Separating art and artist: you’re doing it wrong

Enjoying work guilt-free is great until you bolster hateful platforms. By examining and acknowledging how our feelings about art contribute to their position, we can better assess how to address their problematic behaviour.

J. K. Rowling’s at it again, folks. This time taking to Twitter to conflate trans women with rapists in order to criticise Police Scotland’s move to recognise trans identity among offenders. With it came the typical support from the privileged cisgender users who view Rowling’s Tweets as a game; encouragement to air deep-seated prejudices behind the relative anonymity of an online group. Elsewhere, it sparked condemnation as victims of the so-called “gender critical” group were forced, once again, to call out hate and threats to their lives and livelihoods.

Among Rowling’s supporters are those that wish we would all just leave well alone so they can enjoy her books guilt-free. They argue her words don’t really mean anything because, to them, they don’t. They can ignore the staggering rates of sexual assault against transgender people to which Rowling’s comments contribute, so too the terrifying rise in transphobic hate crime in the last five years, and the legislative…