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/

I say this as a massive Harry Potter fan and JKR supporter - if the trans brigade could come and protest outside the plethora of wizard tat shops that have sprung up in a number of tourist towns, they'd be doing us all a favour.

There are many authors who hold opinions I disagree with. Should we pull all the Roald Dahl books because he said that Hitler had a point?

Most authors personal views aren’t really all that well known.

“Unsafe”.

Dear God.

Might we use they/them until any there’s evidence that this poster is female? The tone and argumentative stance isn’t giving me female vibes

I actually gasped reading this.
The irony of being into reading enough to join a book groups, but not enough to read anything that might challenge your ideas in any way...

And the opposite of Voltaire's "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" -

"...I have no idea what you said but someone else told me it was bad so you're not allowed to say it"?!
that's just appalling

Gosh your reading group sounds awful 😂😂

‘I havnt looked into but from what I’ve heard’ aaaaand that sums up everything doesn’t it? Brainless leading the brainless

I'm pretty sure @InstantlyBella is a reincarnation of another poster whose name I can't recall who played a bit of a longer game in terms of 'here are my obviously insane views, I am trolling'.

What other books are banned by your group? The Very Hungry Caterpillar? We're Going on a Bear Hunt?

Yes. Salman Rushdie isn’t an Islamophobe. What is wrong with criticising a religion? Why would a Muslim woman feel unsafe in the presence of a book written by an author who received death threats from Islamic totalitarians?

You seem to love slapping labels on people and screaming “…..phobe” at them for writing things down that you disagree with. You have some totalitarian and authoritarian tendencies yourself.

TRAs seem to be fond of death and rape threats and shutting down conversation.

Book banning does not belong in civilisations where knowledge and discourse is valued.

Have you read 1984?

Definitely Enid Blyton. If she isn't then the Banned Author Committee are not doing their job properly.

That looks like a great article (and also comment from Angela Richardson the former Conservative MP for Guildford) and really shows what Defund Transphobes are protesting about:

“The author is open about the fact that the JK Rowling Women’s Fund (JKRWF) offers legal funding support “to individuals and organisations fighting to retain women’s and girls’ sex-based rights in all aspects of life including the workplace, sports and clubs, and protected single-sex spaces.” ”

I note that JKR has helped fund the case of Roz Adams, who was found to have been harassed by her former employer Edinburgh Rape Crisis.
Many other harassment and/or discrimination cases in the U.K. have found in favour of the employee, most recently Faye Russell-Coldicott.

So I guess the likes of that protest group think harassment and discrimination against certain people is “the right thing to do”, also
Forcing teenage girls to get undressed with teenage boys
Lying to parents that their daughters are in a single sex school
Lying to parents that their daughters are sleeping in an all female situation whilst away with Guides etc
Breaking the objectives of their charitable status and going against the wishes of the girls they consulted who wanted Guides to remain single sex
etc etc etc

1984 is probably on the banned list….

’take note Waterstones!!’ 🤡

Ah ok you think maybe they're a plant to polarise us into "woke gone mad" opinions?

I expect every book which features pregnancy or childbirth will be banned in @InstantlyBella ’reading group’ - far too triggering for all the men who pretend to be women who will never ever fall pregnant of have a baby.

Who ever heard of a banned book list in a reading group ffs??
Utterly laughable.

Deleted myself for being petty about bella

That reminded me of some chap on TwitteX saying he’d now buy a pack of fancy biscuits next time he was in M&S, I guess their finance (?) dept can breathe a huge sigh of relief now!

No, nothing as deep as a plant - just a bored person trolling. IIRC the other poster started off with relatively plausible (but still insane) views then moved onto things like 'Hamas would accept my neurodiverse enby nibling's polycule's access requirements'.

Be specific please.

In what way is anyone unsafe? Are you worried the staff will attack you?

Utterly ridiculous.

@InstantlyBella your reading group has a list of banned authors???
That is astonishingly puritanical. My reading group doesn’t have a list of banned authors. But we are middle aged women so perhaps we can cope better with reading and discussing things we don’t agree with, or even that we don’t agree with each other about.

You sound very young or very ignorant. Salman Rushdie criticised some aspects of the Islamic religion. For that he lived under a fatwah issued by Iranian clerics and had an assassination attempt.

Do Christians try and assassinate people who write things they don’t agree with? What makes that an acceptable response to being offended?

I suggest you have a bit of thinking to do and a bit of growing up to do. You do seem to be in a very sheltered little world where you make sure that anything you don’t agree with is labelled as “phobic” and also therefore “bad” so you can avoid engagement with thought outside your righteous bubble.

Banned authors!!!

Certainly a massive lack of critical thinking skills.

Oh come on.

Let's be honest here: this group outside will not have been chalking rainbows and kittens on the pavement, every 'chalking' I've ever seen has involved violent threats and obscenities. And their 'protesting' outside of a 'prestigious bookstore' - will have been an attempt to make the public feel 'unsafe' and wary enough of them to stay out of the store so the store lost custom, and to scare the bookstore staff and management badly enough that they might not stock these books.

If you're worried about prestigious bookstores and people feeling 'unsafe', you don't do this kind of thing. You do this kind of thing if you're obsessed thugs who want your own way by bullying and intimidation.

And stop with the whole LGBWhatever alphabet and calling it a 'community', it isn't. It's only means 'random bunch of gender ideology activists', because there's no other connecting characteristic of the group members. Everyone actually gay who wouldn't embrace the dogma has been thrown out and are long gone. And that was yet more intolerance and thuggery and bullying.

Calling it all pretty names doesn't hide it. It does not pass.

More great sunlight. Helps raise awareness of just how daft and extreme trans activism is.

Did this protest include coffins and rants and that chap with the pigtails and the fondness for exposure? Was there any piss pouring or moobs out?

Of course you haven't looked too deeply into it 🤣🤣🤣🤣

I find your words hurtful and offensive. And now this area of Mumsnet feels very unsafe to me.

Now what are you going to do? Hold a protest against yourself?