CONTENT WARNING: This piece contains details of transphobia, racism, and violence.

Much legitimate criticism has already been written about J.K. Rowling, and by extension Harry Potter, especially in light of the author's recent, vast and erroneous anti-transgender statements in blog posts and on Twitter. Like many Potter fans, I am disappointed by this and troubled by my personal relationship with the series. Many intelligent articles have explored the misinformation she uses to defend her point of view (opens in new tab) and the insensitivity regarding gender and race that was already evident in her wizardry canon. However, for the original seven books (1997-2007), some fans claim that they were "outdated (opens in new tab)" and that criticism grew after the books were completed. Unlike Harry Potter, the story takes place in the real world, and Rowling explores issues of race, gender, and sexuality directly. It is truly bleak.

For a long time I loved the "Strike" series. I pre-ordered the book. I read them on release day; I loved the representation of the secondary character, Robin Ellacott, a rape survivor with PTSD. Rowling is even more poignant because in her latest blog post, she reveals that she is a survivor of sexual assault (opens in new tab) and claims to have received rape and murder threats since then. I am also a rape survivor. I was so shocked by Robin's description that I wrote an article about it on my Medium blog in 2018. It took me too long to acknowledge the other things that directly affect me as a cisgender white woman, perhaps because of my own connection to one of the characters.

There is a strong moral undercurrent to the Strike series. It explores similar themes to The Casual Vacancy and has no patience for lazy, greedy, gossipy, fame-hungry, cheating, and deceitful people. Among other things, the characters are hateful: conservative and hypocritical politicians, radical leftists, wealthy elites who rub shoulders with royalty, publishers, editors, literary writers (especially misogynists), journalists (especially those who chase vile stories and hack phones in the Daily Mail and the Sun), and others. The film is a bit of a romp, with a few hateful characters. In contrast, the protagonist, Cormoran Strike, is an impoverished veteran who lost half of his leg to an IED in Afghanistan. As a private investigator, his pursuit of justice for his clients sometimes makes him a bitter voice of reason.

To some extent, this is the job of the crime writer, to create characters that read luridly, as they all have the potential to become suspects. However, this element makes it all the more annoying that, as in Harry Potter, problematic racial overtones are present throughout. In the first volume, "The Cuckoo's Calling," the seamstress is described as "Oriental" and the multiracial man is called "a masterpiece created by an indecipherable racial cocktail." The "uncompromisingly sober" homeless black woman with "greasy skin, burnt earthy color, covered in acne pustules and sunken sores" is a greedy blackmailer, killed for her myopia. Lethal White, an Italian-British man in Volume 4, is "filthy" and ultimately a sociopath; the N-word is used to the tune of Jay-Z and Kanye in the background. Agent Strike taunts a Muslim man who has been disowned by his family because he was mistakenly believed to be homosexual.

Rowling is not the first crime writer to use racist stereotypes, but the problems don't stop there; LGBTQ+ representation is even less common, but one doesn't actually have to go far to see her portray transgender characters. Her second volume, "The Silkworm," won the Crime Writers Association's Gold Dagger Award in 2015. Pippa Midgley, a trans woman who is a potential suspect, is pathetic, high-strung and violent, with no sense of propriety or self-preservation. She stalks Strike and attacks him with a Stanley knife. When Strike defends himself and drags her into his office, Pippa's assigned sex at birth is mentioned. The "prominent" Adam's apple, her voice "rough and loud like a dockworker's," and the vocal exercises she supposedly performed in explaining that she is in transition. Strike threatens her as she tries to escape. If you go near that door one more time, I'll call the police. Pippa, you're not pre-surgery."

Here, the hero, the hero you are supposed to root for, makes a pretty clear threat. This is particularly callous in light of Rowling's admission that she is a survivor, and appears to contradict her blog comment that "transgender people need and deserve protection." It is also transphobic to lambaste Pippa's transition, and she would not make such inappropriate comments if she were simply treating her as a diabolical woman. Other characters respond to Pippa with compassion rather than contempt, but her attempts to build a new family after her separation and to honor her experience through her memoir are treated lightly. At one point Strike calls her a "self-dramatizing fool."

In 2019, Vice pointed to the transphobic nature of the book as preexisting evidence of Loring's beliefs. Trans writer Katelyn Burns wrote in Them in 2018, "It is an insulting but entirely common trope about trans women that they cannot overcome their aggressive, masculine nature, not to mention that they are villains, and that they know very little about trans people It has become all too common from cisgender authors who know very little about trans people," he wrote.

It doesn't end there. The third volume, "Careers of Evil," spotlights and heaps scorn on two characters with Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID) who "reject" healthy body parts and seek amputation or paralysis. The disorder is highly controversial (opens in new tab). Researchers classify the disorder as rare, extreme, and debilitating. Researchers classify the disorder as rare, extreme, and debilitating. The disorder can occur as a neurological problem (open in new tab) that causes mental illness and/or abnormal brain scans (open in new tab). Some conservative writers (open in new tab) have also mistakenly confused people with this distressing disorder with transgender people.

And indeed, several readers have already pointed out (open in new tab) that Rowling's depiction of BIID in "Career of Evil" appears as a coded criticism (open in new tab) of being transgender. People have died trying to do it themselves," and one of the characters proudly states, "It's necessary. I have known it since I was a child. I am in the wrong body. I need to be paralyzed. To which the disabled strike replies: "Get help. With that head." Rowling does not speak specifically about her feelings about BIID, but the violent and derisive portrayal fetishizes and pathologizes the character, as does Pippa. Worth noting: the BBC appears to have cut both the Pippa and BIID stories from the C.B. Strike TV series.

Not many people read the Strike series - it would be almost impossible to replicate the extraordinary success of Harry Potter - but the first two Strike books sold 1.5 million copies in 2015, and Rowling has made steady progress since then (the fifth book will debut on September 29). The decision on what to do with the series depends on what individuals need to process and heal: some walk away, some make an effort to separate the art from the artist (opens in new tab). Some will walk away, others will make an effort to separate the art from the artist (opens in new tab). Some fans have already said they will no longer buy Strike's books. Two Harry Potter fan sites, MuggleNet and Leaky Cauldron, have issued statements condemning her remarks, especially her tweeting during Pride Month. In particular, they condemn her for tweeting during Pride Month. Many, including myself, promised to listen when trans writers first called out bigotry. Barnes posted a thread urging readers to pivot from Rowling to the intersection of racism and transphobia. But I would rather be a true ally. If there is a small silver lining, it is that Rowling has inspired transgender and non-binary people." If at the heart of Rowling's book is the constant miracle of confronting hate with love and courage and overcoming considerable odds," said author and transgender Charlotte Clymer, "trans people leave our homes every day to enter a world full of discrimination and violence against our bodies and souls. . enters a world of discrimination and violence against our bodies and our souls.