Joanne K. Rowling
Quidditch leagues distance themselves from her
Quidditch players in action.
© imago / Michael Schick
After criticizing Joanne K. Rowling for allegedly transphobic tweets, two Quidditch leagues distance themselves from her.
In her books about “Harry Potter” Joanne K. Rowling (56) invented the sport of Quidditch. Thousands of people picked up their idea and played the game in real life. Just with a stick between your legs instead of a flying broom. The Quidditch players are organized in national leagues in over 30 countries. Two of these leagues now want to change their names to distance themselves from Rowling.
As the Times reports, both the US umbrella organization US Quidditch (USQ) and the Major League Quidditch (MLQ), a league in the USA and Canada, want to change their names to reflect the roots of the sport in the “Harry Potter” universe and beyond Creator to solve.
Alternatives such as Quickball, Quicker, Quidstrike and Quadraball should be in the room as new names for the USQ.
Criticism of allegedly transphobic tweets
The reason for the renaming plans are allegedly transphobic statements by Joanne K. Rowling. The author made fun of an article on Twitter that used the word “menstruating people” for biological women. She wrote: “‘Men who menstruate.’ I’m sure that there was once a word for these people. Give me a hand. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud? ” Of course, she was referring to “Women”, the English word for “women”. The tweet was not only heavily criticized by trans people, as Rowling denied trans women the status of being real women.
The statement could be defended as negligence, Rowland just wanted to criticize the term “people who menstruate” and did not have trans women on the screen. But Rowling made matters worse. She defended herself via Twitter with hints that suggest that trans women are not “real” women for them out of conviction: “If the gender is not real, there is no same-sex attraction. If the gender is not real, the reality of life for women worldwide is obliterated”.