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/

It’s not surprising given how schools seem to work these days. DD came home the other day to report that a teacher told her class that it was homeless people’s fault they were homeless because they are lazy… WTF? We also had a religious Y2 teacher who told them that fossils weren’t real and god had placed them on the beach. It took years for DD to realise this was religious dogma being presented as fact. What other BS is being pumped out in school like this? Is this why so many of these young people have adopted genderist beliefs? Because their critical faculties have been eroded through being told this is true at school?

Ah. Bella you really had me fooled for a bit.

Well played!

As a side note....

There is a line when no one protests an "Artist" being "cancelled". Like Rilf Harris kr Jimmy Saville... no one supports them.

Then theres David Walliams and Micheal Jackson who appear to be on the cusp.

So exactly where is the line? Mein Kampf seems to be intersting for historians for example.

Are you the same @InstantlyBella who on another thread is claiming Rangers fans likely dressed up as Celtic fans to cause the problems following the Celtic v Hearts title decider?

The same Bella using sentances like, "they (presumably Celtic) are not even in the same league for bad behaviour as the Butcher's apron loving sectarian bigots from Govan and I'm a neutral, so I have no inherent bias".

Whilst I don't follow Scottish football, I thought only Celtic fans used the word "bhoys" which is another word you used in a different post.

Just wondering.

No-one meaning anyone apart from the BBC, the Royal Family, The Government of the day etc etc etc?

Bella is quite clearly a parody account in the same vein as Dame Katy Denise. I hope they stick around, they've given me a good chuckle.

Sound like this was a fairly small peaceful protest. I can't see this having any significant impact on either Waterstones or the Harry Potter franchise. As long as there's no intimidation towards shoppers or 'piss' protests etc let them crack on. I thought they'd given up on trying to cancel JKR as a hopeless exercise.

No one NOW once the allegations are mainstream.

Have you ever thought about writing a satirical comedy show? You clearly have talent in that direction.

I do enjoy the optics of acting like a bunch of scary, unstable-appearing thugs, trying to control and intimidate, with the core message being 'we're safe and no problem in women's spaces'.

(In this case with the subtext: this bitch needs to stop standing up for women, because that's all she's done that's unleashed the batshit, and if you don't do what we say and shun her, we'll try and destroy your business.)

Bit mad, but entertaining.

Didn't Tracey Ullman already do that Woke Support Group sketch?

I'd post a link but of course YT banned it.

I did like Bella's line on another thread about restricting voting to those who are university educated and/or LGBTQIA+ or minoritized in another way - just treading the line of 'something Zack P may say and outright trolling 😂

There was an Australian bookshop owner who made a pompous announcement on Twitter a few years ago that his shop would no longer be selling any JKR books because of the damage her ideas did to the Trans community.

Someone replied “Mate… you stock Mein Kampf…”

How do trans people feel unsafe in a bookstore? Who’s threatening them?

Well to be fair, if words are literal violence, surely bookshops and libraries are the worst places in the world. All those words!!! Saying facts!!!! It’s literally traumatising!!!

Agree. I have 4 stores within a short drive of me. I would never expect to find a 'feminist' book out at one of them but have had no problem obtaining any new releases from the other 3 where they are all displayed alongside everything else, occasionally out on the tables or with the little handwritten description cards with them.

The overlap between people who are full on TRA and adults who make Harry Potter their whole personality and buy all the merchandise is so high that this actually does surprise me.

Waterstones does stock books by Salman Rushdie. Including The Satanic Verses.
It sells lots of books with content not everyone likes. Including books by men who’ve decided they are women. I wouldn’t buy those books but I approve of Waterstones decision to sell them. Because free speech is a good thing. Even if what is being said is “wrong”.
Sometimes admittedly I do hide such books behind others….. or move them into the biology section. Or the fantasy fiction shelves!

But I wouldn’t ban them altogether. Because someone else having an opinion different to mine is ok. I am not unsafe!

Well I have my TERF box ticked for the day - being compared to Hitler before breakfast is always a good way to start a Sunday.

I'm off to do pottery.

TRAs are obsessed with her. They are desperate for her to call them out..: they NEED her to put all their hate into.

Reminds if that old John Cleese clip of political extremism and how it is good because it give you a long list of people to hate “and of course moderates”

https://www.facebook.com/thejohncleese/videos/woke-support-group-is-water-racist-tracey-ullman-/184984414253922/

God lord i have heard it all now, you obviously need help with your MH if a children's book makes you feel unsafe.

Bella types do exist, even if this one doesn't.

For any actual Bellas reading, I'm intrigued to know:

1. Do you have any opinions you haven't outsourced to other people?
2. I would feel genuinely unsafe in a society where reading material was vetted by a group who not only didn't read it, but didn't bother their arses to read about it. Clearly no-one must feel unsafe, ever, so what's your support package for me?

Yes, I was just about to post this. Wish I could remember their name. Their posts were very similar in style and used to make me roar with laughter at how ridiculous they were.

Totally. Last week it was my dinner party guests, social circle and discussing the failure of the working class.

Now it's my progressive friends and book club complaining about books that we haven't read, but we all feel unsafe.

It's all bollocks. Made up rubbish using buzz words that they predict will trigger people into an acerbic response. As someone said upthread, they should've said folx. Missed a trick.