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August Blackburn became a legend when, even after she had finally grown her copper hair out long enough to braid and returned all of her Hogwarts forms with the F box checked for her sixth year, the stairs up to the Gryffindor girls' dorms turned into a slide at her step, so she took her broomstick from her luggage and flew over the staircase and a crowd of mortified first-years, and alighted before the doors of the dormitories.Subsequently, she received eight detentions. Detentions failed to deter August Blackburn, and eventually a staff meeting had to be called because a greenhorn teacher’s aide acquired his own broomstick and attempted to chase her down. Even classes in the dungeon were disrupted by the cheering of girls holding open the dormitory doors for August to fly through after two minutes of absolute madness.Professor Slaughter was the first to speak, even while she was still pulling her chair back in the teacher’s lounge, insisting, “It's an ancient spell, it's an ancient moral code,” and then spreading out a multitude of pamphlets from her sexual education class's materials in front of her.“This is history you're talking about,” said Professor Cummins, who was so thick and old that he looked as though you could cut him open and count his rings like a tree trunk. “Godric himself cast that charm!”“I'm more concerned about a live girl having a bed to sleep in than an old dead man's magic.”“Now, see here—!”“You're talking about sacrificing history when we have a talking painting of the man,” huffed Professor Delaney. She stared very intently into her tea and her eyes followed the sole leaf floating on its surface. “You can have a conversation with him.”“Perhaps we'll ask him what he thinks about all this!”“Perhaps we ought not to care what he thinks about all this, as he's not using the dormitories, because he is dead,” said Professor Slaughter. Professor Delaney made a very loud snorting noise, then immediately glanced around and sipped at her tea.“Oh, think reasonably here,” Professor Horn said. Her voice always sounded so fragile that it might break. “Imagine, oh, imagine what might happen if—if boys were able to access the girl's dormitories.”Professor Achterberg, whose heavy accent took up as much place in a conversation as she took in a room, snorted derisively. “Yes, we can see what a great risk we are taking, given the states of anarchy that Slytherin, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw have fallen into because they don't have stair slides. Merlin's beard, Eva! Gryffindor’s not the only house!”“Look, look.” Professor Slaughter pushed back in her chair. “I have a class. I've got to leave. These are all for you!” The pamphlets she had brought flung themselves across the table, each stopping in front of each teacher's place. They were titled “TRANS* TEENS.” A wand made the top bar of the second 'T' and it cast out a glowing spell with a star that made the asterisk. “Please read them! How about we continue this later, hm? Yes, yes, we've had to have this conversation for a while now! Okay, but I have to go, I'm going to be late. Toodles!”“Toodle-oo!” Professor Delaney called. The other staff members were silent, staring with various levels of wonder at their new pamphlets. Just over a week later, the dinnertime feast began with an announcement: within the week, the charm on the staircase to the Gryffindor girls’ dormitories would be removed. A disclaimer was added about severe punishments for boys who attempted to enter them despite the careful monitoring they would receive, but it was drowned out by the Gryffindor Quidditch captain, Zelda Bird (who still went by zir birthname and “she” at the time), whooping at the top of zir lungs and jumping up on the table as if ze zirself had won this victory, as well as most everyone else at the table’s raucous hooting.August Blackburn sat in the middle of it all, curled up into herself and muttering bashful “thank you”s at everyone clapping her on the back and squeezing her shoulders. A few tears fell into her soup, and her cheeks had gone sore from smiling. “How about flying around the dungeons sometime,” Adder Lee said to her the day the charm had been removed, while they took their daily tea together on a bench in the courtyard, “and getting me a third neutral dorm, eh?”“What, and through a wall?” she snickered.“Isn't flying into things what you Gryffindors do?”“Shush.” August yanked at Adder's green-and-silver tie. Ey exaggerated a yacking noise and recoiled to fix eir tie.They spent a minute contented in their quiet company together. Adder blew so hard on eir tea that a little bit of it spilled, so August called em a baby and chugged the rest of hers down.“But really, August, you did something really good. I'm proud of you.”“Thanks,” she said, and smiled down at her lap.Again, they were quiet. August watched Adder, curled up into eirself like ey was trying to get the most out of each of eir twiggy limb’s warmth, take minute sips of eir tea. “Isn't it cold by now?” she asked, and ey snapped, “No.”She said after another moment, “So I was thinking—”“That's new.”“Shush. After the announcement, a girl came out to me. One of the third-years caught me when I was by myself in the hall, and she just—just told me how happy she was about what happened!” Her voice was rising with each word. “And you know, almost everyone in the house was so supportive to me, especially all the other girls, but we don't really have any real resources for this kind of thing in the school, do we, Adder?”“Hahaha, god, no we don't.”“And my pen pal in Salem has been telling me about the GSA at the Witches' Institute,” she tittered, “the Gender and Sexuality Alliance. And I was thinking, why don't we have one of those?”“Because Hogwarts sucks,” ey answered solemnly.“Okay, well, that's a little harsh. Just a little. But I was thinking we can make it suck less.”“By starting a GSA?”“By starting a GSA.”Adder squinted, then shook eir head. “You're something, August,” ey said, “you're really something.”“Something like the co-president of a GSA!”“Co-president?”August looked at em with wide eyes and a crooked grin.Adder finally said, “I want to make the posters.”“No kink stuff on them.”“Oh, well, then I'm out.”“Adder, this is still a school!”Adder was not permitted to become a legend for hanging up photos of bondage porn in the school hallways, but ey became part of something legendary all the same.
