Witchvspatriarchy - Witches Vs Patriarchy

Since joining Tumblr, I’ve met a lot of young queer people. Look, I’m a bisexual man in a gay relationship, and I’m approaching 30. I was still a kid when Matthew Shepard’s story was being covered on the news. I remember thinking, “I better keep my mouth shut about these feelings I’m having.”

And then I met Dominic when I was 12, and people could see how in love we were. And we got the shit beat out of us. The year I met him, some kids in the grade above me held me down against the bleachers in our gym and stomped on my hand until my fingers broke. Instead of sending me to the nurse, the teacher sent me to the assistant principal to explain the situation. She asked why the kids had beat me up. I said, “They were calling me gay.”

Her response was, “Well, are you?”

My, “I don’t know,” earned a call to my parents, and I was outed. Efforts were made to keep me from seeing Dom. Throughout high school, Dom’s stepmother intensified these efforts. He slept in the basement of the house. Although he was an incredibly talented student, he was prohibited from participating in any extracurriculars. He suffered a lot of physical abuse during those years.

The day he turned 18, he packed up everything he had and walked to my house, and we’ve lived together ever since. Things are better, but they’re not perfect. I’ve had trucks pull up next to me at stoplights and, seeing the pride sticker on my car, through old drinks and garbage into my window. I no longer speak to my dad’s side of the family. I haven’t been to see them for Christmas or Thanksgiving in years. One of my uncles had cornered me at Thanksgiving when I was 17 and said, “I’m not going to judge you, but I’d be happy to break your neck so God can do the judging a little sooner.”

I joined a support group for trans and intersex people. When I joined, 40 people attended regularly. Within the year, the group was half the size it had been. Some couldn’t make it anymore, because they were staying at the shelter, where their stay hinged on them agreeing to instead to attend homophobic sermons. Some were put in correctional therapy. Five of them died. Three of those, I didn’t know, but I knew Alex, the 19 year old who was fag-dragged in Kentucky and died a day later in the hospital, and I knew Stephanie, who went home to Alabama to care for her mom in hospice and was beaten to death with a baseball bat by her mom’s boyfriend.

Tumblr is not reality. The dynamic here does not reflect the dynamic out there. Here’s the part where I finally make a point, and it might be extremely unpopular - but guys, value your allies. Value each other. We are met with enough hate in our daily lives to enter an online safe-space and meet more hate from our own, over petty things. Don’t go after one another over every little thing you find problematic.

Learn to see nuance. Maybe the word “queer” bothers you, and you see a gay man using it as an umbrella term. Maybe someone called a trans man a trans woman because they’re confused about terminology, but the post where they did it was voicing support for the trans community. Maybe someone is just asking a question, wanting to learn more. Stop. Attacking. These. People.

Allies are being driven away. Members of our own community are being ostracized. Others are feeling nervous and estranged, and it’s largely because of places like Tumblr, where the social justice movement is quickly becoming violent and radical. I am begging you, stop nitpicking “problematic” things and start directing your efforts to create real change. When it comes to comes to your allies, forget the “social justice warrior” mentality and put down your torch. Educate calmly. Be respectful. Be understanding. Be forgiving. And I’m certainly not saying that your anger doesn’t have a good place - when you are met with bigots on the street, congress members who want to pass hateful laws, violent protesters, abusive parents, prejudiced teachers, that is when you need to be a warrior. That’s when it counts. In the real world. When you have the opportunity to protect people from real harm. Attacking your would-be allies via anonymous asks is just going to lose us ground in the long run. And we don’t have time for that, not when trans women of color are being murdered every day, not when states are still fighting against marriage equality, not when there are politicians in office who believe that trans people are possessed by demons, not when we’ve just lost 50 brothers and sisters to one gunman, not when the media won’t even admit that the attack was homophobic.

Please step back. Look at the big picture. Look at where we are, globally. Don’t just log on to your safe space and attack your allies over small missteps. That’s like washing the dishes in a house that’s on fire, kids. Let’s fight on the battlefield, and when we come home to each other, let’s just focus on bandaging up our wounds so we can go out and win the war.

It's easy for me to tell people to erase Harry Potter from their lives, because I'm not a fan. It didn't change who I was as a person, I didn't grow up with it and it doesn't help me cope with life.

