Here’s a great test case to explain my confusion regarding the free speech+anti cancel culture crowd. Free speech exists to enable and depends upon an exchange of ideas. The only way society might work while allowing this kind of hateful propaganda to be published is to also... https://twitter.com/pinknews/status/1305523700238815238

Allow me/others to say this is hateful propaganda and shouldn’t be purchased/should be denounced, and the writers other positions should be questioned in light of it. This seems like what one would call canceling, but I don’t get how it’s bad...

I believe it is both a natural outcome of the intersection of freedom of speech, capitalism, and democracy, and essential for the functioning of those systems together.

Stories are powerful and insidious. This story could very easily do a lot of damage. JKR has enough power, influence, and support that no amount of canceling that will occur is likely to undo the harm caused by this book. I do think she has the right to publish it, but...

I also think compassionate people have a right, or perhaps moral responsibility to discourage others from adopting her beliefs, or her from spreading them, to try to change her mind, or to fight transphobia however they can.