London's Comic Con pulls Harry Potter discussion panel to keep transgender fans "safe"

[IwantToRetire]

In other papers but behind paywall, so DM version:

The MCM London Comic Comic Con has cancelled a planned Harry Potter themed panel from its October event after an LGBT group claimed it would not be a 'safe and inclusive environment'.

Activists from the LGBT group Switchboard threatened to pull out of hosting the first pride lounge if the panel was allowed to partake in the event due to author JK Rowling's historical 'transphobic' remarks. 

The National LGBTQIA+ helpline claimed they had been 'compelled to express their concerns about the potential impact on the community' the panel would have in relation to 'trans individuals.'

It said that the panel's presence would not equate to MCM Comic Con providing the 'safe and inclusive environment' that it had promised but others have argued that the event's decision to cancel is a 'capitulation.'

The group claimed that Comic Con had been 'receptive' to its concerns and that their own space at the event would be a 'sanctuary' where LGBTQIA+ people could 'connect with one another, and recharge during the event.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12561031/Londons-Comic-pulls-Harry-Potter-discussion-panel-LGBTQ-charity-complained-potential-impact-trans-individuals-following-backlash-author-JK-Rowling-trans-views.html

[Boomboom22]

Jkr needs to start suing these charities and help groups for defamation and libel. Ffs make it stop.

[Pixiedust1234]

Stupid idiots. The whole lot of them.

[ATerrorofLeftovers]

Safe from what??

[forsucksfake]

They need to be kept safe from each other:

1. The stench of unwashed bodies alone is biohazard at those conventions.

2. Have you seen young trans-IDing woman who posted about the gr👀Ming and sexual abuse she and other young women face at these conventions?

Sewer.

[Delphinium20]

Pathetic.

[DiabolicalFinial]

So that T group has claimed the million dollars for demonstrating JKRs “transphobic comments”?

[IwantToRetire]

Safe from what??

Exactly it this conflation with someone saying they aren't "safe" because they are near or hear someone who is gender critical to someone who is actually at risk of harm.

ie as said above conventions like this put nothing in place to protect young females from a crowd of it not actual incels, incel influenced males. https://www.allure.com/story/cosplay-is-not-consent-10-years

And more and more these cries about being unsafe are being made by organisations who need the people they say they exist to support, to feel unsafe to justify them existing, and no doubt getting nice wads of grants to keep going.

In otherwords: You feel unsafe because we tell you you aren't safe, and because you feel you aren't safe then you need us to tell others (and re-inforce in you) the "fact" that you aren't safe.

[Datun]

@Boomboom22

Jkr needs to start suing these charities and help groups for defamation and libel. Ffs make it stop.

This.

Justify calling her 'transphobic' or fuck off.

[Justme56]

Even without the JKR stuff It all sounds very worrying that LGBT people are not safe at Comic Con and need their own ‘sanctuary’ to escape to. What’s going on for this to be needed?

[MrsJamin]

Blue-haired snowflakes! How do these people navigate normal life, holding down a job etc?

[fromorbit]

I notice the Twilight panel is going ahead.

Although Stephenie Meyer has always refused to make political statements I am going to hazard a wild guess and say the author of Twilight and ultra Mormon knows what a women is. Given conservatives love that book series you might have thought it was more unsafe than liberal Harry Potter.

Talking about unsafe amongst the many Japan panels [Japan is not pro Trans, it doesn't even have gay marriage, strange it gets a pass] there is a Shibari panel i.e rope bondage.

https://www.mcmcomiccon.com/london/en-us/things-to-do/panels/panels-information.html?gtID=822121&panel-name=Shibari-Communication-Through-the-Rope-18-and-

Why? I know it is 18s over but this still seems very dodgy in a con full of kids in a con culture where sexual harassment keeps happening.

Is this safe?

Safer than reading Harry Potter?

Really?

People have died doing rope bondage and through allied acts like strangulation:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/shibari-bondage-sex-act-ends-in-death-italian-man-on-trial

Has anyone died yet from reading HP, or watching a film or play?

[GreeboIsMySpiritAnimal]

"The group claimed that Comic Con had been 'receptive' to its concerns and that their own space at the event would be a 'sanctuary' where LGBTQIA+ people could 'connect with one another, and recharge during the event.'"

LGB people never used to be such wusses. They started riots. Campaigned ferociously for equal rights and an end to discrimination. Survived seeing their friends and lovers struck down by HIV.