I dont know what it feels like to have something like that, and then be in the situation that interacting with it supports transphobia/transmisogyny/racism/antisemitism.

If you don't experience racism or transphobia or antisemitism it might be hard to make the connection. To feel strongly enough to severe every feeling you have for it to where it's easy to drop. You might feel strongly about the situation, but might still struggle with liking the content and wanting to find a way around it.

But interacting with the content has real world consequences. You talk about Harry Potter publicly, post fic, you are keeping her relevant.

And that gives her power and access to more people and thus helping to spread her bigoted rhetoric.

So I might not understand what fans are feeling with the situation, and I know for some it helps you get through life. But thats why you need to focus on her bigotry. Or make some effort by finding something to turn you off of it.

You have to connect things visually for yourself, about the bankers with hooked noses to the nazi drawings of Jewish people. Compare that visually.

To the transmisogyny she spews to the trans women and other trans people she's hurting, and the bills she help support. Sometimes you have to actively look at someone right in the face and then think of the discrimination they are facing due to something you like in order to remind yourself that this is real life and not just words on a screen.

When we love something or it's helped us, it's hard to sever that connection, even in extreme situations.

But that's why you have to work at it. You can't just assume you will naturally fall out of the thing you like because racism is bad. It should, but I know things can be complicated in the brain. Which is why you have to be active about it.

Eventually, when you think of Harry Potter the bigotry in it will stick out too much and it won't have the magic it had before and that's okay.

Also there are people posting alternatives, so you have new series to try and help you make the switch. Ones you can be loud and proud loving.

I see a lot of posts on here rightfully upset. But I realize most aren't fans, and most don't use it as a coping mechanism

And this post isn't coddling. It's to the people who might feel they aren't addressed in the other posts.

So this is for the people that had the book help them not kill themselves. Who kin the characters or the characters helped keep them above water. For people who are comforted by the story. Who helped them through bad things in their life.

For people who feel that if they stop interaction with the fandom and series, that they don't really know where to go and that they will feel empty and lost.

And to some this might seem ridiculous but some people need to have a post like this.

If you're this person remember that the words and the world's and the personalities and the wonder can be found somewhere else. And that this book had helped you and made you feel happy for a while, and that another series needs to take that place.

You don't have to go cold turkey and get rid of all your stuff and delete your fics and fanart

But you CAN try the other stories, get into a new series and remind yourself that moving on and switching over is the right thing to do. Eventually it'll be your new hyperfixation and your new comfort series that makes life easier

Jk rowling is a bigot in many ways and her books bare traces of that. When people see you talking or interacting with the series now, they will wonder "do they support rowling?" and I don't think that's what you want

So yeah. Just explore other series and find new stories that help you, make you feel happy and giddy and obsessed! And know that whether you feel it or not, you would be helping to make Jk irrelevant and thus making a bigot not have as much power. And I think thats good.

TERFS/RADFEMS/TRUSCUM/TRANSMEDS WILL BE BLOCKED

I think I'll just rant about this so tw for transphobia and some swearing ahead

•••

I'm SO damn sick of people defending JKR. From the "It wasn't that bad" to the cis(!) people saying "What she said wasn't transphobic", fuck all of that.

And fuck cis people making it all about themselves when trans people talk about how harmful JKR is.

The first person I ever came out to as non binary was my best friend at the time. Not even a week later she talked to me about how much she loved Harry Potter and all. Which was fine by me, she's allowed to like whatever the hell she wants, I can't police her.

However, personally, it makes me uncomfortable to talk about JKR's stuff cuz her views just bother me. So, I just said "Sorry, but I personally try to stay away from Harry Potter and JKR in general because she's a terf".

Cue: Cis person making it about themselves.

"Oh so you say I'm transphobic?" "Harry Potter meant a lot to many people when they were younger, do you just want to take that away from them?" "Stop calling me a TERF, I'm not." "You're really overreacting here."

Mind you, I never once said that the people who like Harry Potter hate trans people. I just said I don't like JKR because she's a TERF.

She went on to defend the life out of it like "It's not gonna change that much if I support it anyway" "It means so much to me, I don't wanna just stop consuming it" "Just separate the art from the artist" "Well, I can't control my hyperfixations" all that stuff that you constantly hear from people trying to justify themselves.

