It’s Harry Potter and the almighty backlash
THANKS to her imaginative genius JK Rowling has created characters who can fly, cast spells and achieve immortality by splitting a dark wizard’s soul into separate pieces. Yet for all her incredible flights of fancy, she can’t countenance men becoming women or women men. In a tweet defending a researcher who lost her job because of her transphobic views, and who tweeted that ‘men cannot change into women’, Rowling stated: ‘Dress however you please. Call yourself whatever you like. Sleep with any consenting adult who will have you. (…) But force women out of their jobs for saying that sex is real?’
Predictably the author who gave LGBTQ rights her seal of approval when she had Dumbledore, the head of Hogwarts School fall in love with Grindelwald, a fellow wizard, has experienced the same strident backlash that trans sceptics from Ian McEwan to Martina Navratilova and Germaine Greer have experienced for opinions ranging from what sounded like mild bemusement in McEwan’s case at the idea that people with penises are not men to outright intransigence in Greer’s case.
Under pressure, McEwan and Navratilova recanted, allowing that the question of identity is more complex than we know, although Greer stands firm in her refusal to accept Caitlyn Jenner as Glamour magazine’s Woman Of The Year.
Of them all Rowling perhaps has risked the most in terms of popularity as her fans are younger and on message when it comes to one of the burning issues of their time.
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Younger people and indeed younger feminists are more accepting of transgender rights .
Yet older people like JK Rowling grew up in a time when a girl who played football and refused to wear pretty dresses was labelled a ‘tomboy’ and nothing more was said about it, even as she embraced her ‘femininity’, without any trauma as she got older. It seems bizarre in that sense that the younger generation who were raised without oppressive gender stereotypes, where sarong-wearing David Beckham modelled a gentle version of masculinity and Katie Taylor was a role model for girls, seem so troubled by gender that they’d undergo serious and irreversible surgery and heavy doses of hormones to change it.
Not only that but the age that they are saying they are disgusted by their bodies is getting younger all the time and the numbers increasing. There must be some reason for this.
Amid the loud chorus of activists who drown out respectful debate about one of the fundamental questions of human identity, it is easy to forget that what is beyond doubt is that trans people are among the most marginalised and bullied groups on the planet.
Some of the louder elements in the debate refuse to contemplate psychiatric treatment for gender dysphoria and often harass anyone who seems less than unquestioning about trans rights.
There needs to be room for considered public discussion of such an important topic. Perhaps we should listen directly to those who suffer from gender dysphoria rather than the army of trans activists.
It’s a project that JK Rowling might undertake in the new year. She has been accused of revising her characters to keep apace with social mores, like gay rights. Perhaps making Dumbledore a young woman could be her next bit of wizardry.