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As they’d agreed, Adder met August five minutes before their usual tea hour in the library instead of the courtyard. Ey found her sitting at a small, round table tucked around the corner of the row of shelves close to the front of the library with a stack of books at her side and a piece of parchment rolled out in front of her.“Make some room or I'm going to drop the tea on the floor,” ey said.August jumped, looked up, grinned at the cups Adder carried in each hand, and pulled her parchment forward. “The librarian will love that,” she said, and reached for the teacup Adder offered her. “You're early.”“And how long have you been here?” Ey pulled back the chair opposite August's.“Five minutes,” she said, then, “ten. Well, all right, fifteen.”“August.”“Do you know how many books there are on this stuff, Adder?!” she said, eyes gleaming. “Except they're sorted really weirdly, so they're tough to find. But I found a bunch, and, hey, look at this, they have a book specifically about bisexual Ravenclaws. A whole book!”Adder stared at her over the rim of eir teacup. “So, an hour at minimum.”“Blimey, Adder,” she said, and sipped her tea with a look like she had more to say as soon as she was done. “Oh,” she said once she'd finished drinking, “this is really good,” and she took another sip.“Tried something new.” Ey smiled. “So, what've you been working on, then?”“Figuring out where to start,” she said. “I figure we'll need a faculty advisor first which also means a place to have the meetings—but we've gotta figure out what we wanna do with this, too, y'know, like—I want it to be a supportive place—but I think we should make it educational, too—but for the whole school, to help make it a safer place, and—”“Well, what do you even need me for? Oh my god, August, breathe, you're starting to turn red.”August smirked at em. “That's about all I've got.”“Good. If you kept talking you might have passed out.”“I need your input,” she said.She quietly let Adder consider this as ey took little laps at eir drink. Ey looked at August's parchment, at her, and into eir cup. “I think we should make things change,” ey said. “You got those wretched slides removed—”“It was nothing,” she said, suddenly very intrigued by her cup.“Stop that. Damn it, August, Gryffindors aren't bashful. Who the hell do you think you are?”“C'mon! That's not the point.”“The point—” ey imitated her voice with comical shrillness “—is that you made some big change. Hogwarts needs more of that. Lots more.”“Activism,” August said. “Activism, education, and support.” She scrawled these words down on her parchment in large letters.“And we've got a mission. Hey, add 'neutral dorms' under that heading. And bathrooms. Neutral bathrooms.”She did. “Okay, it's a start. We should ask what everybody thinks about that,” she said, “at our first meeting. Focus on which part everyone cares most about.”“And now we're onto 'where', right?”“I was thinking of asking Professor Slaughter...”“No. God, no.”“She's such a sweet lady!”“I haven't got anything against her,” Adder said, “but she's—she's overbearing.”“Everyone is overbearing when your idea of a perfect social interaction is with a corpse.” August rolled her eyes. “Look,” she said and reached over to pinch eir pale nose, “you're basically one of them.”Voice high and nasally, ey said, “My nose is about ten times more fabulous than any corpse's,” and shook eir head out of August’s reach.“About ten times bigger.”“Plenty of corpses have big noses.”“You'd know.”“Even so,” Adder said, “don't even tell me it wouldn't be awkward to have your sex ed. teacher around for all this. Don't even try.”“No, no, I get you,” she said. “Here, go down your schedule—I have Professor Abram first thing, then Charms with Dexter, then Achterberg—”“Too quiet, too loud, terrifying. Viola, Slaughter, Cummins...”“Wouldn't care, covered, hah.” August rolled her eyes and flicked her quill over the parchment, making a short line. “Professor Horn.”“Would get scared off.”“Professor Agrawal.”“His teacher's aide still hates you.”“His teacher's aide is still mad that I'm a better flyer than him,” August huffed.Adder grinned. “Stone,” ey offered.“I thought he died?”“What? No.”August shrugged. “He looks like he's dead.”“Acts like it, too, honestly. Deschamps?” Adder’s entirely phonetic pronunciation made August smirk. “No, never mind, she still speaks French half the time. Delaney.”“What does Professor Delaney teach?”“Divination. Haven't you taken divination?”“I've spent all six, now seven of my years at this school avoiding taking divination.” August grimaced.“Really? I've taken it twice. Not even 'cause I failed it.”“That's more than enough for the both of us. Divination is scary.”Adder shoved eir tea towards August’s face. “Boo.”She pushed the cup away. “Shush.”“Well, she's very sweet,” said Adder, “and will probably bake us biscuits if we ask. Probably even if we don't. She hasn't messed up my name or pronouns once.”August wrote her name down on the parchment. She said, “All right. Professor Augustin?”“More like Professor Disgustin'.”“I'm never talking to you again.” August did, in fact, continue talking to Adder, but without results proportionately productive to the amount of mean jokes made about professors' names. They had come up with a final list of four: Slaughter as a last resort, Delaney as an ideal, and secret meetings outside with the groundskeeper being given vague consideration.They met up at the Grand Staircase after classes had ended for the day and immediately headed to the Divination Tower.