Point: Sarah Wheaten at Politico’s The metamorphosis of J.K. Rowling: When it comes to trans rights, some fans believe the Harry Potter author is more Death Eater than Dumbledore.

“Many of you may be aware of JK Rowling’s recent tweets concerning transgender issues,” reads an explanation on the tour group’s website. “It’s a difficult time to be a Harry Potter fan for many but we sincerely wish JK Rowling’s views not to diminish our appreciation of the books and their messages of inclusion and tolerance.”

The disclaimer is a quiet but unambiguous protest against Rowling’s buzziest body of work since her blockbuster series of schoolboy sorcery. It’s also a tiny but telling example of how, in a few short years, the author has gone from being an unobjectionable matron of the political left to one of its most hated villains.

Rowling’s views — and her willingness to exchange biting blows with her online critics — have been denounced by fans as transphobic, a betrayal of the values of tolerance they learned from her books. Stars of the Harry Potter movies have disavowed her statements; celebrities have taken their distance; major websites devoted to the wizarding world have said they’d stop writing about her. (On the other side of the spectrum, Russian President Vladimir Putin has bemoaned that she’s been “canceled.”)

None of this seems to have given Rowling pause — or done much to put a crimp in her commercial prospects. Twenty-five years after the publication of “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone,” her books continue to fly off the shelves. The third installment of the Harry Potter spin-off “Fantastic Beasts” hit theaters in March. If anything, as the criticism has mounted, Rowling has only become more combative, cheerfully retweeting her detractors to trigger pile-ons from fellow thinkers.

Counterpoint: Suzanne Moore’s The Metamorphosis of Misogyny: Politico’s Dire Profile of JK Rowling

The [‘Metamorphosis’ piece by Sarah Wheaten] however, is so beneath the writer and Politico. It is not a profile but a sloppy attack on Rowling. There is no attempt made to understand the arguments around all this or the differing contexts. Why this now?

Possibly because actually a lot more people are waking up to what is going on. There is no mention that Warner Bros are making it clear they now back Rowling, that many sporting bodies are rethinking their stand on trans athletes, that here The Cass Review is unlikely to recommend the US gung-ho approach to puberty blockers as its interim report said “There is lack of consensus and open discussion about the nature of gender dysphoria and therefore about the appropriate clinical response.”… All of this means  that Rowling’s position and that of many gender critical women does not appear to be so eccentric. Nor is it transphobic.

We want the best for young women and we want single sex spaces.

However we all know what has happened to Rowling. Wheaten makes her position clear writing “Transgender women are women ,” proclaimed Daniel Radcliffe, schooling the woman, 25 years his senior” . He schooled her? Really.

Wheaten seems obsessed with legacy when Rowling has made it clear she knows what she is doing and what she believes. She seemed worried about my legacy too [Wheaton interviewed Moore and discussed her in the Politico article – ed.] suggesting that I did not have much support when I left The Guardian. This was not the case at all.

She calls me “a pariah” which is rather over the top considering I have maintained and furthered my writing career. Bizarrely she describes the lunch we had [at the River Cafe earlier this year], which was a load of fun, in language redolent of the most rancid Daily Mail style “With glossy red hair and a plunging neckline, Rowling out-glammed them all, even as the poses got sloppier with each bottle of wine”.

What is this crap? Was Rowling flaunting her enviable assets? Were we women laughing with wine instead of salad ? Call the police? Has Wheaten ever met a lesbian or women who were not trying to out-glam other women because many of the ladies who lunched were shock horror gay!!

Who knows? This piece on Rowling is sour, ill-informed and silly in so many ways and a real waste of an opportunity to explore the issues.  Hatchet jobs are usually at least sharp. Wheaten’s knife is blunted.

Scorecard: Rita Skeeter at Politico wins on reader points because her platform is enormous compared to Moore’s; few readers will find Moore’s substack piece that reveals the original article as a deliberate hatchet job. Rowling may not be subject to cancellation or blacklisting and she may be winning the war in the UK for vulnerable young women and for single-sex spaces; she remains an open target for media know-betters who continue to carry water for transgender activists and extremists.

