Why didn’t more of us see Rowling’s bigotry coming?

If there is one thing this child is concerned with right now, I bet it’s the lack of intersectional feminism in a children’s book published in 1998 — Photo credit: Envato — Description: a young child dressed as Harry Potter points a toy wand toward the camera.

I recently had a commenter on one of my JK Rowling-related essays ask me:

“[…] didn’t you fans ever notice no queer characters? None. In — what? — seven books? And people are ambushed by her being transphobic? I’d have been astonished if she weren’t.”

There’s kind of a lot to unpack here, but let’s start with a really important context to understand…