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/

Hmmm. Maybe their name should be ActuallySteve 😂

I think the Harry Potter books are made from particularly sharp paper designed to give TQ+ people nasty papercuts. That's why they are unsafe.

Not sure why everyone else is safe, maybe Waterstones are giving protective gloves out to anyone that knows the difference between girls and boys and that's the bigotry?

Thanks for this one too - good viewing over a late breakfast. Still spot on after how many years?!

https://www.facebook.com/thejohncleese/videos/john-cleese-on-the-advantages-of-extremism-/2613979595452814/

I've never seen that before. Thank you so much for posting it😁The joylessness of the progresive left is one of the reasons I cannot take them seriously.

Waterstones does stock books by Salman Rushdie and yes, I would tell a muslim that Britain is a liberal democracy where people are free to worship as they please and also free to state their beliefs without being cancelled (theoretically, although TRAs seem hell-bent on destroying that particular right) . Do you live in the UK?

Your reading group clearly isn’t “full of very open and commited progressive folks” if they have banned these authors and their books. The whole point of reading is to expand your exposure to ideas and/or ideology that you might not have previously understood or been exposed to. It broadens your horizons and allows you to be a free and (more importantly) independent thinker.
By banning anything that you disagree with you banish free speech and independent thinking. After all, don’t forget that biology is indisputable: there are two biological sexes and you cannot EVER change your sex. You can randomly decide on a different gender but your sex cannot be changed. Your lack of learning seems to mean that you have missed this lesson, perhaps?

These pavement chalkers remind me of that thread on reddit a while ago, where they were all trying to offset their guilt at buying HP merch by donating to Mermaids or somesuch every time they bought an item.

Maybe the pavement chalking is penance for buying some of the new merch.🤔

If a bookshop feels unsafe I suggest these "community members" get a life.

Wow - that's some large scale protest. JKR will be quaking in her (expensive) boots.

Thoughts and prayers to them all - that amount of navel gazing must be exhausting, poor things.

And the name. Perhaps this poster became 'Bella' the instant he decided he was a woman. Because 'feelings'.

Doesn’t Waterstones also stock
books about (gulp) biology?

I'd have bought a Harry Potter book and waved it around going past them, the gang of idiots that they are.

I'm shocked at the disgusting attempt to smear Salman Rushdie. He spent a decade in hiding from religious fundamentalists who wanted to murder him because he wrote a book (an astonishingly brilliant book too) and was later stabbed on stage by one of the evil fundamentalists. To ban books written by an innocent victim of decades-long terrorism from a reading group says everything about the kind of people there and none of it good.

Unsafe! 🤣

When I read posts from InstantlyBella I am reminded of the batshit Scottish Greens and the crazy demands and foot stomping that went on. Can you imagine the being governed by a party with such fragile members.

Waterstones sell all sorts of books by offensive people; Hitler, David Williams and Juno Dawson just to name a few.

Unsafe 🤣🤣

This is why people have had enough of this BS. If walking into a bookshop and seeing a childrens book about wizards genuinely makes you feel UNSAFE (Actually think about the gravity of that word) then maybe you need some help.

I think it was Aristotle who said "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea without embracing it". (Thanks, Civilization VI!). So we've known that reading something you don't necessarily agree with won't actually kill you for at least 2,300 years. Is it me, or does that make Bella just a tad slow?

Or I.

Waterstones is not unsafe for anyone. Ridiculous assertion.

Definitely. To be fair to Bella, other than the mistake over using 'folks' instead of 'folx', she (he?) is doing quite a good job of mocking the over-privileged pretend 'progressives'.

Nightmare. It would quickly become a Stalinist nightmare.

Some should be careful about being open minded. Too open and their brain can fall out. Splat! That would make a mess of their pavement chalking.

What I find utterly disgusting is an author being threatened with death for having the temerity to write a book.

Mr Trump springs to mind 😬

Society seems to have become sectarian. Certain groups are completely intolerant and bigoted. Imagine being "triggered" because someone has a different viewpoint. JKR doesn't wish trans people harm, she's not advocating mass arrest, imprisonment or even "cancellation".
The ignorance and prejudice is astounding.

Why do you feel unsafe in the shop? Attacked by staff or customers? Verbally assaulted? Or please dont tell me - you are unable to accept that other people have different views to you? In a democracy.