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I Encouraged My Trans Son Not to Cancel J.K. Rowling
What gets you through childhood is magic. Hold on to it
I recently wrote about J.K. Rowling, who has had a bad couple of weeks.
A bad year, actually, thanks to some not-so-smart tweets that have shocked and angered the transgender community. On June 10, she published an essay purporting to explain her views and ease friction with the transgender community. Instead, she made things worse.
My previous piece touched on this uproar, but it was actually about something else: her right, despite the charges of transphobia, to keep control of her work, namely her Harry Potter series. I argued that, though fans throw out all sorts of theories about fictional worlds, creators should have the final say. It was literary, not social, criticism.
Now I need to address the transphobia itself.
Many have responded to Rowling already, some with gentle rebukes, others with full-on demolitions. There is, at best, a fleeting chance I can add anything to this national dialogue. But I owe it to myself to try.
More important, I owe it to my trans son, Jace. Like many of his generation, he’s struggling to accept that one of his heroes has, as he put it, “never been an LGBT ally.”
