Deadnaming...

I know a lot more about trans people than I did a few years ago. A lot of that has been an effort to educate myself and discover what's important and what isn't. I've had to throw out some notions that I've held for decades and re-write my own personal code to simply gain some basic understanding of their wants, fears, hopes and dreams. I won't pretend that it's been easy, but I also won't pretend that it was anyone's problem but my own. There was no one trans to blame for how I had to change - I had to change.

And change I did. Because I cared enough to work at it. I don't think I'm all the way there, but I'd like to think I've made progress. I tell you all this because of a revelation I've had that I honestly wish I could have made many years ago.

If you understand what you're looking for, you can see J.K. Rowling's bias against the trans community right in the fucking books. Remember, she never said Dumbledore was gay until all of the books were published. It made her seem like a hero in retrospect. So retrospect is fair game.

In their final confrontation, Harry deadnames Voldemort. He's the only character in the whole series who does so, and he's the bloody hero of the books. Whatever you think of the book's main villain, he has transformed himself from Tom Riddle into Lord Voldemort. Every character respects this transition - except Harry Potter, and it is Harry who has the voice of the author.

I never would have noticed this a few years ago. But in the course of educating myself I have, from time to time, deadnamed people I know to be trans, and who have taken new names upon themselves. And every time it was like I had sucker-punched them. I didn't mean to, but I had. I've owned up to it every time. There is real trauma that can be caused by using the former name of a person who has transitioned. The problem wasn't the trans person - it was me.

Just as Dumbledore was J.K. Rowling's surrogate "gay", I think that Voldemort was her surrogate "trans". I'm not sure she consciously meant it, but as a writer myself I know how easily personal bias slips into what you do. It's something you must be constantly vigilant about.

It has become clear that Rowling understands nothing about the trans community. But in retrospect, it is also clear that having Harry call Voldemort by his former name is meant as a sign of disrespect to his own transition from mere wizard to villain.

Yes, Harry Potter is written as a teenager and what teenager isn't a jerk? She explores that in some detail and you can't dismiss that. The books are well written, but I have to admit that I will never be able to look at her books the same way again, not because she has changed, but because I have. I look at Orson Scott Card the same way.

This is in fact why I keep books and collect and re-read them. It's not that they have changed but that I have, and they will have a different impact on me now than they would when I first read them. If I ever re-read the Harry Potter books I will notice things in them that I didn't before, and I think I'd enjoy them less than before I knew that J.K. Rowling is a trans-phobic bigot - because I now see Harry in the same light, and he's been written as the hero, and the surrogate trans character as the stock villain.

And that's simply not acceptable to me any more.