This 2016 video is for the most part forgettable publicity B-roll and fan servicing that was released in the run-up to the release of the first Fantastic Beasts film. It does include a brief interview with J. K. Rowling, however, during which she made two comments you might want to file away for future citation: 

“I think I set out my stall (sail?) with the first sentence of the first Harry Potter book. ‘Mr and Mrs Dursley were proud to say they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.’ And that set out the main theme in this whole world: ‘What is normal? And what does that mean for us who do not conform to those norms?’ Which, actually, when you start digging down, is a huge number of people.”

“I think it took me decades of my life to realize that not only did I have to be me [but] that was okay. Like a million other people, there’s nothing especially unique about this, but it’s something that I feel quite strongly and I understand readers who feel that way, who feel ‘it’s okay to be me and now I must find out what that means and how I can be the best me’.”

Hat-tip to Chris Calderon for this find!

Twenty five years ago today, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was published by Bloomsbury in the United Kingdom. I want to share three articles in British papers about the event for your reflection and comment on this anniversary.

(1) ‘There was practically a riot at King’s Cross’: an oral history of Harry Potter at 25 (The Guardian). This piece shares the memories of many of the principals involved with the publication of Philosopher’s Stone and I confess to being startled at how much I learned from this “oral history.”

The only disturbing thing to me, though sadly and perfectly understandable in light of Team Trans terrorism, was reading that J. K. Rowling is “not taking part in publicity around the anniversary.” Such a shame that there could not have been a gathering of Rowling and the Little Agency and Bloomsbury veterans that made this publishing event possible.

(2) Harry Potter publisher Bloomsbury says reading boom here to stay (BBC.com)

Bloomsbury also said sales of Harry Potter books had increased by 5%, as the 25th anniversary of the series approaches.

It added that Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was the sixth bestselling children’s book of the year, according to UK Nielsen Bookscan, which reports book-buying trends.

Forgive me for doubting that the incipient anniversary had anything to do with the increased sales of Philosopher’s Stone this year. Without the relevant data, of course, nothing can be said with certainty, but I think it more than likely that Potter book sales have been climbing every year for quite some time now as Generation Hex has children and buys a new set for their bedtime reading (and new young readers discover and make them their own). It seems credible, consequently, that the Hogwarts Saga will remain the 21st Century’s ‘Shared Text’ for at least the foreseeable future.

(3) London’s most popular Harry Potter books ahead of 25th anniversary of Philosopher’s Stone (Evening Standard). This very short article is really just a list of Amazon’s ranking of the seven books from most to least popular: “Amazon.co.uk has released its sales information via London sales data, which includes both print and digital sales, as well as downloads.” Not too surprisingly, the list only has two departures from a list of the books in sequence (as a series, the first should be the most popular and the last or later books much less popular because some readers naturally will fall away from the series as it is published).

The two exceptions are that Deathly Hallows  was one spot more popular than Half-Blood Prince and, the only real head-scratcher, Prisoner of Azkaban was rated the sales loser of the set. Go figure.

I have three questions I hope Rowling Readers will answer on this anniversary:

• Where were you twenty-five years ago — and did the publication of Harry Potter and your eventual encounter with it change the direction of your life in any significant fashion?
• What was your most memorable experience at a Midnight Madness book release event or in any other purchase moment with the books?
• At what level of enthusiasm do you share your love of these seven books with friends who have not yet read them? Are you a Potter proselytizer (“Read this today! I’m buying you the set!”)? An enthusiast (“Really, there’s so much more to these books than you can believe. I heartily recommend them”)? Or are you over it (“Potter is fun, but it’s history. Pick up Cuckoo’s Calling for the adult version”)? 

Thanks in advance for sharing your answers, thank you for the decades of fun and learning together in dioscussion of these books and others, and have a happy 25th anniversary, Potter-philes! (A hat tip to the friends in the UK who sent me the links to these three articles!).