“You two'll probably get along,” ey said. “I think she thinks pretty highly of you.”“What?”“She was thrilled about the stair charm being removed.”August made a huffing noise and brushed her bangs down. “Are you ever gonna stop talking about that?”“No one ever should.” Adder stuck eir nose up in the air.They were quiet all the way up the tower, until eventually reaching the ladder up into the classroom. Adder climbed up the stepladder first, knocked on the trapdoor, and called, “Professor Delaney?” as ey went up.“Hello? Oh, hello, Adder!” Professor Delaney rose from where she sat at her desk. August had just come up behind Adder. “And...”“August Blackburn,” she said. Professor Delaney hustled over to her, robes pooled at her feet and dragging in a way that made her look like she floated. She couldn’t have been even into her mid-thirties, and must not have been much taller than a meter and a half, as she didn’t quite reach August’s shoulder without the assistance of her pointed hat, which was just tall enough pass August's forehead. Her hair was brown and made a cloud of royal-looking curls around her head and down her back, and her face was fixed into a wide grin. “Splendid to meet you, August!” she said, clasping one of August's hands in both of hers. “Adder, did you need something?”“Yes, sort of,” said Adder. Ey glanced over at August, who stared very intently back at em, so ey raised an eyebrow at her, and she narrowed her eyes and at em. Professor Delaney looked between them, pursed her lips, and tilted her head. She hummed, “Yes?”Adder and August stopped making faces at each other and turned back to Professor Delaney. Adder said, “August and I were interested in starting up a club, but we need an advisor and a place to meet.”“Oh?”“And so we were considering you and the Divination Tower.”“Me? Oh, well!” Professor Delaney brightened enough to almost seem like she'd grown a few centimeters. “What sort of club?”Adder and August exchanged glances again, but far less dramatically. August said, “A GSA.”“A GSA!” Professor Delaney clapped her hands together. “Ah, you know, I went to school in the States, and I was part of my school's GSA.”“Really?” asked August.“Of course, it was a little small and not terribly active, but it was such a nice group,” she sighed. “Not that it was too long ago—never mind. I'd love to! Do you have a time worked out yet?”August and Adder did not exchange glances this time, because August was too busy staring slack-jawed at Professor Delaney to care about Adder's face.Adder answered, “Not for sure. We were thinking just an hour once a week, maybe twice, but wanted to talk about your schedule first...”“Of course! Let’s see, the evenings are fine except for Wednesdays, because I have meetings.” She put a finger to her chin. “And...I’m free every day during the break before lunch, but not the break after, and—August, are you all right?”“What? Yes! Yes, I'm fine,” she said, shut her mouth, and then beamed. “Just—wow, thank you, Professor Delaney!”“Oh, August!” She took her hand again and patted it. “It’s my pleasure, really!”“We were thinking Thursdays,” Adder said before August was allowed to get any more emotional. “After classes, but before dinner.”August, focused again, added, “Six? Maybe seven?”“Six o’clock every Thursday,” Professor Delaney said, mulling it over. “Better than seven, I think. That’s too late, too close to supper.”“Six every Thursday evening,” August repeated.“Right here?” asked Adder.“Absolutely! Why, I’ll arrange the desks and give us a place to sit at. Unless you’d rather have an open circle?”After a second of consideration, August and Adder said, “Desks,” in unison.“We’ll come by early,” August said, “to help set up. Five-thirty?”“Next week?”“Yeah, tomorrow’s too soon.”Professor Delaney said, “Next Thursday, five-thirty, six ‘til seven…”“Perfect,” said August, looking between Adder and Delaney and grinning wider with each glance. “It’s perfect! Absolutely perfect!”There was a little knock beneath their feet. August jumped off to the side and Adder took a few small steps away.“Oh! Come in, come in,” Professor Delaney called, and pulled the trapdoor up again. Two students, no older than fourth years, wearing Ravenclaw ties emerged up the stepladder. “Adder, August, I’m so sorry, but these two asked earlier if they could come by for help.”“No, no, don’t apologize,” said August.“We’ll talk later, all right?”“Of course,” Adder said.Professor Delaney shuffled the two Ravenclaws off towards a desk where a set of cards was laid out. “It was a pleasure to meet you, August!”“You too, Professor! Thank you, Professor Delaney! Thank you so much!”“Oh, it’s my pleasure!”Adder had already pulled the trapdoor back up. “See you in class tomorrow, Professor, thank you. C'mon, August. Let's go make a poster or something.”She waved to Professor Delaney on her way down, ignoring Adder completely as ey pulled at her ankles. At the last rung of the stepladder, she leaped forward with a screech and landed with a bounce that lasted in her step as they headed down the stairs. “We have an advisor!” she sang, “We have an advisor!”“We're not done yet,” Adder said, but ey was smiling, and August all but skipped the whole way down the stairs.
