I’ve gone back and forth on whether it would be a good idea to write a post like this, given the always-falling-apart nature of this industry and the world we live in, generally. Posts like this tend to get labeled as “drama” or “discourse,” especially because they’re about people’s personal consumption preferences, and people tend to feel personally attacked when suggestions are made about what you should (or should not) purchase with your hard-earned money. When you throw in the nature of fandom and The Way Gaming Is, this aversion to being told what to do gets amplified. I get it completely. But it’s partly because of the falling-apart nature of the world that I’m writing this. Bear with me.
To get this out of the way: I don’t really care if you’re still clinging onto the Harry Potter fandom in 2022. We can’t help the stories we’ve read or resonated with, and even if I think there are better books out there in the same vein as Harry Potter (and Ursula K. Le Guin agrees), that’s ultimately a matter of taste and boils down to what you were exposed to first. But at this point it’s a pretty well-established fact that J.K. Rowling is a transphobe. She has spent a considerable amount of time and resources over the past few years speaking out on, and showing up in support of, transphobic “gender critical” causes and individuals. She uses the vast sums of money she earns from her books and the world they spawned to do this.
Past or present, knowingly or unknowingly, fans of the “Wizarding World” have essentially bankrolled her campaign of hate. There is nothing to be done about this at this juncture, and there’s no judgment to be thrown in any direction from this. It’s just simply a fact that Rowling took her decades of stored goodwill and her millions of dollars/pounds and cashed it in on the world’s shittiest form of “activism.” You don’t have to throw out all your already-purchased memorabilia, for all the good it would do.
The legislative session of 2022 has been a particularly bad one for trans and nonbinary people[1]the prefix “trans-” is Latin for “across,” in this case someone who identifies as/with a gender other than the one they were assigned. Nonbinary refers to a person whose gender is outside of … Continue reading . Right wing lawmakers on local and state levels have been gleefully passing legislation that more heavily surveils trans kids and adults, makes being trans and playing high school sports a crime, opens everyone in public schools up to “routine” invasive genital inspections, and takes transgender-affirming therapy and healthcare – everything from simply fucking respecting pronouns allllll the way up to HRT – off the table. In Oklahoma they even passed an extremely petty law preventing the use of an X gender marker on driver’s licenses for nonbinary people.
And that’s to say nothing about the broader attack on queerness and queer people taking up public space in general that these motherfuckers are instigating. You’ve got right wing social media influencers scouring sites like TikTok for any hint of gay or otherwise-queer educators so they can call them “groomers” and get them removed from schools. You’ve got a nationwide book-banning movement that explicitly targets queer literature in school libraries. The Minnesota State Legislature banned the use of pronouns in the classroom. New bullshit like this seems to surface every day, without stopping. It has been called a queer and trans genocide. It certainly feels like a concerted attempt at “cleansing” to me.
If you know basically any trans or nonbinary people, or follow them on social media, you’ve probably heard some version of this before. It’s just about all anyone in the community can talk about. And very few cisgender people[2]the prefix “cis” is Latin: “on the side of,” someone who identifies with the gender they were assigned. It is not a slur. seem to really care. Maybe that’s harsh. More cis people than usual do care. But it still feels like shouting into a thunderstorm, and the combined forces of the far right, gender crits, and the handful of NY/DC media bubble “just asking questions” enablers who write shit like “is the Trans Contagion spreading to YOUR kids? here’s how to find out before it’s TOO LATE” still have a lot of wind left in their sails.
Bringing this raft of tortured metaphors back around…
There’s a video game currently in development due out early next year called Hogwarts Legacy. It’s being developed by Avalanche Software and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. It’s set in the “Wizarding World,” though J.K. Rowling is not currently reported to have anything to do directly with the game scenario or design. The extent of her involvement is, at least as we understand it right now, that she already got paid by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment to lend her IP and stamp of approval to the game, and they have an independent creative team working on the finer details. You’ll notice I haven’t provided any details about how the game looks, purports to feel like, what it’s similar to, etc. Those details aren’t important here. The game exists and it’s coming out soon, that’s the vital bit for our purposes.
