Harry Potter Fandoms will be a part of the Fediverse one way or the other. It’s better to shape this development rather than being overwhelmed by it.
Harry Potter Fandoms are a huge opportunity for the Fediverse. Look at what the collaboration of Lego and Disney brought to Fortnite. People want to spend time in places, in which they feel familiar and welcomed. I'm not saying collaborating with big companies here, what I'm saying is: the Fediverse needs to be filled with life and we have to use that opportunity first, before others do.
Don't throw the opinions of J.K. Rowling and its fandom in one bucket. It’s one of the biggest in the world, there is a broad range of opinions and people.
The Fediverse needs more projects that immediately make sense to people. Projects that you tell a person about, and they say: "Oh, yeah, that makes sense." Mastodon in comparison to Twitter was such a thing: its billionaire proof. Everybody gets why that's a good thing. A better, more open place to build Harry Potter fan sites could be another.
The project (including other places like this that may follow) could also become another attractive place on the Fediverse for the open-source community. Who wouldn’t be excited to help build the world of Harry Potter?

All of this is of course up for discussion. I'm a very stubborn person but I'm also able to listen ;)

Edit: I removed "queer friendly" from the description. Its not a claim that I can fully uphold anyways. Instead, it has a no tolerancy policy against transphobia, which is more clear and probably easier to enforce.

Here is the link: https://diagonlemmy.social

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Look, first of all I'm not trans, I don't know how its like, and you have my sympathy. The inzident with the H.P. fans harassing you sounds horrible and I'm sorry it happened to you.

Independent from this, I don't think the world of H.P. itself is transphobic, if it was written by a different author there would still be things to critize but not more than many other childrens books. Also, I think that the fandom can free itself from Rowling in the sense that it becomes an independent thing from the author. For example the Lord of the Rings Series by Amazon Prime did some central things different than Tolkien. I think that's how cultural development happens in contrast to just boycotting it. On the other hand, while Rowling still earns money from it and spends it for bad causes, there will always be a moral dilemma. But I'm willing to take the consequences of that moral dilemma in this case, because I think the H.P. fandom could be really good for the Fediverse and grow it, and a big Fediverse will be good for the world.

Additionally I have to add that, imo, throwing fashists and neo-nazis like David Duke into one bucket with Rowling is problematic, if not borderline totalitarian (and also just tasteless), because she simply isn't. She is very conservative, but not a fascist. Fascists see certain groups of people as less human or not even humans at all, Rowling always said her arguments have nothing to do with the humans themselves, which is a crucial thing.

[–] inb4_FoundTheVegan 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Thank you for the reply and for continuing to talk with me about this.

imo, throwing fashists and neo-nazis like David Duke into one bucket with Rowling is problematic, if not borderline totalitarian (and also just tasteless), because she simply isn't.

I understand why you think I am flying off the handle and comparing two things that aren't the same. But there are a couple points I want you to keep in mind,

Rowling herself has actively promoted self described fascists on multiple occasions. Matt Walsh in the US who repeatedly calls for, and his followers commit acts of violence at hospitals.

And Posie Parker in the UK. Who has a large nazis following her show up at her protests. And rowling herself was critical of the counter protesters at faccistic events, while not speaking to the Nazis there.

Posie has actively called for her supports to carry guns in to womens bathrooms to look for trans folk, clearly calling for violence.

“I’m talking about you dads, who maybe carry – I think that’s what you say, I’m so down with the American lingo. Maybe you carry, maybe you don’t. Maybe you consider yourself a protector of women, maybe you’re that sort of man. Maybe you have a daughter or a mother, or a wife, maybe you have a sister. Maybe you have friends, maybe you just think women are human and you don’t need any absolute connection with them to feel compelled to protect us. I think you should start using women’s toilets, men.”

TERF transphobia is deeply rooted in the history fascism, the first books the nazis book burned were at a queer college studying trans topics. According to Nazi's, trans people are a jewish plot.

The era of extreme Jewish intellectualism is now at an end. The breakthrough of the German revolution has again cleared the way on the German path

-Jospeh Grobels who gave a speech at the burning.

“One thing that it’s crucial to understand about the far right, the extreme right, the Nazi guys, is the way that they obsessively see absolutely fucking everything as a Jewish plot,” says author and hate researcher Talia Lavin, author of Culture Warlords: My Journey into the Dark Web of White Supremacy. “And the existence of trans people is a huge one.”

Rowling is an active part of a violent fascist movement both from a historical sense, from her current actions and in the books she writes. Harry Potter has many antisemitic tropes in the goblins, overtly racist names like the black wizard Shacklebolt and transphobia by repeatedly describing female villains to have "man hands". There is ample evidence to put JK Rowling, Matt Walsh, Posie Parker and David Duke in the same fascist basket.

Which is why, symbols from those people make marginalized people feel uncomfortable. When you say you want a trans friendly harry potter space, it sounds like you are hanging a confederate flag because of your heritage and ignoring the ways that symbol is being used to harm people. I am not the only trans person I know that has been targeted by people wearing harry potter merch, they look for us. We know the community builders, while maybe not transphobic look the other way as it's not a dealbreaker for the book. It's hard not to wonder where else they look the other way. Which is why the community inherently makes me feel unsafe, and I think creating one is not how someone who supports our rights to exist would act.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Ok, so she allies with some weird people. Didn't know that and its not great, but it doesn't make her a fascist. Being a fascist corresponds to a fascist mindset. I think her books, opinions and also the fantastic beast films show that she has liberal mindset, and she is strongly against fascism.

But I hear you, I guess the whole cultural fight has a bigger urgency for you. I'm also panicking that we really drift towards fascism again. But for me, I analyze the problem different and therefore draw different conclusions.

For me, this is about a bigger conflict within the democratic forces in general and especially within the Left. For years now, the common mindset was that of deconstruction, that of dismanteling structures and hierarchies. However, turns out that if you see in every structure and hierarchy the possibility for "colonialism" and "micro-aggressions" and you dismantel that on and on, you end up with no structures, which, surprise: leads to evil, anti-democratic structures to develop. For me, the Post-Colonialist-Left has lost all credibility after the terrorist attack by the Hamas on Israel, because many of them openly appreciated or at least downplayed it. Antisemitism is a problem on the left.

So yeah, Rowling has a point that anti-liberal-tendencies have grown over the years, as holds for a limiting of free speech (Salman Rushdie also signed the letter that she signed a few years ago calling for more free speech). But for me, this comes from the post-colonalist-left, which is currently kind of shattered anyways (and also right-wing-populism, of course). However, Rowling argues that the queer/trans movement is anti-liberal and that's also were she loses me, because thats a talking-point of the right, on which, like you said, they only too eagerly jump on. In russia, they have declared LGBTQ as a terrorist group, which is really bad for the people there.

But the forces that are pro-democracy quickly need to unite again. In this sense, from my point of view, by building something that is not perfect from the beginning, I do something to strengthen liberal democracy, which is also good for trans people.