@Soozcat thank you, from a transgender woman and ex-Harry-Potter fan.

I was having a conversation the other day with a classmate, who mentioned the series in passing and saw me flinch.

"Oh, are you not a fan?", she asked.

"It's just... what JK Rowling says about people like me. About how she uses her money to try to destroy us."

"Oh." She was taken aback. "I've heard a little about that. And I don't want to be part of that, but... you have to understand. I grew up with the series. It means so much to me."

"I get that," I responded. "I was also a fan. I waited for hours outside the bookshop for book number five to be released. I went to Harry Potter parties. I speculated online about plot points. All my friends were into it. And then JK came out as transphobic, and it ripped all that away from me. Overnight the entire fandom was ruined for me, because I knew what she thought about me and everyone like me."

I know what I'm asking when I ask cis fans to step away. Not because it is easy, but because it is heartbreaking. Because it broke my heart.

I'm asking them to gently abandon their nostalgia and their sense of belonging linked to the series, difficult tho that is, on the grounds that people are more important. I am not an abstract political position but a human being, with the capacity to suffer.

It is difficult to step away from something that brought you comfort. It's an order of magnitude harder to have it torn from you and turned against you. That's something I hope few people have to experience in their lives.

❤️