"But JKR writing about a man dressing up like a woman isn't transphobic, it's about a MAN."

The trope of men pretending to be women is still rooted in transmisogyny and perpetuates the myth that men need to hide their gender in order to harm women, which is untrue.

When we lean into narratives that negatively impact trans women — encouraging mistrust and fear of victimization in cis women by way of "male imposters" — we are still doing harmful shit to trans women.

Even if JKR is writing about a cis man and doesn't mention trans women at ALL, she's still writing a story that casts doubt and suspicion onto transgender women's identities and intentions by perpetuating the myth that cisgender men will falsely identify to abuse others.

This is a very common talking point from anti-trans people, who genuinely believe that transgender women are inherently threatening because they can't be believed or trusted and instead, should be ostracized and not considered women at all.

All for the safety of cisgender women. If you lend credibility to a world in which a cisgender man will try to deceive others by pretending to be a woman, you lend credibility to a world in which transgender women are interrogated, ostracized, and feared.

People are upset because this is a hypothetical scenario that is almost always used to deny transgender women's humanity, dignity, and self-identification.

If JKR has already made disparaging remarks about transgender people, her agenda in publishing this is VERY concerning.

So sure, JKR is writing about a cisgender man. But she's doing so within a specific context, in which transgender women are believed to be predatory and dangerous men in disguise. She does this knowing that it feeds into transmisogyny and sows doubt that leads to real harm.

If she believed that transgender women are women, she would know that using a stereotype that is routinely weaponized against them would be harmful, especially as they still battle for their rights and safety.

In reality, transgender women are more likely to be victimized, more likely to hide behind their assigned gender and remain closeted (and therefore safe), and more likely to die an early death at the hands of a cisgender man.

There are countless ways to tell the story of a serial killer. Literally, listen to any number of true crime podcasts for a weekend if you're stuck.

Choosing the one scenario that is most harmful to transgender women is a very deliberate choice.

The bottomline is, if we know that a particular myth is actively and frequently weaponized against a vulnerable group... maybe now isn't the time for a high profile writer to reinforce that myth and therefore incite the fear, intense scrutiny, and harm that comes with it?

And JKR was already pedaling this myth online, so it was only a matter of time before she started doing so in her work.

THIS is why we're calling it transphobic. Context is everything.