EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND–In a heartwarming moment just in time for the holidays, J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, abandoned her transphobic biases today after reading a tweet implying her very characters would be supportive of trans people. It’s the kind of moment of beautiful and sincere human connection that could only happen on Twitter.
The beautiful and life saving tweet, from user @ravenclaude16 read simply, “Voldemort rejected beautiful and amazing witches like Hermione just because of how they were born. Sad to see JK Rowling doing the same thing today…” These simple words grabbed the 56 year old author’s eyes because they referred to her world and her characters, the people who had once existed only in her mind. But it kept her attention with its novel twist on those very people. Did her attitude towards trans people, she wondered, have more of Tom Riddle than Harry Potter?
As she sat there, alone, staring at the decayed rose which sits in a vase on top of the table in the West Wing where she goes to read Twitter, she felt something stirring in her that she hadn’t in a very long time. It was that strange, marvelous feeling that she had named in her books “magic”. It was the feeling that the world was large, large enough for endless strange things, and wondrous in their diversity and harmony.
Without pause, she ran to the window and called to a young child passing the street. “Boy! Girl! Or neither! Whatever you may find in yourself!”
“Yes?” returned the child.
“Do you know the poulterers next door?” the author continued. “The one with the great prize turkey? Not the little one. The big one!”
“The one that’s almost as big as me?”
“Go and buy it! Have it delivered to the charity Mermaids! If you can come back here in ten minutes I’ll give you a crown for it!”
Meanwhile, halfway around the world, Twitter user @ravenclaude16 watched the Netflix original You, never suspecting the joy he had brought to Rowling and all the trans community with his kind willingness to reach out to Rowling on her own terms.