Perth bookshop Rabble Books & Games has finally done what everyone was thinking by banning Harry Potter books from its premises, in response to JK Rowling‘s public and unrepentant transphobia.
In case you missed it, the author’s recently gone from liking transphobic tweets to writing a whole transphobic novel.
“We are always trying to make Rabble a safer space for our community, and part of that is trying not to put books by transphobes on the shelves, when we know about them,” the shop’s owner Nat Latter (pictured) said in a Facebook post.
“Here is where we’re at: we’re not going to stock new JK Rowling books and we won’t be keeping Robert Galbraith books (her pseudonym for crime novels) on the shelf anymore. Though we don’t sell many, we’re going to phase out the Harry Potter books too.
“We’re physically a very small shop, and this opens up so much space for awesome books by Jessica Townsend, Jeremy Lachlan, Tamara Moss, Rebecca Lim, Ambelin Kwaymullina and Akwaeke Emezi and other amazing writers with middle grade and young adult fantasy adventure books.”
While JK Rowling titles will be off the shelf, it’ll still be possible to order them, just like any other non-stocked book.
The bookshop noted that while stocking books isn’t necessarily an endorsement of the author’s shitty opinions, in this case removing the books would be about creating a safe space for those who visit.
“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,” Latter added.
Latter even noted a not-so-fun fact at the end of the post: Did you know Robert Galbraith, Rowling’s pen name, is eerily similar to Robert Galbraith Heath, an American psychiatrist who pioneered gay conversion therapy through electrical stimulation? Yikes.
JK Rowling herself hasn’t yet responded to the move, but one can assume she has no time for her antipodean critics anyway.
But one can imagine what her response might be, as one TikToker noted: “This is a mattuh of DEMOCRACY. Mmm?”
Too bad, too sad.
