A US museum has removed all trace of Harry Potter creator JK Rowling from its exhibition celebrating the schoolboy wizard and his friends.
The Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle had previously published a blog explaining its decision to airbrush Rowling from its display, due to her “super hateful and divisive” views.
Project manager Chris Moore, who is transgender, wrote in the piece:
“There’s a certain cold, heartless, joy-sucking entity in the world of Harry Potter and, this time, it is not actually a Dementor.
“We would love to go with the internet’s theory that these books were actually written without an author, but this certain person is a bit too vocal with her super hateful and divisive views to be ignored.
“For the time being, the curators decided to remove any of her artefacts from this gallery to reduce her impact.
“It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s what we were able to do in the short-term while determining long-term practices.”
The UK’s Daily Mail newspaper reports that the museum has kept its Harry Potter memorabilia on display, but now with no mention of the author of the record-breaking franchise.
Rowling was previously inducted into the Museum’s Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame, but has become a controversial figure in recent years, ever since she publicly supported the case of a British woman who sued her employers for firing her over her views that gender should be determined by biological sex. Rowling has expressed her support for the trans community, but also her concerns for the safety of biological women. In a lengthy post on social media, she also revealed she had been a victim of domestic violence.
The author did not appear at last year’s events to celebrate the 25th anniversary of her first Harry Potter book, while the three young stars made famous by her films have all spoken out to express their solidarity with the trans community. Daniel Radcliffe, who played Harry in the films, said last year that young people had been “hurt” by Rowling’s views.