the actors, prop makers, and costume designers in our Fantasy gallery,” the post added. “We learned that You-Know-Who was a problem, which is why you’ll see the artefacts without any mention or image of the author.”
Rowling has long been criticized by LGBTQIA+ organizations and members of her own fan base for reiterating hurtful rhetoric that is tied to the TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminists) movement, which posits the belief that trans women are not women.
“If sex isn’t real, there’s no same-sex attraction,” Rowling wrote in 2020 on Twitter. “If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isn’t hate to speak the truth.”
The author has always denied accusations of transphobia and said there were "a tonne of Potter fans that were grateful that I said what I said".
She has doubled down on these views over the years, including voicing opposition to Scotland’s gender recognition bill in 2022. Speaking on a podcast in February this year, she said: "What has interested me in the last 10 years and certainly in the last few years, particularly on social media: 'You've ruined your legacy, oh you could have been beloved forever but you chose to say this' and I think you could not have misunderstood me more profoundly. I do not walk around my house thinking about my legacy. What a pompous way to live your life - walking around thinking about what my legacy will be. Whatever. I'll be dead. I care about now. I care about the living."
