One small community has remained conspicuously silent. He was originally a friend of Dianne’s; a GP who once worked in a methadone clinic; and, for the relevant period at least, also co-managed Rowling’s business affairs. Though Peter Rowling attended his daughter’s wedding to Neil Murray, in 2001, they were estranged two years later, when he sold a copy of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire given to him on Father’s Day and signed, “Lots of love from your first born,” with seven kisses. For Sean P.F. Last month, Joe Biden called their incidence in the States an “epidemic that needs national leadership”. Considering Muggle-born Hermione is ambitious, studious, resourceful and smart as a whip, whom do you think could have possibly inspired her character? Rowling said she "never set out to describe Sean in Ron, but Ron has a Sean-ish turn of phrase." Joanne wrotes since she is go by train to King Cross at the HP books. My writing room is probably my favourite place in the world. There’s more than money at work here, however. Over the course of just four days, JK Rowling had waded straight into one of the fiercest battles in the UK today, one that thrives on social media but spills out into the real world, too. Just making women feel like, ‘yes, it’s worth keeping going’… The authority of her essay has been really important. Merely credited as a producer on the Potter productions, she would both write and produce these new prequel movies. The identity of Ron Weasley's real-life inspiration has not been fully revealed, but Rowling did admit that Harry's best friend is based off of her own and oldest friend, Sean. She even based the character of Ron on Sean. Finn Mackay suggests that some roots of the current controversy can be found in the 1970s, when debates arose over whether women’s consciousness-raising groups and collectives in the US and the UK should include trans women. The author used real-life experiences as inspiration for her wizarding world. J.K. Rowling didn’t really enjoy her teenage years. Never miss out on gossip, celebrity photos, videos, divorces, scandals and more. Sounds uncontroversial enough for a proud feminist like Rowling, but it was the definition of “woman” that rankled some women’s groups, since it didn’t require trans women to have had surgery nor, in the words of the guidance, “dress look or behave in any particular way” in order to qualify. The intimidating half-human, half-giant Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds of Hogwarts, found his physical formation, thanks to the Welsh chapter of Hell's Angels. “What we see is it’s not transgender people who are doing that. This isn’t an easy piece to write, for reasons that will shortly become clear, but I know it’s time to explain myself on an issue surrounded by toxicity. It was never going to be some sort of gender free for all. “Warner Bros.’ willingness to continue the series even though it’s on a downward path financially is evidence of playing the long game,” says Jeff Bock, senior media analyst at Exhibitor Relations. For Sean P.F. Call yourself whatever you like. It reached £27,500. A 2015 survey from the US-based National Center for Transgender Equality, one of the most robust available to Devor’s mind, puts the proportion of those doing so for at least a temporary period at eight cent, and those doing so for the long term at around three per cent. The real-life heroism of Jan and Antonina Zabinski, who helped save 300 Jews and insurgents during the Holocaust, has become a Hollywood movie. She enjoyed listening to … And while it is likely to have little commercial implication for the Wizarding World, it has sent profound shockwaves through her own: putting a spotlight on the things that define us as individuals and as a society, probing the boundaries of both identity and freedom of speech. Radcliffe, Watson, Grint… all millennial, all immediately and earnestly disavowing Rowling’s position. From JKR.com: “He was the first of my Friends to learn to drive and that turquoise and white car meant FREEDOM and no più having to ask my father to give me lifts, which is the worst thing about living in the countryside when te are a teenager. A community of fans, says Miller, are saying: “I’m not going to the theme parks. In the midst of all this, JK Rowling sent out a tweet to her 14 million followers, questioning an article’s use of the phrase “people who menstruate”: I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. An inspiring look at JK Rowling's rise to become one of the most influential writers-from her humble beginnings as an imaginative young girl and awkward teenager to the loss of her mother and the genesis of the Harry Potter phenomenon. The show’s creators modeled the sitcom couple after the bantering and romantic relationship between the Hollywood icons. Sean Harris, her best friend in the Upper Sixth owned a turquoise Ford Anglia, which she says inspired the one in her books. As with Chick-fil-A, the fast food chain that faced protests last year over its opposition to same-sex marriage: “You might not remember exactly what they have or haven’t done along their history, but you know that people have opinions about Chick-fil-A. In fact, Rowling has cherished her friendship with Harris so much that she dedicated Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets to him. He also owned a blue Ford Anglia, like in the second book. This is, after all, the woman who wrote a detailed family tree for every major surviving character in the Potter series, naming offspring who would never appear in the books, filling in their lives with birthdays and backstories that would