Some trans and nonbinary people are asking their friends not to buy Hogwarts Legacy. As in: Don’t preorder it. Don’t pirate it. Don’t “get it on Game Pass” (assuming it comes out on that platform). Don’t watch a Let’s Play of it. Simply let it come out unremarked-upon and pass into the eternally-deep soup that is the annual video game industry release calendar. Avalanche Software will survive as a Warner Bros. subsidiary and probably move back into DC games territory; they’ve already been getting paid for their work on this game. You don’t have to “support the game or the devs will starve.” The ultimatum here is that if you do decide to get the game, the cost was whatever you paid for it and the end of your friendship with those trans and nonbinary people in your life who have drawn this line.
And this is where everyone typically starts to get caught up in their feelings, upset at the suggestion that a video game purchase could have any negative social impact upon them. So before that happens, let’s talk about performances.
See, gender is not the only type of thing that can be “performed.” Friendship and allyship can be as well. A “performative ally” is someone who pays lip-service to supporting (for example) queer and trans people in public, yet either falls way short in terms of meaningful action or is actively hostile to queer and trans people in private. The performance aspect comes in when (for example) they post “trans rights! ❤️” on Twitter every June 1, followed by conspicuous silence on queer or trans issues for the rest of the year. Performative friendship is a very real thing as well, when someone claims vocally up and down over and over to be here for you, whatever you need buddy I got you, and then when push comes to shove, when a friend is in need, they’re nowhere to be found. You and I will be both of these in various contexts throughout our lives. Like J.K. Rowling turning out to be a big TERF and using your money to do it, this statement is simply a fact with no real judgment attached. We will fall short. We will not be there when a friend needs us to be. Our convictions will falter. Our support of important causes will sometimes be more performative than substantive. And people in our lives whom we most hold dear will come and go as a direct result of these extremely human failings.
But think about what’s really being asked of you/us in this particular instance. Really, genuinely consider it. After a full sustained year of withstanding some of the worst trans- and queerphobic legislative attacks from the far right, all some trans and nonbinary people are asking folks to do to remain in their lives in this moment is to decline to buy a game. I’d say that’s more than fair trade.
And to be clear, I’m one of those nonbinary people making this request. It’s why I’m writing this article. Ever since I came out as agender[3]the prefix “a-” is Latin for “lack.” In this case, the experience of a gender identity that lacks identifiable descriptive characteristics, neither trending toward masculine, nor feminine, … Continue reading a couple years ago, I have felt incredibly awkward about talking about my own experiences either internally or externally. I have remained in the closet of least resistance, never exploring what it means to be agender nor being as vocal at home, at work or in my area in general about issues that affect all queer and trans people as I should have been, all in the name of “staying safe.” I regret this deeply every day. And ultimately it doesn’t matter. The far right is still coming for blood, no matter how supposedly unobtrusive your “Otherness.” Solidarity cannot be a four-letter word here, and there is more at stake than mere comfort or the illusion of safety.
But hey, if you decide you do want to buy Hogwarts Legacy, or you’re one of the damn fools throwing $300 into a pit in the ground labeled “Collector’s Edition,” neither I nor nobody else can stop you. I want you to do this, though: be honest about it. Understand what it means. Understand that your former trans and nonbinary friends will understand your move as one where you value your personal entertainment more highly than supporting them. It’s not cancel culture, it’s not suppression of different ideas or failing to separate the art from the artist, it is a clear articulation of your values in the face of an explicit request for support. And folks simply have to plan and organize accordingly. It’s nothing personal. Thanks for your time.
References
| ↑1 | the prefix “trans-” is Latin for “across,” in this case someone who identifies as/with a gender other than the one they were assigned. Nonbinary refers to a person whose gender is outside of the typical masculine/feminine binary. These terms can often overlap. |
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| ↑2 | the prefix “cis” is Latin: “on the side of,” someone who identifies with the gender they were assigned. It is not a slur. |
| ↑3 | the prefix “a-” is Latin for “lack.” In this case, the experience of a gender identity that lacks identifiable descriptive characteristics, neither trending toward masculine, nor feminine, nor even androgynous. |