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I've been thinking a lot about this fic and what I want to do with it. There was always a final chapter planned and half-written, but I don't intend to post it. For the curious, it simply involved the GSA's first meeting and the introduction of characters I intended to use in further works as part of a series. I don't intend to go ahead with that, for a variety of reasons related to the obvious.
I'm not going to spend much time offering my own opinions or feelings, because frankly, they don't matter. I disclaimed at the start of this fic that I am cis, and that hasn't changed. I want to make where I stand clear, though, if only for the sake of the people who told me this fic was precious to them. They don't need another author turning against them. Of course there's a pain in realizing someone who created something that meant a lot to me when I was small and surrounded by a world bigger than me that still yet had words sized to fit in my little reaching hands is a monster. I can hardly imagine the magnitude of that pain to my trans sisters, brothers, and siblings hurt worse by this. I'm sorry.
Tentatively, I intend to leave this fic up. It meant something to people, too. That was always an honor and a treasure to me. It will receive no further work or updates.
To say it plainly: J.K. Rowling is a TERF, and to be a TERF is an evil thing. Her vile worldview infects everything she's written, including Harry Potter, which is rife with transphobia and racism, and gives no support to the cis queer people she claims to defend. You cannot say that Hermione or Hatsune Miku or the void wrote these books. You
have
to hold JKR accountable for them. She still makes money off of the franchise. Don't give it to her. Don't support the upcoming game, don't give the series a platform, just leave it alone.
Daniel Radcliffe has offered
some sincere and supportive words
towards those for whom Harry Potter meant something, and I think they speak more clearly and kindly than I could ever hope to. I hope there's comfort in them. If these stories kept you afloat when the whole world around you felt like it was sinking, keep them in your heart. But these stories, and the woman behind them, have hurt people, and are actively finding new means by which to do them harm. My fellow cis people need to remember that before deciding which parts of your heart have a voice, and where it speaks. Those stories wield daggers. Do not let them turn against others.
Judith Butler did
a magnificent interview
recently, which I've linked through Web Archive so as to minimize traffic to the dog whistling transphobe of an author (it takes about eight hundred years to load, but it will, I promise), where they discuss trans exclusion, feminism, and the discourse as a whole in brilliant eloquence. As thrilling as it is to see a TERF get absolutely skewered at every turn by an expert in their field (a non-binary one, at that), a beautiful takeaway from it is that the monsters are loud, but not near as numerous as they sound. It's easy to assume otherwise when they come with knives and you are bleeding. I promise, there are people who will help you patch up the wound.
There are monsters in this world, and you know that. I don't have to explain that to you.
Here is what you already know: There are people in this world who hate you for who you are.
Here is what I want you to know: They are fewer than they sound.
Here is what I want you to know: They will lose.
To every transgender reader here who found meaning in my insistence to add queerness in places that we made into homes as children but never quite managed to grow into: I love you. You are my sister, brother, sibling, if you will have me; decide which word fits right in your hands and take it. J.K. Rowling can eat shit and die, quite fucking frankly.
I'd like to use this space to further boost transgender voices and stories. If you have any recommendations of writings or articles, or (especially!) magical trans literature, please leave them in the comments! I'd love to edit them into this "chapter."
Take care of yourselves. I won't pretend the battle hasn't always been uphill, but love has always won in the end.