Trans People Launch High Street Protest Against Sale of Harry Potter Merchandise

[IwantToRetire]

Trans rights activists launched a peaceful protest outside Waterstones in Guildford this afternoon (May 16), chalking messages on the pavement to draw people’s attention to the company’s marketing of Harry Potter merchandise.

Protest group Defund Transphobes says Harry Potter author JK Rowling uses money from the sale of merchandise to fund what they describe as her “anti trans campaign”.

Continues at https://guildford-dragon.com/trans-people-launch-high-street-protest-against-sale-of-harry-potter-merchandise/

Are they at least keeping it clean this time? At the protest Steph Richards organised outside Portsmouth FiLiA they were chalking obscene phrases & drawing penises. In a busy area where children could see them.

Well that's no surprise, the whole being made to feel unsafe is very childlike

Well. Someone's gotta do it 😂

The men upset that we were not affirming their existence as women pissed in bottles and poured it over themselves outside the EHRC. Which women could never do. I am not sure they ever twig just how male their behaviour is.

But apparently its GC people who are 'obsessed with genitals'🙄

( To think something is sometimes important hardly equals 'obsession', does it? Imagine not being able to grasp what words mean. I mean, how do they get through daily life? They must be forever having to explain themselves, then flouncing about when people don't understand. Oh, wait a minute....)

But apparently its GC people who are 'obsessed with genitals'🙄

Quite. Interesting to note which genitalia they favour above all else, along with the comments of what they are going to do to women, or want women to do, with said genitalia.

There are two shops near us , one opened very recently , absolutely bursting the HP stuff, great window displays in both , and makes me smile ti see how busy they are.

chalking messages on the pavement

Followed by a round of hopscotch and some face painting, I assume?

H P Lovecraft is conspicuously missing from your list of naughty authors. He was a bit of a racist.

I would not dream of suspecting InstantlyBella of not posting in good faith, but I do wonder if she (she?) is pulling our collective leg in a joshing and satirical way, for lols.

Bella my dear, I do think Waterstones DOES indeed hold copies of Salman Rushdie's literature. You should try reading Midnight's Children - it's amazing and a just winner of the Booker all those years ago. Go on - read it and then think for yourself (a crucial part of being in a book group, I'd have thought) and ask yourself if his portrayal of the diverse religious and cultural influences in newly post-colonial India is one of tolerance or not. (Clue: I really think it is.) His fiction is extremely well thought of*, and in fact Midnight's Children sort of won the Booker-squared when it was voted the 'best of the Booker wins'. (Twice, I think?)

Bella, what does your book group allow you to read? Would you like to share the list of Banned Books? Do you wrest them from libraries and charity bookshop shelves, and hurl them onto a bonfire, by any chance?

(*apart from the Satanic Verses, which is generally held to be a pile of pretentious and incomprehensible gibbering. But not, it seems, as outright offensive to Islam as was contended at the time of publication. Have YOU read it?)

I think her book club only allows books written by transwomen.

This is deeply worrying rapey thinking. The idea that het men have no control, coupled with the number of TiMs who are ‘transbians’ makes it all the more concerning that they want to be in safe spaces where women are vulnerable.

Has Eddie Izard gone into writing fiction as well as living it? 😆

I have a piece of HP merchandise that I’m planning to sell for about £2k when the TV series starts. Can someone give me details of JK’s charity so I can make a donation.

There's:

Lumos (orphans)

Beiras place (rape crisis centre for women)

Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic (research into MS and other neurological diseases)

JKRowling women's fund- legal funding for sex based rights cases

Easy to find details online

Completely derailing here, but saw the 1974 version of Murder on the Orient Express, and apparently Izzard has a time machine, as the German cook is a dead ringer for him....

There's:

Lumos (orphans)

Beiras place (rape crisis centre for women)

Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic (research into MS and other neurological diseases)

JKRowling women's fund- legal funding for sex based rights cases

Easy to find details online 👍

Sorry for the double post, my Internet cut out and the gremlins got in

Certain posts are worth repeating 😉

I don't think Beira's Place or the Women's Fund take donations, but Lumos and the Anne Rowling clinic do :)

Wow, I didnt know JKR completely funds Beiras place. She's even more amazing 👏

Lumos definitely takes donations; i have given to them.

And their services are provided free of charge. Could she be any more amazing?

A good friend and colleague who is muslim actually recommended Midnight's Children to me and brought her copy to my house to show me. Perhaps you should look more deeply into it.

I am not a great reader, or a literay critic, but would have thought anyone who has been living in the UK for the past few decades would through the news have some idea about Salman Rushdie.

Midnight's Children is through a novel format about Indian independence and won the Booker Prize.

The Satanic Verses was said by some to be blasphemous, deeply offensive, and an intentional insult to the Prophet Muhammad. And a Fatwa issued against him. But this was not the universal opinion of all Muslims. And in the name of free speech the UK spent a fortune on protecting him for a number of years. Although again most people most know who was attacked in recent years.

I am only spelling this out as it seems ludicrous that someone should quote a vague statement from a book club - let alone what sort of book club would have a banned list based on the opinions of ultra Muslims.

If the book club is doing this as some sort of "solidarity" with one strand of Islam no doubt they will be promoting Taliban literature and practices of appropriate treatment of women.

Surely the point of a book clud is to read and discuss.

Not just put them on the naughty step based on second had opinions.

But it makes you realise how easy it must be for the trans mantra to take hold if that is the depth of response to being told a book shouldn't be read.

To be honest I think a pp is a troll who thinks saying outrageous woke crap to get a response from mumsnetters is great fun. I don't think they really understand how internet forums work in that we're here to discuss stuff and it doesn't really matter if it was said in good faith or not. It's all grist to the mill. (Salmon Rushdie was quite funny though) 😁

Well exactly. In my 2 cat household Spot the Dog is a nightmare world where dog is centered. Now unluckily for them we first met Spot, long before they turned up, and we love his special charms. Positively for the cats: Spot is fictional, we are not getting a dog, and all is well in real cat world. However, if their special cat shittiness continues i cannot fully express how i might feel. About a dog.