Ethical Shit Talk--JK Rowling and the Millennial Witch's Fraught Relationship With Harry Potter CW: transphobia, sexual violence, partner violence, racism In this Ethical Shit Talk episode Meredith and Sarai dive in to the wizarding world of Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling's conflicted relationship with gender. Ethical Shit Talk requires that (1) you shit talk, (2) you turn the mirror on yourself, and (3) you only punch up. J.K. Rowling is the first billionaire author, and despite her background as someone who experienced partner violence and sexual violence, has chosen the path of violence (at least in her language) herself. If you are a millennial, the Harry Potter books likely came to you at a formative age (or if you are like Sarai, you might never have read the stories or seen the movies), and for many people these books framed how they see magic and even witchcraft. Through stories about the power of love and friendship, and a compelling John Williams musical score, the Harry Potter books gave a lot of millennials permission to explore magic and think outside of traditional structures. And, on the other hand, if you look closer, the stories raise questions about sexism and racism that have played out poorly over the decades. J.K. Rowling has consistently used male pen names, including the name Robert Galbraith, which is the name of the person who invented conversion therapy. Yet, J.K. Rowling has stated the belief that cis women should not be required to "call a man a woman," when it comes to pronouns. It's tough to know what pronouns to use with J.K. Rowling, so as cis women, we're going with he/him. In a 2020 essay, Rowling described believing that if the option was available in the 1980s, s/he would have transitioned to male. In 2024, cis woman boxer Imane Khelif sued JK Rowling and Elon Musk for cyberbullying, after Rowling accused Khelif publicly of being an abusive man and symbol of a "men's rights movement." In December 2026, HBO is set to release a new Harry Potter series, this time casting the incredibly cute Latin actress Arabella Stanton as Hermione Granger and accomplished Black actor Paapa Essiedu as Professor Snape. While this may at the outset seem like a good way to correct the inherent racism of the original cast being all white, if you look closer, this raises many problems. First, this puts a young Latin actress in the position of being called a racial slur. Second, Harry Potter's father and his band of white friends hang Snape from a tree and generally bully him in flashback memories. This is bad enough when Snape is white, but it presents the white Griffendor friends as KKK members if Snape is Black. Worse, the story tends to make this seem like a childhood mishap instead of a horrific crime. We feel skeptical that the show will handle this thoughtfully given the landscape of the books. These are dark topics. J.K. Rowling's descent into TERFdom (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist-dom) and the concerns about the racism of the new HBO series are serious and real. Anytime someone is set up as an icon around a spiritual topic, they dissapoint. AND we had some fun shit talking this, so we hope you enjoy! For a full timeline of J.K. Rowling's descent into TERFdom, check out this article. We're not going to link to Rowling's discriminatory posts, but that article does, so make your own choices about whether to click. Work with Meredith: fourthcupastrology.com Work with Sarai: saraijohnson.com