Now they need a "sanctuary" because some people might have wanted to talk about imaginary wizards, but didn't.

[Dwappy]

What makes it worse is this panel wasn't even about the films or books. It was about the MAKING OF the theatre show the Cursed Child. The panel was by the production team and was meant to discuss the creative side of making it.
I go to many many comic cons all over the world (although have avoided mcm in recent years for other reasons - mainly their pricing). There is nothing unsafe about a comic con that isn't the same issue at any other large event. They do have a higher than average number of people attending identifying as LGBT+ as well as a much higher than average number of people with SN (whether diagnosed or undiagnosed. Many of my comic con friends clearly have undiagnosed autism etc)
MCM attracts the largest groups of these. Due to the fact it focuses mainly on anime and cosplay. For most other UK based general cons, this side of it is smaller. Most other cons have Harry Potter related guests without issue. I'm unsure if they've had panels in recent times however. They have however had guests like the late Robbie Coltrane, Jason Issacs, Rupert Grint, the Phelps twins and many others.

[Theeyeballsinthesky]

Fucksake - why do ppl keep giving into these children?

[HereForTheFreeLunch]

Exactly! Fully expect people to whine about stuff but why do they get listened to so much?

[RocketPanda]

Where is the resilience of adults gone? They are not unsafe, they have the idea that they are unsafe, two different things.

Women locked in with a rapist is unsafe.
Somebody might have different opinions and may voice those opinions is the idea of being unsafe.
If someone fears the idea of being unsafe in what is statistically a non violent non threatening environment then that shows a worrying emotional immaturity and inability to correctly judge and assess a situation, a skill, funnily enough, that develops in the latter part of puberty and brain maturation.

It's why we should not let teenagers make decisions like getting a tattoo, gambling and voting.

Personally I think they like cosplaying being a victim and the power their ' victim status' gives them. Many of them can dole out the rape threats with the best them.

[CorruptedCauldron]

They are so powerful. They don’t feel unsafe, they are weaponising the word to get everyone bowing down before them. The risk of hearing an opinion you might not like does not cause you any harm. If different opinions made you feel unsafe, you’d never set foot on social media, for example, which is full of people with different viewpoints, some more extreme than others. I’ll hazard a guess that those Comic Con peeps live half their lives online!

Meanwhile, a woman is a bigot if she feels unsafe sharing an intimate space with a male who is bigger, stronger and capable of causing her literal harm.

[topnoddy]

@ATerrorofLeftovers

Safe from what??

Wizards probably !

[RufustheFactualReindeer]

They probably they are punishing JKR

but A) they are not punishing her, she will continue to make money and gain fans as lots of people love HP

B) they are punishing fans of HP at comicon

very selfish

[untranchable]

So Harry Potter fans talking to each other is unsafe, but Comic Con hosting a Drag Queen Story Hour event run by a man who supported and raised money for a child abuser isn't a problem?

Really shows where the organisers' priorities lie.

[BigCroc]

I used to go to MCM comic con with my older kids, they were into stuff like Dr Who, Pokémon, Sherlock. It was really fun and friendly.
I went again last year with a friend and her kids, it’s very different feel now. Loads of men dressed as anime women, quite sexualised. There was a difference in atmosphere, quite pushy, hostile and aggressive. It used to be a great day out for kids, I’m not sure it is now.

[LondonLass91]

Switchboard again...whenever I go into Superdrug and see that they are donating to switchboard on some of their products, I never buy those products. Because of shit like this. Switchboard are a fucking joke.

[Dwappy]

@BigCroc

I used to go to MCM comic con with my older kids, they were into stuff like Dr Who, Pokémon, Sherlock. It was really fun and friendly.
I went again last year with a friend and her kids, it’s very different feel now. Loads of men dressed as anime women, quite sexualised. There was a difference in atmosphere, quite pushy, hostile and aggressive. It used to be a great day out for kids, I’m not sure it is now.

It has changed drastically since about 2018. Most of the other London/UK cons are still as they used to be thankfully.

[MyLadyDisdainlsYetLiving]

The sheer narcissism of redefining the word safe to mean “not exposed to words, ideas or people that do not validate and reinforce my own particular view of reality” Is astounding and I’ve no idea how it has caught on so much.

[sashh]

@DiabolicalFinial

So that T group has claimed the million dollars for demonstrating JKRs “transphobic comments”?

My thoughts exactly