An Australian bookstore will no longer stock J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, in order to make the shop a “safer space” for customers.
Rabble Books and Games located in Maylands, a suburb of Perth, made the announcement on Facebook this week, saying that it would no longer house Rowling’s books and those written under her pseudonym Robert Galbraith after her latest novel has been labeled as transphobic. The store’s Facebook page has since been deactivated.
The post, which was written by store owner Nat Latter, said the shop would “not put books by transphobes on the shelves” and asked customers for suggested alternatives.
Latter added that although they would not be seen on shelves inside the bookstore, the Harry Potter series could still be ordered in. Any profits made from the series would be donated to Trans Folk of WA, a support service for transgender people in Western Australia.
“While stocking a book isn’t an endorsement (good grief, that would be a minefield), and we will always take orders for books that aren’t in stock, there are more worthy books to put on the shelf — books that don’t harm communities and won’t make us sad to unpack them,” a spokesperson for Rabble Books and Games wrote.
The decision follows furious backlash against Rowling in recent months due to her constant attacks on transgender people. Last December, she tweeted in support of Maya Forstater, a British woman who was fired from her job after making several transphobic remarks, including that “men cannot change into women.” Forstater publicly campaigned against reforms to the Gender Recognition Act, a landmark transgender rights bill.
In response, Forstater’s employer warned that her anti-trans speech would be seen as “offensive and exclusionary” to others and declined to renew her contract.
Earlier this summer, Rowling made headlines once again after mocking an article posted on Twitter for using the words “people who menstruate” instead of “women.” “I’m sure there used to be a word for those people,” she tweeted. “Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?”
Rowling’s remarks attempted to intrinsically link menstruation to womanhood, which didn’t account for the many non-binary people and trans men who menstruate, as well as the women, including cisgender women, who do not experience PMS like symptoms.
Following backlash, Rowling defended her transphobic remarks in a 3,600-word long essay posted to her website, previously titled “Terf Wars,” in which she doubled down on her comments by claiming she is “worried about the new trans activism.” Rowling claimed that “detransitioning,” in which a trans person transitions back to their sex assigned at birth, is an “increasing” phenomenon, despite data showing it isn’t a frequent occurrence.
