How Harry Potter Made Me an Activist
If you look at any photo of me taken between 2014 (when I got my first debit card and therefore the ability to purchase things for myself online) and 2020, there’s about a 70% chance that something I am wearing is Harry Potter related. See, I was one of those kids who read the series and decided it was peak literary mastery, that nothing could ever top it and therefore there was no use trying anything else. I refused to read Twilight or even The Hunger Games, writing them off as simple romance stories with no true substance unlike these stories I had connected myself to. The only media I wanted to interact with was based in this universe and nothing could convince me to branch out. 
By 2015, when it came time to pick a college, I chose SUNY Potsdam partially because of their Harry Potter related extracurricular offerings and by 2017, most of my friends were through that club. The club in question was a fandom-based activist group that had such successes as convincing Warner Brothers to use only Fair Trade Certified chocolate for their Harry Potter branded candies, and with Partners In Health, filling cargo planes with supplies to fly to Haiti in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake they experienced. My interest in the group started out of interest to further my obsession with the story of Harry Potter, but quickly shifted.
In the spring of 2016, I attended my first Granger Leadership Academy—a leadership conference taught through the lens of fandom. It was exhilarating to learn how to use my interest in a fictional world to make the real world a better place. That year among many other things, I learned how to balance work life, personal life, and activism work through the lens of Leslie Knope of Parks and Recreation, and how to write a powerful letter to a government official like Hermione Granger would. The conference took real world concepts and filtered them through my special interests. It felt like the perfect excuse to spend hours chatting about characters and worlds. Little did I know it would rewrite my understanding of the world.
Because of GLA and the connections I made through HPA, I can now look at things in a way I hadn’t been able to before. I see injustice and oppression in the world because I was taught to see it in the stories. I understand the impact of inequality on people because I read stories critically and understood the morals. I analyze the shows I watch because they are a reflection of what we want our society to look like or at least how we presently view it.
I haven’t interacted with a piece of media the same way since that weekend in a hotel ballroom in Warwick, Rhode Island. I attended thinking I would put up with the activism and love the fandom and now, ten years removed from the experience, what has stuck with me is the activism while the fandom has faded. That weekend changed me and I only noticed it years later, after attending another one in St. Louis.
And then another one in Phoenix.
And another one in Philly.
And the year they went virtual (like everything else) for covid.
Those days spent in nondescript hotel spaces rewrote my understanding of the world and turned me into an activist. Which is probably why, in 2018 when JKR, the author of the books that inspired the conference, started “accidentally” liking trans exclusionary-aligned tweets, my peers and I took note.
By the time she released her manifesto detailing her decline into transphobia in 2020—during pride month, no less—I had already reassessed her books and noted many poor choices in her narratives. Her characters were often based on harmful and racist stereotypes, she chose names for characters lazily, she developed a group of slaves that loved servitude, her representation was shoehorned into the stories long after they were published so as to avoid losing sales, and the list goes on.
The books weren’t good and never were.
I simply got caught up in finding my identity, being freed from the cupboard under the stairs and building my found family who loves me for who I am, not in spite of it. I thought the books told a magical story that I was following but really the books pushed me to write that magical story for myself by living it.
And so the rest of this story has nothing to do with JK Rowling, as that is the direction my life went. I packed away the merch and eventually gave it away to my younger cousins to keep them from financially supporting her. But I never packed away that spark for activism.
While the opportunities were seemingly limited in the middle of nowhere upstate New York, I continued to be vocal both in person and online in support many things but most notably being trans rights. I had grown up hurting in a way I hadn't been able to put words to until I was a teenager and I don't want anyone to live that way. And I still find ways of connecting it with the media I enjoy.
And do you know what you do with all that pain? Shall I tell you where you put it? You hold it tight… till it burns your hand, and you say this: No one else will ever have to live like this! No one else will have to feel this pain! Not on my watch!
Twelfth Doctor, Doctor Who
The biggest change in my activism has come recently with the second administration of the Trump regime. I remember the fear I felt as a kid casting my first presidential ballot in 2016 and now, ten years later, I am still that kid.
I wish I could go back in time and tell that kid that he'll make it through, that there are tough times ahead but I can't, so instead I tell my cousins who are all 10+ years younger than me that we will make it through these tough times. And I started participating in my community. Weekly rallies, group chats, monthly events, mutual aid, and yes, No Kings rallies have become my daily tasks.
It is actually the most recent No Kings day last week that spurred me to make this post. Coming home from that event, I was filled with an energetic glow I had only associated with those leadership conferences I had attended in college. I felt connected with my peers, and inspired to do more with it.
I met a Teamsters Brother and we bonded over our anger at the lack of accountability we have seen from our Local of late and so he and I along with one of my coworkers are heading to the monthly meeting for the first time today. The actions that spurred from one day of yelling in a blizzard aren't counted in the headcount for these rallies but they're what really matter.
It's the hope and inspiration that's lit in the individuals at a No Kings rally that really truly makes a difference in a community. Sitting in that glow last weekend, I realized that I had the world's most notorious TERF (trans exclusionary radical feminist) to thank for helping me find this path, and whether it's because of inspiration or pure spite, I will keep showing up and keep fighting for the good that I know we can achieve.
And so, to everyone who has seen me through every stage of my life, from obnoxious Harry Potter fan to obnoxious leftist, thank you. I wouldn't be who I am today, fighting for what I do, if it weren't for the love (and hate) you have shown me.
