A Harry Potter event was canceled at an upcoming book festival in New Zealand over headline-making comments the best selling author J.K. Rowling made, in which she said only women can menstruate.
Organizers of the Featherston Booktown Karukatea festival in New Zealand, which will be held on May 6-9 have canceled an interactive Harry Potter quiz — which had been very popular at past events — according to a report by Stuff.
Rowling has faced backlash by transgender activists for saying only women can menstruate. The author has also been labeled a “TERF” (trans exclusionary radical feminist) — a term referring to feminists who are considered too “radical” for even left-wing activists, as they do not believe that a biological man is a woman.
In a lengthy essay Rowling wrote last summer, responding the attacks she has received from transgender activists, Rowling said, “I refuse to bow down to a movement that I believe is doing demonstrable harm in seeking to erode ‘woman’ as a political and biological class and offering cover to predators like few before it.”
“It isn’t enough for women to be trans allies,” she continued. “Women [are told they] must accept and admit that there is no material difference between trans women and themselves.”
“But, as many women have said before me, ‘woman’ is not a costume. ‘Woman’ is not an idea in a man’s head. ‘Woman’ is not a pink brain, a liking for Jimmy Choos or any of the other sexist ideas now somehow touted as progressive,” Rowling said. “Moreover, the ‘inclusive’ language that calls female people ‘menstruators’ and ‘people with vulvas’ strikes many women as dehumanizing and demeaning.”
Featherston resident and feminist activist Jenny Whyte told Stuff the organizers’ decision not to have the Harry Potter quiz at the festival is ironic.
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