aria | and that's that on that

Oops I tripped and wrote like a thousand words about being mad at JKR. I've been training my entire customer service career to be exactly this sort of angry, and really REALLY no one has to read it, although I guess I'm posting it in case anyone else is the same kind of mad?

Hi, Jo!

I've been a fan of your books for a long time. I had the first two Harry Potter installments read aloud to me in fifth grade, before Prisoner of Azkaban was released. I read all of Prisoner of Azkaban in one sitting. I went to the midnight releases. I read tons of fanfiction between each book. This is all very par the course for someone who was a fan of your work in the early aughts as the Potter books were coming out. I wanted to tell you a bit about what these books did for me personally.

My favorite character, almost immediately upon his introduction, was Remus Lupin. This was partly because I really liked the idea of Harry finally having an adult around to take his problems seriously and actually equip Harry to handle them; he was a good teacher, especially from the point of view of my thirteen-year-old self. It was also partly because I deeply recognized his desire to be liked, and the lengths he was willing to go for the few people who knew what he was and chose to be in his corner despite all the societal pressure that told them he was dangerous.

At this point I should probably mention that fanfiction about Remus Lupin and Sirius Black kissing was my first encounter with a textual queer relationship. I back-buttoned out of the first story I found, feeling flustered and confused, worried that this reaction meant I was homophobic. A few months later, because I couldn't stop thinking about it, I sought another story out deliberately. I read hundreds. I felt so seen. You created a character, and people on the internet who loved that character held up a mirror for me, and I discovered something wonderful about myself.

(I should probably also mention that I noticed Dumbledore and Grindelwald had a particular ... vibe ... when I first read Deathly Hallows. I felt very vindicated when you mentioned that Dumbledore was meant to be read as gay. It's really important to have textual queer rep, Jo! It's really nice of you to have briefly considered it and acknowledged it after the fact, which, to be fair, isn't quite as good, but it was 2007, so that was actually very beautiful and brave of you.)

I know that just because I read a lot of fanfiction about something, that doesn't mean it should be canon. In fact, in many cases it actively shouldn't be canon! The fact that Remus ended up romantically involved with Tonks in your books doesn't do anything to erase all the wonderful Remus/Sirius stories I read, and the fact that I didn't really like Remus/Tonks was, I figured, a personal shipping problem. It did occur to me later that it was a little weird that you took a character who, by your own admission, had a condition that was a metaphor for AIDS, and sent him through a three-act play about compulsory heterosexuality before killing him in the last book. (I don't know if Tonks' shapeshifting was a metaphor for anything, but I assume she only shapeshifted within her assigned gender, because she existed in books written by you.) It occurred to me later still that it was a little weird that you set up Remus as the one good werewolf, in opposition to all those other werewolves, the textual child molesters. That was an interesting choice, Jo! I'm sure a free association that starts with an AIDS metaphor on one end and child molesters on the other doesn't actually say anything about you as a person, though. You seem like a really wonderful lady. You wrote some of my favorite childhood books.

Anyway, what I'm saying here is that Remus Lupin was really important to me. He was the way in which I discovered my own queerness, and he does remain a metaphorically queer character, even if he isn't one textually. I wanted to thank you for your books, which were the doorway to my queer awakening.

There's also one more thing.

About two years ago, I made a tweet about relating to Remus Lupin. It went a bit bonkers viral by my twitter standards. It was kind of a joke, and also kind of not one at all.

When I was 13 Remus Lupin was the HP character I wanted to be when I grew up, & I'm happy to report that in my early 30s I'm chronically underemployed, going gray, give ppl lots of chocolate, & have undergone a transformation that many ppl find alarming, so I'm v much on track
— least unruly son (@dearmelee) August 26, 2018

I tweeted it about a month after I had top surgery. I got a decent number of followers because of it, and as far as I know, most of them were also trans. Now, Jo, I don't want to lay this one firmly at your feet, because there are so many factors that go into a person figuring out their gender identity, and off the top of my head I can think of several other fictional men who were equally important to me working out how I wanted to relate to my gender and enact it in the world. I also do understand that you textually meant lycanthropy to be about AIDS, not trans people. (And frankly the whole "other werewolves are child molesters" thing makes this whole proposition really dicey either way. You may want to consider your metaphors more closely in following books.) I think that you seem to mostly be concerned about the existence of trans women, so presumably -- again, you seem like a really wonderful lady who wrote some of my favorite childhood books -- the fact that I'm FTM trans shouldn't be alarming, or, I assume, mean much of anything to you at all, since you tend to forget we exist -- or maybe assume that we aren't real? It's really okay, Jo. I'm totally harmless.

Anyway, what I really wanted to say to you is: thank you, so much. You made me trans. Your glorious metaphorical werewolf is one of my favorite queer characters and you're the reason I'm queer and you're the reason I'm trans and you're the reason so many people around the world first got together in community and realized there was a community and realized wonderful things about themselves. Again, I don't want to lay this firmly at your feet! You were a catalyst. And I just want you to sit there, in the knowledge of my extremely trans gratitude, and understand that we all found each other, and we're free.

Good talk, Jo! Bye.