Harry Potter and the Transgender Problem

https://existentialcomics.com/comic/461

55 comments

You know, I never thought about the fact that quidditch, a game that J.K. Rowling came up with herself is non-gendered. Yet she goes onto social media and screams about how we can't let trans women compete against the pure and innocent cis girls. Fuck off Rowling.
- As I understand, she's a trans-excluding radical feminist, so within her world view that is probably coherent:
  Ideally, sports should be non-gendered, like quidditch, because everyone has equal chances anyways.
  Where there's biological differences or social reasons why women have no chance when competing with men, a women's league should exist, to give women an opportunity for publicity, prizes etc..
  Like, the above makes sense, as much as it ever will do. And factually, trans people do blur the line here and point out the fault in this arbitrary system. I can understand having a brainfart, that if only those trans people wouldn't exist, we wouldn't have that concept challenged.
  But trans people do exist and trans people are fucking fantastic for feminism literally everywhere else. Blurring those lines means that all those systems where cis men are privileged get put into question just as much. It's so stupid to get hung up on sports and gendered bathrooms.
  
  The reason people are getting stuck up on sports and gendered bathrooms is that it's a wedge issue that can be weaponized to keep people fighting and distracted by culture war nonsense so the focus isn't on the building of the Orange Reich, a dozen companies contributing to almost all the climate change, and our economic system working to keep us enslaved.
  
  Yeah it's absolutely true that there is nuance here and it's not an easy question to answer. How do you both keep the integrity of sport and also allow trans women a place to compete? It's a conversation that involves a huge range of factors including the specific sport's physical demands, the level of the competition, and the stage of transitioning, among others.
  The big problem is that it's a conversation that can only happen in any constructive way if everyone involved in the conversation unequivocally accepts trans people's personhood and their right to be respected for who they are. And most of the time we see his play out in public, including from the TERF-in-chief, that isn't the case. Rowling isn't interested in a nuanced conversation and arriving at an ultimately fair outcome. She's interested in persecuting trans women, full stop.
  
  trans-excluding radical feminist
  I'm amused to see we can categorize idiocy. (I don't have anything against feminism itself btw.)
- It is gendered, in the old way. Almost every player is male, aside from Cho Chang. The reason womens leagues were created in the first place was to encourage more women to play.
- Comparing a fiction sport to actual sport? That a nice shortcut.
  
  Fuck off, Joanne
  
  You mean equating.

I'm more concerned about how other roles in Quidditch are basically fighting for like 30 minutes while having no practical impact to the result of the game
- It's been a while since I read them, but iirc, catching the snitch ends the games and gives a shitload of points to the catcher's team, but it doesn't automatically win the game if the opposing team is more points ahead than the team that gets the snitch. I think i' the books there are a few matches in which Harry can't catch the snitch but needs to keep the other team's catcher from catching it. Tho the amount of points the snitch gives is too high for it to occur often.
  
  IIRC Joanne stated in interviews that she intentionally made the game beyond uselessly broken on purpose, to spite football fans or whatever. She is, very fundamentally to her person, a spiteful bitch.
  Further proof to the stupidity of this: in the recent video game, ya can't even play quidditch. The feature doesn't exist, because the game would be literally unplayable.
  
  The quidditch world cup in book 4 happened this way. The Irish won by points but they did not catch the snitch.
- The beaters try to beat the opponents off their broom, the chasers try to win points for their team, the goal keeper try to block the other team from scoring, the seeker tries to catch the snitch to end the game. The game does not end until the snitch is caught.
  
  Everything except the snitch makes sense. It's worth like 15 goals.
- Nailed! You perfectly described the weird feeling I had for more than a decade and yet couldn't figure out what.
  
  I played the game boy game quidditch and it was fine in practice as weird as the rules sound
- a woman invented it

- 4chan never disappoint
  
  rather, they always disappoint precisely as much as you expect them to
  "yes yes gas the jews whatever just get to the bit where you present a waterproof unified theory of everything, thus revolutionizing physics"

Anyone know of a trans Harry potter fanfic where they change themself into a girl with magic
I genuinely want to read one now
Edit:
https://old.reddit.com/r/HPfanfiction/comments/18udvt4/fics_where_male_harry_turns_into_a_girl/
2nd edit: I have just become aware the op of this post has pretty hateful bigoted post history just to make people aware
- There’s an npc in a Skyrim mod who wants your help to find this magic tome. When you find it they use it to turn into a woman, coming out as trans. It was super cool, I genuinely didn’t expect it.
  
  There's a quest in the old-school MMORPG Runescape where the player has to be a woman to proceed, and if playing as a male you get given a voucher for a free gender change.
  No explicit comparisons to IRL trans people, but still, it's there.
- Chuck Tingle's Harriet Porber series.
- Sounds like the sort of content one would find on the fanfic site archive of our own
- Be the change you want to see in the world
  
  I don't have any writing skills and the only experience I have is writing stories to get a passing grade in English
- I'll have to look it up when I get home, but there was one where Harry transitioned into Holly Potter. It was pretty good from what I read.

55 comments