Harry Potter Series Removed from Bookshop Over JK Rowling’s Trans Views

After years of controversy over Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling‘s stance against transgender rights, the owners of one San Francisco bookstore have had enough, officially!

via: Pink News

A spokesperson for Booksmith, an independent shop on Haight Street, said the decision to remove the popular series, and all other works by Rowling, was taken after news broke that she had set up an organisation to help support “gender-critical” legal cases.

The JK Rowling Women’s Fund und will reportedly support individuals, organisations or groups “fighting to retain women’s sex-based rights”, including in workplaces and “protected female spaces”.

The Booksmith spokesperson said: “We don’t know exactly what her ‘women’s fund’ will entail but we know we aren’t going to be a part of it.”

Urging fans of the series to buy used copies instead of new ones, Booksmith also produced a list of suggestions for Potter lovers as alternatives, including the popular His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman, and Rick Riordan’s young-adult fantasy novels.

Booksmith’s move comes as Rowling faced renewed criticism with Stephen Fry, Boy George and Pedro Pascal all recently speaking out against her.

Earlier this month, Fry, who narrated the audiobooks for all seven Potter titles, described Rowling – who also writes the Cormoran Strike novels under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith – as a “lost cause”, adding: “She has been radicalised, I fear, and it may be she has been radicalised by TERFs but also by the vitriol that is thrown at her.

“It is unhelpful and only hardens her, and will only continue to harden her, I am afraid. She seems to be a lost cause for us.”

He “disagreed profoundly” with Rowling regarding the trans community, and some of her statements had been “inflammatory and contemptuous, mocking, and add to a terribly distressing time for trans people”, the Wilde actor added.

Fellow actor Pedro Pascal, whose sister Lux is transgender, described Rowling’s, campaigning as “awful, disgusting sh*t” and “heinous loser behaviour”.