Wordle - October 2024

Instead of a daily post, each day will go in a separate comment on this post.

Harry Potter Fan Sentiment Survey

Harry Potter Fan Sentiment Survey

My name is Tylor Starr, and I am a Harry Potter fandom expert and nonprofit founder looking to get a sense of how fans feel about the Harry Potter fandom currently and how fans may or may not have changed their engagement with the official Harry Potter property after J.K. Rowling's critical public views on gender and transgender people.

This is 100% anonymous and will not be traced back to anyone who completes the survey, so please feel free to be as honest as possible. There will be no judgment on your answers!

For those who want to get an idea of the questions before opening the form [questions have been rearranged here on DW]:

• Have you ever considered yourself to be a Harry Potter fan?
• If yes, would you consider yourself a Harry Potter fan now?
• Are you familiar with the critical views Harry Potter author, J.K. Rowling, has shared regarding transgender people and gender in general?
• If yes, do you agree with the critical views J.K. Rowling has on transgender people and gender in general?
• Where do you personally fall on the gender spectrum? [Questions just for trans or cis respondents have been split out separately below.]
• Have you considered boycotting the official Harry Potter property over J.K. Rowling's views on transgender people and gender?
• If you have purchased anything official from the Harry Potter property (merch, tickets to official events, new books, streaming the films, etc.) have you offset your purchase by donating to a charity that supports transgender people?
• If you have offset your purchase of official Harry Potter goods by donating to a charity that supports transgender people, do you plan to do this for every purchase of something officially Harry Potter in the future?
• If you are someone who has purchased official Harry Potter goods since J.K. Rowling's critical stance on transgender people and gender, how likely are you to agree with the following statement: J.K. Rowling's stance on transgender people and gender has made me feel conflicted about my purchase of official Harry Potter goods.

If you are a transgender person...

• If you are a transgender person who is familiar with the gender and transgender critical views of J.K. Rowling, do you still consider yourself part of the Harry Potter fandom?
• If you are a transgender person who is familiar with the gender and transgender critical views of J.K. Rowling and still consider yourself part of the Harry Potter fandom, how likely are you to agree with the following statement: J.K. Rowling's views on transgender people and gender have made me feel conflicted about engaging with the official Harry Potter property.
• If you are a transgender person, have you considered leaving the Harry Potter fandom over J.K. Rowling's critical views on transgender people and gender?
• If you are a transgender person who still considers yourself part of the Harry Potter fandom, how likely are you to agree with the following statement: Purchasing official Harry Potter goods, buying new Harry Potter books, streaming Harry Potter films, etc. supports J.K. Rowling's harmful views on transgender people and causes harm to the transgender community.
• If you are a transgender person who is still part of the Harry Potter fandom, how likely are you to agree with the following statement: I support fans who purchase official Harry Potter goods, new copies of the books, stream the films, etc. if they also offset their purchase with a donation to a charity that supports transgender people.

If you are a cisgender person...

• If you are a cisgender person who is familiar with the gender and transgender critical views of J.K. Rowling, how likely are you to agree with the following statement: J.K. Rowling's views on transgender people and gender have made me feel conflicted about engaging with the official Harry Potter property.
• If you are a cisgender person, have you considered leaving the Harry Potter fandom over J.K. Rowling's critical views on transgender people and gender?
• If you are a cisgender person who still considers yourself part of the Harry Potter fandom, how likely are you to agree with the following statement: Supporting transgender people while purchasing official Harry Potter goods would make me feel better about engaging with the official Harry Potter property despite J.K. Rowling's critical views of transgender people and gender.
• If you are a cisgender person who considers yourself part of the Harry Potter fandom, do you consider yourself an ally and safe space for transgender people?

It's one page, and I'm not sure how long the survey will remain open. This has been shared here on Pillowfort on 1 October 2024. There's a bit of a feedback on the survey itself atmosphere on PF, in case anyone's not used to that.

My thoughts copied from comments/replies...

Given the vegan and animal rights focus of these prior links, I suspect they [the survey maker] probably don't have a lot of experience with surveys that ask about gender experiences or want to ask different questions to those who respond with a particular gender selection. (I'm not saying I almost filled in questions aimed at cisgender respondents, but it would've been nice to use one of those survey types that automatically give those questions to whoever selected cisgender instead of giving everyone every question.)

...

For this survey, I'm not sure if going for 'are you affected by JKR's beliefs/advocacy' vs 'are you unaffected by JKR's beliefs/advocacy' would have covered what I think they wanted to get a feel for, but I'm not sure if they thought the Other write-in option would handle anyone who didn't think cis or trans were adequate selections. (But, like, if Other was a seriously considered answer, then why weren't there any questions aimed at those who selected Other?)

...

I feel like such a killjoy about that last part:

If you are a transgender person who is still part of the Harry Potter fandom and wants to help with an initiative to support transgender people through the Harry Potter fandom, drop your email below, and I, Tylor Starr, would love to reach out to you!

What exactly is this initiative? That could be some sort of network of trans charities or a place to donate between several trans orgs/charities at once or a petition for all I know.

Who is this initiative for? Why is it only open to trans people who still consider themselves part of the HP fandom? If there's going to be an offline component or outreach to cis people, I would also like knowledgeable cis allies to be involved so everything about transness doesn't have to be done by trans people.

What does helping this initiative mean? I can drop a link to something in a fannish space. I can probably still find HP fan spaces that are supportive of trans people. I am not interested in being some sort of ambassador in general fandom spaces (like Tumblr) where anon hate is a very real possibility. I am not interested in being a public face and potentially being outed as trans to offline people.

Is this really open to people who answered Somewhat or Other to considering themselves an HP fan now? Or otherwise indicated that they have complicated feelings about this? This mostly goes back to what this initiative even is, but I'm not sure why I would definitely need to still consider myself part of the HP fandom in order to take part. (I guess it feels different from 'this is open to various fans but will focus on HP fans supporting trans people' when it sounds like 'this is only for HP fans who support trans people'.)