JK Rowling’s Response To The question Of If There Were LGBT Students At Hogwarts
JK Rowling has revealed Harry Potter’s world is a good place to be LGBTI.
The British author was asked a question by a Twitter fan who wanted to know if there was a variety of people at Hogwarts, including gay students.
‘Do you think there are a lot of LGBT students in modern age Hogwarts? I like to imagine they formed an LGBT club,’ the fan queried.
He added: ‘It’s safe to assume that Hogwarts had a variety of people and I like to think it’s a safe place for LGBT students.’
Rowling said ‘Of course’, and then linked to a picture which read: ‘If Harry Potter taught us anything, it’s that no one should live in a closet.’
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63 Comments
Brian Collins
December 26, 07:13Yay, I’m the first to leave a reply at 8.09am. I’m a huge HP fan and the idea that HP could have included gay people feels quite nice.
Sha o let’s not hope she felt she had to lie because she has another book in the works and wants them sold out in stores around the world.
Ps: It’s my birthday today
pinkpanthertb
December 26, 07:18Jk Rowling doesn’t need to use such underhanded tactic to sell her books. She’s a household name. The name alone will sell whatever she pens.
PS: Happy box—sorry, birthday dear
Lord II
December 26, 07:28But I tend to disagree there with u pinky…..if she had said otherwise there would have been some fall of her empire u can bet!!
pinkpanthertb
December 26, 07:29Are gay people the only ones who buy her books?
Absalom
December 26, 07:38LOL. Are gay people the only people who care about gay issues?
pinkpanthertb
December 26, 07:39Is the world an entirety of people who care about gay issues only?
pinkpanthertb
December 26, 07:41Look before y’all get my words twisted, I’m just saying, there’s a certain amount of celebrity you get to, and dodgy tactics to promote your brand is no longer pertinent.
Lord II
December 26, 07:23Happy birthday Brian and wow its boxing day so what pray ye do you want unboxed for you today….eh bot or top, tall or short, dark or fair…..just choose jo…..hehehe!
Colossus
December 26, 07:43Maybe not something drastic as the fall of her empire but you would agree she would receive some serious backlash and an eventual apology.
Happy birthday Brian, more blessings today and always
gad
December 26, 19:53Happy birthday. May your days be blessed with wonderful moments of joy and laughter
Ruby
December 26, 07:27Nice! What I would give to be an LGBT student. @ Hogwarts. Happy Birthday Brian
chestnut
December 26, 10:09@Ruby: I know, right! And there wouldn’t be a case of “is he or isn’t he”; there’d be gaydar-spells to make everything easy (“TBerium Kitosus Uncoverio!!!” Hehe…)
Happy bday Brian Collins *mwah*
pinkpanthertb
December 26, 11:05LMAO
Absalom
December 26, 15:42ChestNUT, hahahahahahaha!
Dennis Macauley
December 26, 07:29Happy Birthday Brian!
***kiss Kiss***
A-non
December 26, 07:32Happy Boxing Day to y’all!!!
Happy Birthday Brian!
Absalom
December 26, 07:39Happy birthday, Brian! How old are you now?
A-non
December 26, 07:41Wetin concern you for iim age??
Mtschewww
chestnut
December 26, 10:24Choi! A-non, wetin happen nah? Wetin my bae (yes,Absie is my bae *tongue-out*) do u nah? Hope u know he was just joking…
A-non
December 26, 07:43@Brian, maybe you should scan and send him your birth certificate.
Absalom
December 26, 07:49Ha, A-non. You see me for dream?
pinkpanthertb
December 26, 07:50Ahah A-non, this one be like e pain you o.
Dennis Macauley
December 26, 07:51Issues sorrunding LGBT is a landmine in the west. This woman will loose all her billions over night and fall from her haunted castle if she doesn’t clarify that her books are gay friendly.
This is what I love about the gay rights movement in the west. Even homophobes are forced to swallow their homophobia and drink a sherry on top of it all the while smiling. As long as you are some sort of celebrity, you dare not NOT like gay people!
LOL
pinkpanthertb
December 26, 07:53‘This woman will loose all her billions over night and fall from her haunted castle’…
Really, Dennis? 🙂 That dramatic, huh?
Dennis Macauley
December 26, 08:01Paula Deen?
Tiger Woods?
Lance Amstrong?
Need I continue?
pinkpanthertb
December 26, 08:03I’m sorry, did all these lose ‘their billions’ becos of a politically incorrect gay statement?
Dennis Macauley
December 26, 08:07No hun! I am just giving you examples of people who fell from the peak and lost almost everything because of one little mistake!
So it is possible!
Also remember that gay rights is one of the main issues that cost Mitt the election
pinkpanthertb
December 26, 08:15Tiger Woods was a serial adulterer. That was not one little mistake.
Lance Armstrong did drugs. That was not one little mistake.
It’s only Paula Deen’s mistake of purportedly using racial slurs that justifies your argument.
