A deal with Disney had reportedly broken down over the possible extent of Rowling’s involvement, but before the new Wizarding World of Harry Potter opened at Universal Studios Hollywood, samples of the food from restaurants and shops were flown to Scotland, so that Rowling could test them. From JKR.com: “He was the first of my friends to learn to drive and that turquoise and white car meant FREEDOM and no more having to ask my father to give me lifts, which is the worst thing about living in the countryside when you are a teenager. But Rowling no longer works in cafes. But at the height of Potter mania, in the noughties, a mushrooming cast of agents, editors, publicists and PR people stage-managed every public appearance Rowling made with painstaking attention to detail. Trans women who work in the sex industry, particularly trans women of colour, are at particular risk. For all intents and purposes, this change will apply for life and you have to sign up for that. Considering Muggle-born Hermione is ambitious, studious, resourceful and smart as a whip, whom do you think could have possibly inspired her character? There’s Fiona Shapcott, nanny to their children for 16 years and working in the Edinburgh office part-time. Ruth Serwotka is co-founder of Woman’s Place UK, a group set up in 2017 to ensure, in the words of its website, that “women’s voices would be heard in the consultation on proposals to change the Gender Recognition Act”. The real-life heroism of Jan and Antonina Zabinski, who helped save 300 Jews and insurgents during the Holocaust, has become a Hollywood movie. Rowling was, she implies, fully aware of the violent backlash that June’s tweets would trigger, yet she pressed send anyway, to strike a blow for freedom of speech. In the seven days from 14 September, 28,475 original tweets, reaching a likely audience of more than 91 million, bore the ominous hashtag #RIPJKRowling. “I don’t think JK Rowling is leaving her home and actually murdering a trans person,” says Steelman, “but that isn’t what you need to do anymore to have that impact. In 2018, the Westminster government launched a consultation on reforming the Gender Recognition Act. What of Rowling’s concerns that allowing self-identification might endanger cis women who use single-sex spaces? In Scotland, she says: “JK Rowling’s interventions have undoubtedly raised public awareness of this issue. "I did not set out to make Hermione like me, but she is . That tweet read: “Dress however you please. The weighing-up of such vulnerabilities against those of trans people: “I believe the majority of trans-identified people not only pose zero threat to others, but are vulnerable for all the reasons I’ve outlined. “All his legal paperwork will change overnight to say ‘F’ on them,” she continues. While Rowling has often led fan’s liberal leanings by personal example – making charitable donations so vast and generous she dropped off Forbes‘ list of billionaires; founding her own charity; dutifully paying tax; and comparing Donald Trump to Voldemort – she does not appear to have courted or even felt comfortable with the deification that followed. “It was widely suggested, and it was received by 90 per cent of people as saying, that [GRA reform] would be a legal change which meant that somebody, a man or a woman, could wake up in the morning, decide that they wanted to be the other sex to that which they were born, go online, fill in a form,” says Finn Mackay, senior lecturer in sociology at the university of West of England in Bristol, who is currently finishing a book on the gender wars. And while Warner Bros was still in the game, releasing the first of a reported five Fantastic Beasts movies that year, Rowling had expanded her reach here, too. “Now, is there evidence that cisgender women are being harmed by having transgender women in those spaces? Live your best life in peace and security. For Sean P.F. “You know you’re going to get a misogynistic response,” says Serwotka. The character Ron Weasley from the Harry Potter books is partly inspired by Sean. Everyone seemed content with this checkmate by the queen, and for good reason. Sean Harris, her best friend in the Upper Sixth owned a turquoise Ford Anglia, which she says inspired the one in her books. My writing room is probably my favourite place in the world. In Scotland, however, the timeline has been different and distended. And now Warner Bros. is having to do damage limitation.”. Come September, around the publication of Rowling’s new Cormoran Strike book, Troubled Blood, and more accusations of transphobia, her detractors took up a different battle cry. So Harry Potter is, in some ways, the most culturally influential franchise that’s ever existed.”. In fact, it still hasn’t. Harris, getaway driver and foulweather friend Explanation: Jo met Sean at her secondary school, Wyedean, when she was eleven.From JKR.com: “He was the first of my friends to learn to drive and that turquoise and white car meant FREEDOM and no more having to ask my father to give me lifts, which is the worst thing about living in the countryside when you are a teenager. I’m not going to buy new books.” Will that boycott have any real impact on the future and profitability of the franchise? That is the simple truth.”. From Quiz: The Life of J.K Rowling (click to play it). 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