There was no "I acknowledge that JKR is bad and while I still want to enjoy the series, I try to do so in a way that doesn't support her" or anything. In the end, I was the one apologizing to my friend because I dared to "imply she's a bad person".

And it's not even just her who acted that way - every time I see someone criticize JKR, the comments are flooded with these people getting defensive and angry at the person speaking up about it.

It's incredibly tiring when I as a non binary person have to constantly apologize for making cis people uncomfortable just because I try to speak up against a TERF - not against them, just against JKR.

-------

I'd like to also take two points that are constantly being raised because they're starting to get tiring.

"Separate the art from the artist", "death of the author" and "Hatsune Miku wrote Harry Potter":

It isn't that damn easy. Death of the author doesn't work because JKR is still alive and well, and probably will be for at least another 15 or so years. That woman is only 56 years old. She's gonna be around for a while. And for that time, she will continue to profit off every cent you spend on official HP merch, on her books, her movies and games. You keep giving her a platform that she can continue to use for her blatant transphobia.

Additionally to that, you don't need me to tell you that her transphobia isn't the only issue with her and her works, because lots of people from those groups have ready explained the racism and antisemitism in a far better way than I ever could. You can't entirely filter out her harmful views. You can't separate art from artist because that means you'll stop critically consuming her works because "well Hatsune Miku wrote those books so it's nothing bad." No. If you HAVE to consume her stuff you better acknowledge that it's not all sunshine and rainbows and be honest with yourself.

"It's my hyperfixation, I can't control that":

I want to make it clear first that I'm ND myself. I know how hyperfixations work. I know it's not the same for everyone.

That being said, stop using you being ND as an excuse. It's not.

Because unless your hyperfixation is "Giving money to transphobic people", the same applies to you - You don't have to actively give her money. You're allowed to have your hyperfixations, but being ND doesn't mean you can't consume content in a responsible way.

The fact that people are boycotting JK Rowling for her blatant transphobia and not mentioning her blatant racism exemplifies why people are white before they are trans or gay.

The Wizarding school North America (Ivermory) is riddled with blatant appropriation of Native American cultures, but no one gave a shit.

Study Breaks

The Blatant Racism of JK Rowling’s Ilvermorny Houses

An in-depth look at cultural appropriation in the American houses from an overly involved Harry Potter fan.

The Geek Anthropologist

Magical Maladies and Injuries: Cultural Appropriation in J. K. Rowling’s Ilvermorny

Although the final book in the Harry Potter saga, The Deathly Hallows, was published almost a decade ago, J. K. Rowling has been quietly bui

But no one gave a shit until she started starting transphobic rhetoric.

She literally takes Native American beliefs and... I don't know what the words are for this bullshit. Misrepresents them to capitalize on them? Appropriates them? Completely ignores the original beliefs in order to make up her own?

the Guardian

JK Rowling under fire for writing about 'Native American wizards'

History of Magic in North America, being serialised on Rowling’s Pottermore website, attacked for using an ancient culture ‘as a convenient

Although the new insights into the universe of Harry Potter were welcomed by many, the author was strongly criticised online by a number of voices from Native American communities, particularly over her writing about skinwalkers, which in Navajo legend are said to be evil witches or wizards who can take on the form of animals.

Rowling writes that the myth “has its basis in fact … A legend grew up around the Native American Animagi, that they had sacrificed close family members to gain their powers of transformation. In fact, the majority of Animagi assumed animal forms to escape persecution or to hunt for the tribe. Such derogatory rumours often originated with No-Maj medicine men, who were sometimes faking magical powers themselves, and fearful of exposure.”

Responding to a question on Twitter, Rowling said that “in my wizarding world, there were no skinwalkers”, with the legend created by those without magic “to demonise wizards”.

But yeah. The transphobia is why we're boycotting her.

(This isn't to say the transphobia is okay or to minimize trans issues. This is to point out that white people only care about issues that effect other white people.)

Look. All I'm saying is if you're going to make a post about why we don't like JK Rowling. Say "we aren't going to support JK Rowling because of her racism and transphobia."

Not to mention. How shitty of a writer must you be if you can't create b your own myths and legends? The fact that she's gotta steal from others completely exemplifies how shitty of an author she is.

-fae