And please, stop stretching my dissension on this matter. I know the Western LGBT movement is a powerful one. And I have no doubt that Rowling would suffer a backlash if she made any derogatory statement against the LGBT.
What I’m disagreeing with is Brian’s supposition that she could have given her response based on the hopes of promoting her book. JK Rowling doesn’t need to promote her brand. That’s my point. If she said what she said, I believe its becos its what she believes, not some tactic.
Lord II
December 26, 08:22Am sorry but pinky HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT!!!! That’s a very specific statement you made and how are you so sure she isn’t just being politically motivated in her response?
pinkpanthertb
December 26, 08:22Again with the Caps…! You give me a headache, please. Why do I get the feeling that when you use your Caps, you’re actually shouting and hopping about on your feet in accompaniment…
Dennis Macauley
December 26, 08:24You are not entirely correct hun!
One wrong move and people will stop buying her books.
Karl Lagerfield called adele Fat and Chanel sales plummeted in the UK. When he saw how fast the numbers were dropping he had to rush and do some damage control.
Queen Bey would have fallen off her throne with that lip synching incident if she did not do what she did.
These are not LGBTI scenarios, I am just telling you that one wrong move can prove fatal no matter how high you have risen to! Nobody takes chances again!
pinkpanthertb
December 26, 08:27*throwing hands up in exasperation* THAT is not my argument!
Lord II
December 26, 08:37But exactly Pinky and sorry about the headache BUT ANSWER THE QUESTION….pls…you don’t suppose you could make such direct and specific comments like dat without us asking you HOW YOU SO KNOW?
pinkpanthertb
December 26, 08:39Read my comment again. Understand its subtlety. And you wouldn’t need to ask me this question.
chestnut
December 26, 09:50Ok, I already know I’m a fool for this, but dennis, when u said “…FELL from PEAK”, an image just came into my head…lol (hey ‘Peak’, happy boxing day, hehe…)
chestnut
December 26, 10:35Lol. Ok, when I saw dis post on d home-page(b4 opening it) with 40-something comments,I was like: “really”? “This topic”?…but then I opened it and saw that there was a battle-field here (started by our very own bday boy; tanx a lot,Brian.lol)
Of course she WOULD get backflash for anti-gay remarks in hollywood (I mean,this is a society that breaks the internet with accusations if a prominent white person offers to share a water-melon white his black neighbours), but bringing down her empire? Might I remind u that we’re talking of an empire bulit on very powerful witchcraft?lol. I agree with Pinky; it aint that serious. Dennis and co, u guys are reaching a bit.y’all really believe we run the world? Hahaha. One would think WE were the real illuminati!
pinkpanthertb
December 26, 11:10Hahahahahahahaa! Girls run the world mbok. Not gays. #Okbye. *fleeing*
#TeamKizito
December 26, 08:11Hmmm.
Happy boxing day. Happy birthday, Brian. (Gimme a share of your cake!)
olima
December 26, 08:34@kizito cake refers to many things. So, wld u b kind to help lift my sordid mind outta d gutters?
@pinky, I don’t buy ur line of thot. D lady’s reply was just so her whole empire won’t come crumbling down should d LGBTI gods b taken for granted.
pinkpanthertb
December 26, 08:35And you speak from your years of being such an established mind reader, yes?
A-non
December 26, 09:06@Olima, the Oyingbo kinda gutter I suppose.
*goes back to eating cake…Christmas cake*
Rapu'm
December 26, 09:03Hian, all this una shout-shout. All I’m asking is if there is any major LGBT character in her book, seeing it’s a big book? *Just asking*
A-non
December 26, 09:08Mba! I no see anyone o!
Anyone see any?
Rapu'm
December 26, 09:09And I’m not saying she’s a closet homophobe oh. I’m just asking, to make sure, seeing that I’m not a huge Harry Potter fan and haven’t been following the movie or the books.
pinkpanthertb
December 26, 09:12*jaw dropping slowly open* There’s someone existing who doesn’t follow the Potter franchise?! :O
A-non
December 26, 09:16Watch out for the flies Pinky…
Colossus
December 26, 09:25*faints* A world where one man has not been following the potterverse? I want out of that world *faints again*
pinkpanthertb
December 26, 09:28Hahahahahahaaa!!!
gad
December 26, 20:04Me too
Eros
December 26, 09:37A muggle??? On Kitodiaries???? *rings Lord Voldemort*
Me : Hey luv how you doing?
LV : I’m peachy. Just that the underworld is cramping my style. I dont have any muggles to torture
Me : Ummm yeah about that, there’s the muggle that is……
LV : Muggle? Where? How?? AVADA KEDAVRA!!!!!!!
pinkpanthertb
December 26, 09:38Hahahahahahaahahahaa!!! Oh Eros. you have it bad.
