Sorry, I wasn’t ever all that much offended by what JK Rowling said about transgender folks. As I pretty much won’t be offended about your opinion on transgender folks or what you feel about what JK Rowling said. In fact, I don’t really ever get offended about anyone’s opinion on anything since…it’s only an opinion. Sure, I’ll have a good jaw with friends over subjects, agree or disagree as we seem to in equal measure. But in the end, how could I get offended over an opinion? And an opinion on a subject I know nothing about? If I was transgender, would I have been offended by what JK Rowlings said? I would hope that the ‘sticks-and-stones’ approach I take to the world, in general, would have influenced me to have just said, “Hey, it’s her opinion. I don’t know the lady, I’ll never meet the lady, and even if I ever did, I really dug those Harry Potter books. So, for those, I applaud her. The rest of it, well, again, it’s her opinion. What do I care?”
The Museum Of Pop Culture in Seattle (https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/news/jk-rowling-airbrushed-from-pop-culture-museum-s-harry-potter-display-for-transphobic-views/ar-AA1eRfr9?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=1b7dfe7a019e472488e8b86cb687f660&ei=69)
seems to care though. It has airbrushed Rowling from its Harry Potter display in its “Science Fiction And Fantasy Hall of Fame” exhibit, due to her opinion on transgender folks.
As mentioned in this blog: https://www.mopop.org/about-mopop/the-mopop-blog/posts/2023/may/she-who-must-not-be-named/ partly authored by the museum’s Project Manager Chris Moore, who is transgender:
“We would love to go with the internet’s theory that these books were actually written without an author, but this certain person is a bit too vocal with her super hateful and divisive views to be ignored.”
And:
“For the time being, the curators decided to remove any of her artifacts from this gallery to reduce her impact.
I shan’t scroll through Rowling’s supposed offenses. Or comment on how some of the Harry Potter stars have come out against her views (again, all a bunch of different people’s opinions) or assume to know how hurt Chris Moore was by Rowling’s views (again, just opinion). But I will say, that as much as leaving the lady out of an exploration of her contribution on the museum’s exhibit as flippantly marking her in the blog as “She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named feels pretty much unconscionable to me.
I felt the same way when watching the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony years ago when the Ronnie Spector were inducted. There was conspicuously very little said about Phil Spector, who created, wrote the songs for, and produced the “girl group” The Ronetts that Ms. Spector would first find fame with. I would never defend some of Mr. Spector’s actions (not opinion, but gun-wielding facts in some cases), but one can’t deny the man’s production skills, songwriting, and importance on the career of the Ronetts and so many other seminal rock and roll artists.
Again, separating the creator from their creation doesn’t sit well with me.
There’s a lot to ‘unpack’ here as the kids say:
1.) Indeed, why can’t we separate the actions, speech, and opinion of the creator from their creation?
2.) Have we grown so weak that we can’t see that (again) somebody’s opinion is just their opinion? (My mother taught me that sticks and stones axiom when I was five, and I have held that lesson well into my 6th decade)
3.) Isn’t the person who is offended by an opinion expressing an opinion?
4.) If we dig deep enough over the persons included in the MOP exhibit, might we not find something they did or said in their past that might offend somebody enough to want to excise them from the exhibit?
5.) Are (and I know the answer to this already) transgender people not able to take differences of opinion or even outright hatred of who they are (if indeed the opinion is outright hatred) any less than anybody else?
6.) If we agree (and I am not agreeing or disagreeing) that JK Rowling’s opinions about transgender people is exclusionary, isn’t the MOP executing its own exclusionary act by excise JK Rowling from the exhibit featuring her work?
Of course, all of the above, is just my opinion.
