Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling’s views on transgender people has drawn prolonged controversy.
A lot of things have changed since the Tony Award-winning play “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” settled into San Francisco’s Curran Theater for an open-ended run in late 2019.
Far from fading away, the controversy has only intensified as Rowling has continued to issue Twitter posts and essays since the summer of 2020 portraying trans recognition as harmful to women and that “erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives,” though she asserts that she herself is not anti-trans and has trans friends.
“I think everybody has to decide how they’re going to approach the question of separating the author from the work,” says Charlie Jane Anders, an award-winning author, trans woman, cofounder of the blog io9.com and host of the San Francisco reading series Writers with Drinks. “But in the case of a living author, who is currently using her power to attack vulnerable, marginalized people, I would not feel comfortable giving her any financial support right now.
There are no reports of organized protests against “Cursed Child” productions in New York or San Francisco, and it would be difficult to gauge any impact on attendance at a time when the COVID continues to affect theater productions in general. Charlie Jane Anders, an author and trans woman, is ‘grateful’ for all the young readers “Harry Potter” encouraged, but adds “I think there are many ways to love Harry Potter without giving Rowling a penny.”