never be read. Many of them, of course, were never trans and thus would not become trans adults. Harris, getaway driver and foulweather friend Explanation: Jo met Sean at her secondary school, Wyedean, when she was eleven. Come September, around the publication of Rowling’s new Cormoran Strike book, Troubled Blood, and more accusations of transphobia, her detractors took up a different battle cry. For others, it is a question of the possible erasure of the political class of “woman”, and all the hard-fought rights that entails. Today, says Devor, if children reach their teens having been persistent, consistent and insistent about their dysphoria, research indicates that they will remain so. Opening up those spaces will in fact decrease the level of violence against women overall, because forcing trans women to use changing rooms, bathrooms and prisons for men frequently results in violent assaults against them. “The first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has made very clear her commitment to self-ID, persistently denying any adverse effects on women’s rights,” says policy analyst Lisa Mackenzie of Murray Blackburn Mackenzie, which has been scrutinising the Scottish Government’s actions on gender recognition reform. You have to dig through a rather drier document: Joanne Murray vs Amanda Donaldson. Who is Rowling's secondary school friend who is the first of her friends to learn to drive. The Cursed Child has changed the way that plays work, making the play into two parts over a whole day, and the theme parks have sold more tickets than ever before, completely changing Universal’s fortunes and making them a real rival to Disney. Till 6 June 2020 and Rowling’s explosive tweet which, she explains in her essay, was issued after she read “that the Scottish government is proceeding with its controversial gender recognition plans”. “While some of her comments obviously polarised on social media,” says Bock, “it will be very interesting to see if the general public care about all the hubbub. Harris, getaway driver and foulweather friend Explanation: Jo met Sean at her secondary school, Wyedean, when she was eleven. On 6 June, the world had a lot to contend with. According to Cassie Brummitt, Rowling’s reputation as the saviour of childhood literacy – with millions of children eager to read thanks to the Potter books – gave her an extraordinary degree of influence over the movies’ production: “She managed to escape the idea that she’s commercial in any way. He is the first person with whom she discussed her ambition to become a writer. Minna Fry, former marketing director of Bloomsbury, once described “these layers of people to protect her… people who I think made her feel safe,” calling the author, “quite thin-skinned”. Her best friend when she was a teenager was Sean Harris. Sean Harris, the school friend who lent her the deposit for a flat and once drove a turquoise Ford Anglia that would be immortalised forever in Potter lore. When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman – and, as I’ve said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones – then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside. It isn’t hate to speak the truth.” Finally, on 10 June, Rowling published a 3,600-word essay online, elaborating yet further on her views. Nor were fans silent. She had a difficult relationship with her father, and her mother was often unwell. Over the course of seven days, a total of 12,296 original tweets bore the hashtag, reaching a probable audience of around 7 million people. A natural instinct, she says, but one that results in “a policing of women”. Robbie Coltrane as Rubeus Hagrid in "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone". During lockdown, Harry Potter books returned to bestseller lists. And it mentions Rowling’s husband, Neil Murray. Soon, the full spectrum of celebrity, ranging from Margaret Atwood to, well… Jedward, had pitched in publicly. Many of the feminist campaign groups regard her long-form essay as the perfect articulation of the concerns they have been raising with politicians over the past few years. Even though he didn't ride a horse, he drove a car. Thanks to the unkind ways of Rowling's real-life maternal grandmother, Frieda, whom the author describes as someone who enjoyed the company of "her dogs to human relatives," the caustic and girthy character of Aunt Marge was born — bulldogs and all. It seems a risk she’s willing to take. However, above all, Rowling used Hermione's strong character to express her feminist conscience. Scotland, however, has yet to make any decision. More than 1,500 members of the literary community have signed a letter in response to J.K. Rowling's well-documented views on the trans community. The red-headed lovable Ron was inspired by Rowling's best friend Sean Harris, a British army officer. her grave insecurity, fear of failure, and smart-alecky ways). The Tortoise Slow Newscast pieces together the story of the Harry Potter author’s very political, very personal interventions on gender and identity. Trans women who work in the sex industry, particularly trans women of colour, are at particular risk. Non-disclosure agreements proliferated. Her mother Anne was half-French and half-Scottish. Nor does Devor think that research supports the claim made by Rowling in her essay that detransitioning (or, to use his preferred phrase, retransitioning) is happening in anything more than tiny numbers. “Not because there’s no desire there to boycott and not because there isn’t a huge community of people who support trans folk and want to see change… But the Harry Potter machine, the wizarding world