If you live on the internet, as I do, it’s hard to have a conversation about JK Rowling without an eye-roll, an impromptu shrug or a clever hand gesture indicating that we’ve moved on from the topic. The fifty-seven-year-old has become one of the most polarizing figures in today’s culture wars. Some of her tweets have been cited by feminists to hail her as an icon, while others use those same tweets to condemn her as a transphobe. While most of you reading this may have understood the author through her Hogwarts characters, now she’s inviting you to her castle in Scotland with a podcast JK Rowling’s witch trial to discuss her beliefs on freedom of expression, gender ideology, and witchcraft.
Podcast hosts bring their share of intrigue to attract listeners. Megan Phelps-Roper is a former member and spokesperson for the Westboro Baptist Church, a Calvinist Christian denomination that some organizations classify as a hate group. Church members picket the funeral of soldiers and spread hatred against the LGBT community and minorities in America. BBC documentary on British-American journalist Louis Theroux most hated family in america Helped open the doors of the church for the world to see an organization where hate was the norm.
The first episode of the podcast begins with Rowling reminiscing about the loss of her mother in the early 1990s. The author opened up about the abuse she faced at the hands of her ex-husband and the efforts she made to complete the Harry Potter manuscript. In the next episode, Phelps-Roper looks at the culture wars of the ’90s in the United States when ‘Satanic terror’ was at its height and places the influence of the Harry Potter series on its environment. She tells us that even a mention of the author’s name would attract mainstream witchcraft accusations, prompting Evangelical Christians to condemn Rowling and burn her books. Rowling uses this opportunity to comment on the issue of censorship.
Over the course of two episodes, Phelps-Roper, in an effort to set Rowling’s observations in their respective historical and cultural contexts, engages in an often tedious description of events, which seems like a distraction from her interactions with the author. While it’s nice to see the highly-reserved JKR open up, the host’s tongue-in-cheek sometimes makes one wonder whether her journalistic rigor is enough to determine the podcast’s direction.
JK Rowling.
In the third episode, the rise of fan forums that have fostered a global fan base for fantasy series is discussed. The discussion forums encourage fans to inform themselves about the Harry Potter house in which they fit in and to reveal their theories and thoughts about the books. These platforms also served as a safe space for children who did not fit into their school cliques and allowed them to experience the joys of friendship in the virtual world. However, the author claims that the atmosphere began to deteriorate with the spread of the Internet and cites an incident when she went undercover on one of these platforms, only to be bullied by it. Tumblr and 4chan, two different platforms took a strong hold with the youth and the medium started to transform into messaging. While this is an interesting phenomenon to understand, the host turns it into a tedious exercise; Her constant emphasis on kindness in an attempt to show the world that she is now reformed is boring, if anything. Their constant need to put Rowling’s controversial tweets in the backdrop of modern political events in America is nonsensical and bizarre.
Now we come to episode four: The TERF Wars (TERF is an acronym for Trans-Exclusive Radical Feminist). We finally arrive at the issue that polarized his fans and as many allegations saw the author fall from grace.
The fourth episode of the podcast reflects on the benefits of the LGBT community in the early 2010s – to the growing conversation around legalizing same-sex marriage in the United Kingdom and the push for transgender rights. However, the issue of self-ID has turned sour. Gender self-identification is the concept that a person’s legal sex or gender should be determined by their gender identity without medical certification.
JK Rowling’s feud with trans rights activists dates back to 2019, when Maya Forstetter, a researcher at the think tank, lost her job after tweeting that transgender women cannot change their biological sex. angry, Rowling tweeted in support of the researcher, “Wear as you like. Call yourself whatever you like. Sleep with any consenting adult you will have. Live your best life in peace and security. But kick women out of their jobs for saying that the sex is real? #IStandWithMaya #ThisIsNotADrill.”
In 2022, Ms Forstetter won her claim that she had been unfairly discriminated against because of her gender-critical beliefs.
She only doubled down on her beliefs in 2020 when she tweeted an opinion piece Using the term “menstruating people” and asking, “‘people who menstruate.’ I’m sure there used to be a word for those. Somebody help me. Wumben? Wimpund? Wumud?”
Radical feminists often frown upon phrases that reduce women to their reproductive organs and the process has earned them the ‘TERF’ label from trans rights activists for allegedly not including inclusive language.
Time and again, the author has emphasized the need for women-only rehabilitation sites for women victims of sexual assault. The author has also repeatedly decried systems that allow children under the age of 18 to undergo medical procedures to transition to the gender of their choice. recently, the new York Times published One personal opinion Defending Rowling and noting that her arguments for women’s rights do not infringe on trans rights.
The next three episodes continue to wrestle with gender ideology, its beliefs and why it invites disdain from certain sections of society. They touch on the growing number of de-transitioners, if allowing children under 18 to transition would do more harm than good and if transwomen were allowed into sex-segregated spaces such as women’s prisons and rape crisis centers. May go. Rowling is adamant, set in her views and argues for her camp.
Megan Phelps-Roper | Photo Credit: YouTube/TED
During the podcast, Rowling comes across as a woman with strong opinions and layers of arguments that support her views, but clashes with the host, who tries to make them palatable to please everyone. are keen. She misses an opportunity to thoroughly investigate the author and engage in dialogue that gives the audience some food for thought.
Recurring guests on podcasts are chosen at random and fail to add nuance to the topic being discussed. For the sixth episode, she invites Natalie Wynn, a transwoman and a YouTuber, and Noah, a seventeen-year-old transman, both American, to speak on the issue and their perception of Rowling. By inviting the couple onto the podcast, the host is not only focusing on the anecdotal experiences of two randomly chosen representatives of the trans community, but is also indirectly indicating that they are working with Rowling to counter her claims. are on the same level for; The episode does not feature Rowling and the audience is again taught a lesson in kindness.
Despite allegations of transphobia against him, Harry Potter as a brand has sold 12 million copies with Warner Bros. on the dollar bill. hogwarts legacyAn action role-playing game set around the world.
The show ends with Rowling’s concerns for the political left, which she says is becoming increasingly puritanical and pushing young people towards ultra-right-wing ideology. She also confirms that she supports the rights of transgender people, but wants to keep them away from the gender-segregated space of women. “There are more important things in this world than being popular, and that doesn’t mean that it’s more important for me to be right, but it’s more important for me to do the right thing,” she remarks and closes her door. Is. palace for us.
Podcast available on all podcast streaming services