Eros
December 26, 09:30Y’all should calm down with the LGBT issues biko. I totally agree with pinky that J.K Rowling will suffer a backlash if she made any deregatory statement against gay people but not that much. People have been following her work for over a decade and you just cant expect them to hate her because of some misguided things she said. And FYI Albus Dumbledore is the gay character in the HP series, his friendship with Gellert Grindelwald was to innocent to be straight, just like David and Jonathan in the Bible. *flees from Gad and King*
paradox
December 26, 11:16@Eros Except World domination was to b the third party in their ‘gay relationship’, I do not see how u worked that out. It was purely academic n revenge based. The only gay relationship speculations were Albus n Potter.
IMO, the comment comes across as very patronizing. Literal, but patronizing.
And if she was pressured into making the statement, I really do hope it wasn’t from the LGBTI community. Makes it like we are trying WAY TOO HARD
pinkpanthertb
December 26, 11:21There were gay relationship speculations between Albus and Potter? Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter? People speculated that? Which part of the potterverse have i been in?!
Eros
December 26, 13:36JKR: My truthful answer to you… I always thought of
Dumbledore as gay. [ovation.] … Dumbledore fell in love with
Grindelwald, and that that added to his horror when Grindelwald showed himself to be what he was. To an extent, do we say it excused Dumbledore a little more because falling in love can blind us to an extent? But, he met someone as brilliant as he was, and rather like Bellatrix he was very drawn to this brilliant person, and horribly, terribly let down by him. Yeah, that’s how i always saw Dumbledore. In fact, recently I was in a script read
through for the sixth film, and they had Dumbledore saying a line to Harry early in the script saying I knew a girl once, whose hair… [laughter]. I had to write a little note in the margin and slide it along to the scriptwriter, “Dumbledore’s gay!” [laughter] “If I’d known it would make you so happy, I would have announced it years ago!”
This is an excerpt in Rowling’s speech at the Scholastic’s Open Book Tour Sweepstakes in 2007. So paradox, you were saying…..?
pinkpanthertb
December 26, 14:12Hahahahahahaaa!!! Good one, Eros. Becos Dumbledore and Potter… Jeez!
Absalom
December 26, 09:31This is not that serious… I think. But JK didn’t actually answer the fan’s first question. Were there or were there not LGBT students at Hogwarts? Yes/No/There Must Have Been…
She answered the one about safety, though – maybe with too much certainty (lol).
It’s possible she wasn’t thinking of anything LGBT when she wrote the book – and she didn’t have to! It doesn’t make her a homophobe. Hell, it doesn’t even say a thing about her politics on LGBT issues.
I hope she didn’t feel bullied by that question, because these are the kinds of things that make series producers and writers throw in that token “gay character” (so that everybody can be happy). 😛
All right, bye!
Max
December 26, 10:20The way I see it, Rowling was being diplomatic with her response. She didn’t answer the first question about having lgbt students there, she only agreed it wouldve been a safe place for them. The answer is dodgy. From her response you can draw the conclusion that when she wrote the books in the 90’s she never added any LGBT character. She may or may not be a homophobe, but I don’t think she needed LGBT people to portray the story she was telling..
And I still can’t make sense of that image. No one was in the closet in HP. Maybe Tom Riddle, but he’s the antagonist and we aren’t supposed to be learning from him. I think she sent that link as a measure to show her approval and support (whether she meant it or not) of LGBT people. I also dong think her next book will contain LGBT characters.
So I’ve seen various arguments here about sales being hurt because of her statement (if she makes one). Well, here’s my take; it’ll hurt her sales but not much. Even though she’s not a billionaire anymore because she gives so much to Charity, but she’s still super rich. I think her image will be damaged more than the sales. But she’ll come out and apologize like they all do and everyone will forget and move on. Everyone loves HP. That woman can sell bulletin to priests..
14miilon copies of a book being sold out in 24hours, its quite remarkable.
I also don’t think she sent the link to boost the sale of her books, she’s too posh for that. She’s not an alley way writer…
Dom
December 26, 13:44The lady is worth a billion + dollars. Her books will do well if the lgbt community doesn’t buy. Glad she said what she said though.
Brian Collins
December 26, 18:57*walks in sheepishly*
Hi guys, thanks for all the messages. I had no idea my comment would cause this much controversy per say, was merely thinking aloud.
If u are wondering, I had fun reading a novel, sleeping, then visiting a family friend where I watch Man Utd trash Newcastle (I don’t enjoy football so much though) and this Super hot straight crush of mine is coming to see me soon. and for the question of how old I am today, let’s just say I am old enough to get married to any Man of my choice as soon as I am able to in Nigeria and my parent don’t drop dead out of shame.
gad
December 26, 20:17Did I hear you say super hot straight crush of yours is visiting? Hmmm. Pls don’t allow your heart to rule your head. I only like hearing fictional kito stories
Deola
December 26, 20:19Happy Birthday Brian.
Constant
December 27, 04:12Wishing you the very best on this special day. May the Almighty Guide, Guard and Keep your feet from stumbling, your face from shame, your eyes from tears, your heart from pains, your future from darkness, your destiny from delay or denial, your expectations from being cut off and your days from troubles. Happy Birthday Brian