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Hogwarts Legacy continues to generate controversy. Turns out there's a... transwitch in the game, and a mod that gave that person a more femme voice has already been purged from Nexus Mods. Is not passing a virtue or a source of trans pride now? Just a few years ago, I've been reading Tumblr discussions that went "if there was a magic pill that turned you into an afab woman, would you take it?" - "yes duh".
Yeah, I suspect that a certain extremely online segment of trans-rights activists has collective bitch eating crackers syndrome for anything Harry Potter-related.
I've been unimpressed with most criticisms I've seen of the actual content of anything associated with J.K. in the last few years, and the "Sirona has 'sir' in it" is just another example of an extremely weak claim that only works to signal solidarity with a group that has already made up their mind, rather than engaging with the content of the game in good faith.
It would be so easy for the trans community to portray the Harry Potter situation as a near-complete victory. Basically every major actor came out as pro-trans, J.K. Rowling has been passed over for the various anniversary celebrations recently, and the latest AAA Harry Potter game has trans character creation and a canonical trans character! And yet people insist on snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
I've heard of too many people, even some within my social circle, who are beating themselves up over people going "mask off" and showing that they're not true trans allies by playing "the Wizard game" and it baffles me. There's pending anti-trans legislation around the United States, but a lot of trans people are seemingly so secure in their lives that they can worry about a nothing burger like a 90% pro-trans franchise having a tiny portion of all proceeds going to an already incredibly rich, uncancellable woman.
Anything done by unperson (short of repenting) is automatically a crime. It's the basic rule, not unique to transactivists. In Russia, actors and producers that criticize Putin get their names removed from movies and play productions. In the Soviet West, the same happens to those who transgress against different Party. But the principle is the same.
Because they don't want to be unpersons, duh. It's not about just hurting Rowling. It's about making an example of her so the others would be afraid to follow her.
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It’s easy for any individual, reasonable person to parse it as a victory. It’s also easy to fish for Problems. But I think the latter scales better in the absence of coordination, because it only takes one salient Problem to make something Problematic.
Well, that’s not strictly true. There’s some resilience to a lone hater complaining about something niche. It’s asymmetric, though. And once the early critics made it clear which side was going to score social points, opinions ossified and participants had to go fishing for better evidence.
The trans community isn’t coordinated enough to claim victory, because that has to be done collectively.
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