Today's News Shows Why We Can't Engage With The "Harry Potter" TV Show

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16-04-2025

So, the UK Supreme Court basically just ruled that trans women aren't legally women.
Earlier today, the country's highest court unanimously ruled that a "woman" in equality legislation should be defined as referring to a "biological woman and biological sex." It stemmed from an argument over whether trans women with a gender recognition certificate (aka the document used to be legally recognized in your gender) should be protected as women from discrimination under the 2010 Equality Act.
To even qualify for the certificate, you have to be over the age of 18, diagnosed with gender dysphoria in the UK, and have to have been living in said gender for two years.
The ruling essentially means that trans people can be barred from women's spaces. As Pink News notes, "Single-sex spaces and services refers to areas which are often split by sex, such as toilets, hospital wards, prisons and domestic abuse refuges and crisis centres." The Good Law Project subsequently said, 'This ruling sets a dangerous precedent and erases trans women from protections. It puts trans rights back 20 years." They also claimed that the court didn't hear from any trans people. This comes as hate crimes against trans people have been increasing.
Scottish Trans further said, "We'd urge people not to panic - there will be lots of commentary coming out quickly that is likely to deliberately overstate the impact that this decision is going to have on all trans people's lives. We'll say more as soon as we're able to. Please look out for yourselves and each other today."
The ruling should also be concerning to cis women, as having your womanhood defined on your reproductive abilities is not a good thing when it comes to women's rights.
I previously spoke to Kellan Baker, PhD, MPH, MA, over one of Donald Trump's anti-trans executive orders. He's the Executive Director of the Institute for Health Research & Policy at Whitman-Walker and was part of a committee that informed the National Institutes of Health's definition of sex and gender. "There is no easy, simple, straightforward, binary, immutable definition of sex. It simply doesn't exist from a biological standpoint," he told me. "There are any number of elements that go into what we think of as sex. For example, chromosomes, gonads, external genitalia, and hormones."
He added, "All of these elements of sex can align. All of these elements of sex can not align with each other. There are many people for whom they would be very surprised if they were to take a chromosome test and learn that perhaps they had an intersex variation, or perhaps there were some element of their bodies that was different from what is typically expected of males and females."
Following the news, Joanne wrote on X, "It took three extraordinary, tenacious Scottish women with an army behind them to get this case heard by the Supreme Court and, in winning, they've protected the rights of women and girls across the UK. @ForWomenScot, I'm so proud to know you."
But her support for the case goes far beyond just a post or hundred on X. When the group began crowdfunding for their Supreme Court challenge, Joanne herself donated the equivalent of $92,000 to the group — almost the entirety of the group's fundraising goal for its first month. She further added a note that read, 'You know how proud I am to know you. Thank you for all your hard work and perseverance. This is truly a historic case.'
Why am I bringing this up? Because there's still this idea that Joanne's anti-trans bias is just some kind of vague notion, an opinion to be dismissed, and not something with which she is actively trying to harm trans people with. Her cultural and economic impact is very real.
Enter: The new Harry Potter series. Casting for many of the major roles was recently announced, including John Lithgow as Albus Dumbledore, Paapa Essiedu as Severus Snape, and Nick Frost as Rubeus Hagrid. HBO has confirmed that Joanne will be incredibly involved in the series and actively praised her in the process. Read: More money and more creative cache.
I've had the pleasure of being in spaces with trans and genderqueer Harry Potter fans who have found a way to reclaim the series for themselves. That's wonderful. But when it comes to the new official IP, let's be clear: Ignore it. Stop giving this woman your money and time.