machine is very large…”, Steelman, on the other hand, can foresee a longer-term whittling away of the Potter cool-factor. So she had a lot of prestige.” That, and the fact the early movies were made while Rowling was still writing the books that would end their story. Rowling also writes of her own sexual assault, and the domestic abuse she suffered in her first marriage, to Portuguese journalist Jorge Arantes. Wesley has also been recently cast as a … She insisted that: “If sex isn’t real, there’s no same-sex attraction. For Sean P.F. Instead, says Steelman: “she’s just been louder.”, Hate crimes against trans people, as recorded by the police in England, Scotland and Wales, rose by 81 per cent between 2016-17 and 2018-19, from 1,073 to 1,944. A book signing might require a dozen people to hire a room in the Groucho Club and deliberate exactly the number of copies Rowling could autograph. She was bringing up her child on benefits in Scotland, in the mid-nineties, and she somehow used her writing skills to forge a better life for herself,” summaries Cassie Brummitt, academic at the Cinema and Television History Institute at De Montfort University, who wrote her PhD on the development of the Harry Potter franchise. That tweet read: “Dress however you please. Perhaps there’s a clue in an extremely rare, and extremely brief, interview given by Neil Murray in A Year In the Life, a documentary made by James Runcie in 2007. Then follows the wobbling, precarious balancing-act that sits at the core of the essay. There’s Fiona Shapcott, nanny to their children for 16 years and working in the Edinburgh office part-time. "He was the first person with whom I really discussed my serious ambition to be a writer and he was the only person who thought I was bound to be a success at it, which meant much more to me than I ever told him at the time," she admitted. Dianne’s husband Roger Moore, in whose café, Nicolson’s, Rowling continued to write. She wrote the essay. She writes that her work as an author and with charities gave rise to concerns about the impact of “trans activism” on issues ranging from freedom of speech to education and safeguarding. Fry coined the term “denial marketing” to characterise their strategy for all things Potter: the more people want, the less you give. Authors can’t always pop characters out at the drop of a hat. Live your best life in peace and security. Alan Rickman as Severus Snape in "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone". When JK's mother died it greatly affected her writing. Its second consultation was launched in December 2019, when Rowling wrote her first controversial tweet on the subject of trans rights and in support of Maya Forstater, a tax expert whose contract at the at the think tank Center for Global Development went unrenewed after she tweeted that transgender women can’t change their biological sex. Trans women are women too, contends Devor. WHEN Sean Harris found himself the source of a dedication on Harry Potter: The Chamber of Secrets, he no doubt felt some pride at his school friend's cryptic message. Peter Rowling is not the only difficult man to emerge in her essay. "I did not set out to make Hermione like me, but she is . Ruth Serwotka is co-founder of Woman’s Place UK, a group set up in 2017 to ensure, in the words of its website, that “women’s voices would be heard in the consultation on proposals to change the Gender Recognition Act”. Less so. That year, Rowling jumped ship to a brand new literacy agency, The Blair Partnership, with which she developed Pottermore, an online platform giving her the power to sell her own e-books directly (now called Wizarding World, it has expanded into a fan site). The barriers go up… She’s got to do everything herself, despite the fact that it’s not possible to do everything herself.”. In the seven days from 14 September, 28,475 original tweets, reaching a likely audience of more than 91 million, bore the ominous hashtag #RIPJKRowling. In 2014, a study published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology claimed that reading Potter books left readers more sympathetic to stigmatised groups such as immigrants, refugees and, yes, LGBT+ people. “To think where the Harry Potter franchise came from, completely predicated on JK Rowling’s influence. In Scotland, she says: “JK Rowling’s interventions have undoubtedly raised public awareness of this issue. “So I want trans women to be safe. How so? ‘They’ll call us transphobic!’ ‘They’ll say I hate trans people!’”. Controversy rumbled. “JK Rowling is fuelling that fire,” says Steelman, “in a way that it didn’t need to be fuelled.”, She sees a painful irony. I don’t think it’s a problem for celebrities to talk about politics, but… I think that she should have been upfront about why she was talking about this when she was talking about it and what she was trying to do politically, because that is a very different conversation than that which most of us thought we were having.”, If Rowling’s effect on political and cultural attitudes is hard to measure, its effect on the trans community is abundantly obvious to Steelman: “Since her June statements, I have been incredibly overwhelmed with calls,” she says, citing an 11-year-old child who told her: “I don’t know how my parents will take it, if I tell them what I am now realising, because we’ve had conversations about JK Rowling and my dad and my mom said these things and now I don’t know if they’re going to be safe with what I have to tell them.”, Rowling’s essay reveals that she has been accused of “literally killing trans people with my hate”. 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