Due to author JK Rowling’s hateful anti-trans crusades, The Booksmith in San Francisco has given Harry Potter the boot from its shelves.

Though Rowling has used her wealth and platform to push transphobia for a while now, the final straw for the Booksmith was when she announced the “JK Rowling Women’s Fund,” which offers legal funding to “individuals and organisations fighting to retain women’s sex-based rights in the workplace, in public life, and in protected female spaces.” (“Sex-based rights” is used as a dogwhistle in trans-exclusionary circles.)

The Booksmith now has a sign on its shelves saying that it has decided it cannot support Rowling.

“As a group of queer booksellers, we also had our adolescents shaped by wizards and elves. Look at us, it’s obvious. If you or someone you love wants to dive into the world of Harry Potter, we suggest doing so by buying used copies of these books,” the sign reads.

READ MORE: J. K. Rowling Compares ‘Transgender Hormone Therapy to Gay Conversion Therapy’

A slightly longer version of the statement appears on the Booksmith’s website, which includes a list of potential alternatives to Rowling’s series.

“Or, even better, please find below a list of bookseller-curated suggestions for books we genuinely love that also might fit the HP brief for you and yours. Many are series; some are standalone,” the site reads. “Happy reading, solidarity forever.”

The suggestions include the Morrigan Crow series by Jessica Townsend, the Earthsea books by science fiction legend Ursula K. LeGuin and The Sapling Cage by Margaret Killjoy.

Booksmith co-owner Camden Avery told The San Francisco Standard why the store has stopped carrying the books.

“There’s a direct throughline between what [Rowling’s] doing with the money she’s making on book sales as a living author who’s still collecting royalties, and something that, frankly, harms us and our trans siblings and people that we care about in our community,” he said.

“Some people are like, ‘Enough with the politics. Just be a bookstore,’” Avery added. “But we don’t have the luxury of pretending anymore that anything that we do is not related to this political moment, this imperialist, fascist regime that we’re trying to survive.”

Though there were hints before, Rowling’s public transphobia became a large part of her online presence starting in 2020 when she wrote an essay claiming trans activists were specifically trying to “erode ‘woman’ as a political and biological class and offering cover to predators like few before it.” She’s used her wealth and power to fund anti-trans activism—including a long campaign to get the UK government to exclude trans women from the legal definition of “woman.” The UK Supreme Court ruled trans women weren’t covered by the 2010 Equality Act this April.

Her transphobia has turned previous friends and allies against her. Most recently, that includes out gay actor Stephen Fry, who read the audiobook version of the Harry Potter series. Last week, Fry spoke out against her, calling her a “lost cause.”

“She seemed to wake up or kick a hornet’s nest of transphobia which has been entirely destructive. I disagree profoundly with her on this subject. I am angry she does not disavow some of the more revolting and truly horrible, violently destructive things that people say. She does not attack those at all,” Fry said.

The stars of the original Harry Potter film series, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, have also cut ties with the author over her transphobic views.

“To the person who said they like me best when I am not ranting about politics: I like me best when I am not ignoring fascism,” Watson said on Instagram following the UK Supreme Court Equality Act ruling.

Image via Shutterstock

Louisville, Kentucky Mayor Greg Fischer has signed a law banning so-called conversion therapy for minors. The “therapy” purports to change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity. As such, Louisville is now the 82nd U.S. municipality to ban the practice. 40 percent of all U.S. states also have such bans.

Fischer said, “Our LGBTQ kids, they don’t need to be converted or repaired. They need to be loved, supported, and accepted for who they are.”

Anti-LGBTQ groups have argued that ex-gay therapy bans violate  their rights to “free speech” and “religious freedom,” but so far the U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear cases challenging these bans. However, the increasingly conservative tilt of the court however could possibly help overturn these bans.

Both a majority of Americans oppose conversion therapy. Every major American psychological and medical association has disavowed conversion therapy as a pseudoscientific form of psychological torture.

The actual methods of the so-called therapy are quackery. People are told to avoid masturbation, not shake hands with any one of the same sex, not listen to music, to rigorously exercise and study the bible. Practitioners also use “covert aversion” (making LGBTQ identity seem dangerous, unhealthy and repulsive) or “reframing of desire” onto opposite-sex partners.

About 84 percent of former patients say it inflicts lasting shame and emotional harm. Many conversion therapy practitioners have subsequently come out as still gay and apologized for the harm they’ve caused.

On Friday evening, the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) released guidelines banning the Confederate Flag at any of its domestic or foreign military installations, including bases, training, operating, and storage facilities.

In an image explaining the new guidelines published on Twitter, the USMC wrote, “The Confederate battle flag has all too often been co-opted by violent extremist and racist groups whose divisive beliefs have no place in our corps. Our history as a nation, and events like the violence in Charlottesville in 2017, highlight the divisiveness the use of the Confederate battle flag has had on our society. This presents a threat to our core values.”

The USMC now forbids any display of the flag on bumper stickers, clothing, mugs, posters, flags and in any other forms.

Today, the Marine Corps released guidance on the removal of public displays of the Confederate battle flag.

MARADMIN 331/20: https://t.co/WLW4m70LW1 pic.twitter.com/TKoYJUL7Vo

— U.S. Marines (@USMC) June 6, 2020

Since confederate flags are hate symbols flown by states that fought for the right to own black people as slaves. While some people claim that the confederate flag is merely a symbol of southern “heritage, not hate,” it was re-popularized in the U.S. by white southerners who opposed racial integration.

The USMC’s decision comes alongside decisions by leaders across the U.S. to scrap similar monuments dedicated to racist confederates in light of the ongoing protests against racism in policing and the judicial system.