“We always thought Booktown should be an inclusive, welcoming place for everyone, so we took the decision not to go with Harry Potter.”
Many have long forgotten this. But in 2007 when J.K. Rowling announced Albus Dumbledore was gay, that was a groundbreaking revelation. The press ate it up at the time.
People are routinely furious at the Harry Potter series author nowadays. But in retrospect what value was there in Rowling parading a black Hermoine casting for the play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child?
It should’ve solidified her as a champion of progressive values. But given this new cancellation announcement, it shows that Rowling’s record has fallen by the wayside.
According to Stuff in New Zealand, the organizers of the Featherston Booktown Karukatea event in the Wairarapa region have cancelled the annual Harry Potter book quiz event.
It was in June 2020 that J.K. Rowling caused an ideological uproar on social media after giving their opinion on transgender issues. In a blog post released around this time, the author gave her support to Maya Forstater, who had lost their job due to “transphobic” tweets.
Loading this lets X set cookies and collect data.
View on XThe blog post from Rowling clearly demonstrates what drove her to views, being subjected to abuse from the trans community online.
"I knew perfectly well what was going to happen when I supported Maya. I must have been on my fourth or fifth cancellation by then. I expected the threats of violence, to be told I was literally killing trans people with my hate, to be called cunt and bitch and, of course, for my books to be burned, although one particularly abusive man told me he’d composted them.”
Ironically the event is also slated to have a discussion panel exploring the impact of cancel culture on the literary arts.
This quote from festival board chairman Peter Biggs about how they reached the decision makes J.K. Rowling sound like Rush Limbaugh.
“The overwhelming response was there was a risk around causing distress to particular members of the community and that was the last thing we wanted to do. We always thought Booktown should be an inclusive, welcoming place for everyone, so we took the decision not to go with Harry Potter.”
Tabby Besley? of Inside Out charity described Rowling as “very vocally unsupportive of trans communities” and that this decision was made to avoid “potential upset” from the crowd.
This isn’t the first case of a Rowling cancellation happening. Last month The Daily Wire reported Stanford University discontinued a Harry Potter themed dormitory floor on similar charges of transphobia.
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