Today is “Harry Potter” Day, and despite its worldwide notoriety, its author J.K. Rowling’s history of transphobia has LGBTQ fans wondering: who will be attending the party?

Just this past Friday, the 58-year-old author of the seven-book franchise and eight-movie series, waxed poetic on X about trans women being cis women’s “male imitators.”

Rowling’s track record of transphobia started to come into question long before last Friday, liking posts that described trans women as “men in dresses” back in 2017, for example. Or how the following year, denying liking a different post that said the same.

It wasn’t until 2020, though, that she let it all out in a lengthy statement on June 10.

“I want trans women to be safe,” she wrote. “At the same time, I do not want to make natal girls and women less safe. When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman, then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside.”

The cinematic “Harry Potter” franchise, which stars Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, raised a generation of fans who are fond of wizardry, trio friendships and the classic underdog-to-hero tale—all of whom have denounced Rowling’s transphobia. The book series alone still holds the record for the best-selling book series of all time, having first been published in 1997.

It’s no surprise that “Harry Potter” has resonated with many LGBTQ people, given that the stories often favor love over hatred, finding chosen families and unwavering allyship. But the legacy of “Harry Potter” hangs in the balance as its creator Rowling continues to tarnish what the franchise has meant to so many queer and trans people across the world.

The fandom was never about Rowling in the first place

Jackson Bird, a multidisciplinary artist and writer, says that Rowling was someone he and his fellow “Harry Potter” fans were already critical of, transphobia aside. Bird, who is openly trans, used to work in a fandom nonprofit called Harry Potter Alliance—now known as Fandom Forward—mobilizing fans toward social action, such as pro-LGBTQ issues.

He published an opinion piece in The New York Times in 2019, criticizing Rowling’s public support of Maya Forstater, a researcher who was fired for her online posts saying that a person cannot change their sex. Forstater also opposed proposed changes to the United Kingdom’s Gender Recognition Act that would allow people to legally change their gender.

Bird’s piece, which came out months before Rowling’s long letter in 2020, gave Rowling the room to grow. “Let us tell you about [trans people’s] lives, how we got here, and even how the world you created saved many of us,” Bird wrote in the piece. “We’re ready to have a conversation if you are. Send us an owl.”

He tells Reckon that today, unless he is appearing on a podcast that seeks to interrogate Rowling’s anti-trans ideas or are explicitly pro-LGBTQ, he doesn’t engage with the fandom anymore.

He mentioned that there are public records of her donating tens of thousands of dollars to try to overturn LGBTQ protections like the Equality Act in the U.K., and that she also founded a nonprofit for women victims of sexual violence, though the nonprofit explicitly does not hire or provide services to trans women.

“She is off the deep end in huge ways, so I don’t think there is any ethical way to engage financially with the fandom,” he said. “It’s such vitriol that’s coming from her that there’s not really any way for me to have a positive experience engaging with the text at all—it does not bring up any happy feelings anymore.”

For some, Rowling’s transphobia has become an opportunity to explore what it means to distinguish the art from the artist.

Separating Rowling as an author and as a person

When Dr. Greg Garrett, endowed chair of literature and culture at private Christian institution Baylor University, posted on X earlier this month about discussing Rowling’s transphobia in his “Harry Potter” analysis class, he didn’t anticipate thousands of online trolls to demand his job or his head.

Garrett, author of “One Fine Potion: The Literary Magic of Harry Potter,” published in 2010, is no stranger to Rowling’s body of work. He exclusively tells Reckon that in his classroom discussion, he and his students classified Rowling as a master of dramatic irony, a storytelling trope in which an audience knows more than the characters of the story.

“We talked about the dramatic irony of an author who had stood up for community, [showed] boundless compassion and the acceptance of difference, and advocated literary stances on love in favor of hate,” he said, explaining how the primary message of “Harry Potter” is that love is the most powerful force in the universe. He adds that many of his queer and trans identified students expressed feelings of betrayal on behalf of Rowling.

When it comes to Rowling as a person, Garrett adds that it’s crucial to understand that Rowling was a poor single mother prior to her large-scale success. Therefore, becoming the richest woman in England has launched her against her message in “Harry Potter,” and it is a radical departure.

As a Christian theologian, Garrett innately believes in the power of change. He tells Reckon that he is nearing the end of his lesson on the seventh and last “Harry Potter” book, which he notes as the only book that has direct references to Christian theology: recognition, repentance and reconciliation. But he criticizes her transphobia, calling her Christianity a form of white nationalism.

“At the end of the day, what I have to do as a teacher—as the person who is responsible for the subject matter in my classes—is that I have to reckon with: is the damage that she’s causing in the present moment worth the powerful experiences that we get from talking about her books?”

As of today, Garrett plans to continue to teach his course, especially for the sake of his queer and trans students who love the franchise. Additionally, for LGBTQ people who want to be involved in the “Harry Potter” fandom, Bird advises to think critically.

“At this point we see where she is now, using her tons and tons of money in ways that are materially affecting trans people’s lives for the worst in the UK,” he said. “If you’re going to continue engaging with the text, then you need to do so in a critical way by really interrogating what she’s done and being aware of it.”