Within the coming years, HBO desires its new Harry Potter collection to grow to be “the streaming occasion of the last decade” because it adapts every of the franchise’s seven unique books. The present might very effectively grow to be successful that captures the imaginations of a brand new era of followers who weren’t there for the primary wave of Pottermania that intensified with the releases of every ebook and Warner Bros.’ subsequent movie diversifications. And if this Harry Potter is successful, it might give creator J.Okay. Rowling a motive to contemplate writing extra tales set within the magical world that turned her right into a billionaire.
However all of that hinges on whether or not folks will really watch HBO’s Harry Potter, which is being government produced by Rowling. In some circumstances, a franchise’s creator being so carefully concerned with new variations of their work is usually a good factor, however Rowling’s involvement on this present casts a shadow over it that HBO can do little or no to counteract. Rowling has made it abundantly clear that she thinks attacking transgender folks through the authorized system is a worthwhile trigger and an excellent use of her huge private fortune. And as a lot as Harry Potter followers could be excited to see what HBO has cooked up, there’s no technique to watch this present with out supporting Rowling’s bigotry and the structural violence she’s inflicting on a susceptible minority.
For years, Rowling has trafficked in backyard selection transphobia below the guise of being a champion for cisgender girls’s rights. Final Thursday in a put up praising the Worldwide Olympic Committee for banning transgender girls from competing, Rowling implicitly misgendered 2024 boxing gold medalist Imane Khelif. The put up was the most recent occasion of Rowling utilizing transphobic canine whistles to assault Khelif, which is what led the athlete to file a prison grievance in opposition to Rowling final summer season.
Many individuals had beforehand gleaned from Rowling’s on-line interactions with trans-exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs) that she may maintain transphobic views. However it wasn’t till 2019 that she got here out as a TERF herself whereas weighing in on a precedent-setting UK authorized battle. On Twitter, Rowling voiced her help for Maya Forstater, a British tax marketing consultant whose contract with the Centre for International Improvement was not renewed in response to considerations about her tweeting and retweeting a number of posts misgendering and denying the existence of trans folks. Forstater — a self-identified “gender-critical activist” — filed a lawsuit in opposition to the CGD and its president Masood Ahmed alleging that her non-renewal was a violation of Britain’s 2010 Equality Act.
Whereas the Equality Act barred discrimination primarily based on “gender reassignment,” Forstater claimed that she was being unfairly persecuted for her private beliefs. One choose tossed the case out, ruling that Forstater’s views have been “incompatible with human dignity and elementary rights of others.” However Forstater was capable of attraction, and in 2021, the Employment Enchantment Tribunal determined in her favor.
Rowling’s tweet was not what led to Forstater finally receiving £106,400 ($141,683) in misplaced earnings and aggravated damages in 2023. However Rowling’s willingness to brazenly align herself with TERF agitators was vital as a result of she was lending credence to the bigger tradition of transphobia that has plagued the UK for many years. By supporting Forstater, Rowling was encouraging the general public to embrace their hateful beliefs and to think about transgender folks as threats to society. That type of rhetoric has been linked to spikes in hate crimes directed at queer folks. Rowling is aware of full effectively that her celeb helps her amplify transphobic ideology in ways in which folks like Forstater couldn’t on their very own. Rowling additionally understands that her wealth places her in a primary place to advance the TERF agenda (learn: implementing gender essentialism and erasing trans folks from existence) on a societal degree.
That’s precisely what Rowling was doing in 2024 when she donated £70,000 ($93,212) to For Ladies Scotland (FWS), an advocacy group that challenged Scotland’s 2018 Gender Illustration on Public Boards Act 2018. The Act’s definition of girls included individuals who had “the protected attribute of gender reassignment.” FWS received its preliminary judicial evaluation in 2022, which deemed that defining girls was outdoors of the Scottish Parliament’s purview. That call was reversed in 2023, and in 2024, an amended model of the Scottish Gender Illustration Act that used the British 2010 Equality Act’s definition of girls — which included trans girls — was signed into legislation. That very same yr, FWS filed and misplaced one other judicial evaluation in opposition to the amended Scottish Gender Illustration Act difficult its use of the British 2010 Equality Act’s definition. And whereas FWS couldn’t attraction that call, the case went all the best way to the UK Supreme Court docket, which dominated that the authorized definition of a girl is predicated on organic intercourse assigned at delivery. To pay for this in depth authorized battle, FWS turned to crowdsourcing, and Rowling was all too comfortable to dump tens of hundreds of {dollars} into their trigger.
This UK Supreme Court docket’s definition is itself problematic as a result of human intercourse biology is just not a binary. And along with stopping transgender folks from having their gender id legally acknowledged, the ruling makes it a lot more durable for them to pursue authorized motion for gender-based discrimination. Rowling celebrated the Court docket’s resolution by posting a photograph of herself with a really clear message: “I find it irresistible when a plan comes collectively.” The plan on this case was to assist bankroll an anti-trans group’s marketing campaign in opposition to trans folks, and it culminated with the passage of a legislation that reduces all girls residing within the UK all the way down to the best way their our bodies are perceived when they’re born.
A demonstrator holds a placard in opposition to creator J.Okay. Rowling through the seventh Trans Satisfaction protest march for transgender freedom and equality in London. Photograph: Getty
Rowling has been clear about her need to maintain helping folks of their efforts to rob transgender folks of their dignity and human rights. That appears very a lot to be all the level of The J.Okay. Rowling Ladies’s Fund — a corporation Rowling launched in 2025 that claims to be “preventing to retain girls’s and ladies’ sex-based rights in all points of life.” The Fund affords monetary help supplied by Rowling to cisgender girls who want to file lawsuits. The Fund’s web site makes no point out of gender as an idea, nevertheless it explicitly factors to the For Ladies Scotland case because the type of “victory” that it desires to see extra of on the earth.
Rowling has been wealthy sufficient to pour money into organizations like this for a while now as a result of she continues to carry main mental property rights to all the Harry Potter franchise. Each Harry Potter ebook, film, online game, stage present ticket, theme park move, and piece of merchandise that’s offered places cash into Rowling’s pocket, which she will be able to use to maintain her campaign in opposition to trans folks going. Given the property’s lasting reputation, Rowling, who’s at present value about $1.2 billion, might most likely do all of this even when HBO wasn’t producing a brand new Harry Potter collection. However as a result of the community is and it desires to maintain the present going for no less than a decade, Rowling may have much more capital at her disposal to impose her retrograde views onto others.
Clearly, this doesn’t concern HBO’s government management whose main objectives are to spice up the corporate’s inventory worth whereas taking house outsized paychecks and hefty exit packages of their very own. However it’s completely one thing that HBO’s subscribers ought to be desirous about as Warner Bros. cranks the Harry Potter hype machine up forward of the present’s premiere later this yr. HBO doesn’t need you to consider how it’s platforming a identified bigot and making it simpler for her to unfold patently hateful, dangerous messaging that may endanger folks. And Rowling would most likely slightly folks not take into account the truth that there are loads of different magical academia collection to grow to be obsessive about.
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