Booksmith, a San Francisco bookstore owned by self-described “queer booklovers”, lately introduced it’s banning books by Harry Potter writer J.Ok. Rowling over Rowling’s pro-woman group.
The British writer Rowling has taken a powerful stand within the transgender battle, opposing males pretending to be girls invading girls’s and ladies’ areas and establishing the UK based mostly non-public fund, J.Ok. Rowling Ladies’s Fund, “A authorized combating fund for ladies defending their sex-based rights” for ladies within the UK and Eire.
The Booksmith house owners had been triggered by Rowling’s assertion final month she was self-funding the ladies’s group she based and was not accepting donations, “I seemed into all choices and a non-public fund is probably the most environment friendly, streamlined approach for me to do that. Numerous persons are providing to contribute, which I actually respect, however there are various different girls’s rights orgs that would do with the cash, so donate away, simply to not me!”
I seemed into all choices and a non-public fund is probably the most environment friendly, streamlined approach for me to do that. Numerous persons are providing to contribute, which I actually respect, however there are various different girls’s rights orgs that would do with the cash, so donate away, simply to not me!
— J.Ok. Rowling (@jk_rowling) Could 24, 2025
Wizards, however not That Wizard
In Could of 2025, writer JK Rowling publicly dedicated to utilizing her non-public wealth from the Harry Potter sequence to develop the “JK Rowling Ladies’s Fund,” a company devoted to eradicating transgender rights “within the office, in public life, and in protected feminine areas.”
With this announcement, we’ve determined to cease carrying her books. We don’t know precisely what her her “girls’s fund” will entail, however we all know that we aren’t going to be part of it.
As a gaggle of queer booksellers, we additionally had our adolescence formed by wizards and elves. Take a look at us, it’s apparent. In case you or somebody you’re keen on desires to dive into the world of Harry Potter, we recommend doing so by shopping for used copies of those books.
Or, even higher, please discover beneath an inventory of bookseller-curated ideas for books we genuinely love that additionally would possibly match the HP transient for you and yours. Many are sequence; some are standalone. Books for the youthful of us are listed first, switching to teen/YA about midway by means of (the e-book Sensible Little one is the primary within the YA part).
Questions? Considerations? orders at booksmith dot com.
Glad studying, solidarity endlessly.
Data from the J.Ok. Rowling Ladies’s Fund web site:
In regards to the fund
The J.Ok. Rowling Ladies’s Fund (JKRWF) affords authorized funding assist to people and organisations combating to retain girls’s sex-based rights within the office, in public life, and in protected feminine areas. It offers girls with the means and confidence to deliver to justice instances that make authorized precedents, power coverage change, and make optimistic contributions to girls’s lives sooner or later.What we fund
We fund authorized illustration for ladies and organisations who:Have misplaced their livelihoods or are dealing with tribunals due to their expressed beliefs
Are being compelled to adjust to unreasonable inclusion insurance policies relating to single intercourse areas and providers, or female-only golf equipment and occasions
Are difficult laws which takes away the freedoms or protections girls are entitled to
Don’t have sufficient means to deliver actions to courtroom or to defend themselves
The JKRWF doesn’t rent a lawyer in your behalf, so you have to have already got sought authorized illustration, and have a transparent desired consequence to your case.The way to apply
If this sounds such as you, fill out one of many eligibility checklists beneath – there’s one for people and one for organisations. If the reply to any of the questions isn’t any, then the Fund is just not for you. If it’s a sure to all of them, you may proceed to the net software type.After preliminary screening, purposes undergo a rigorous evaluation by the JKRWF board. Awards are on the discretion of the board, and restricted to intently outlined authorized actions with a transparent purpose and timespan. Please notice the JKRWF is a non-public fund, not a charity or a belief, and doesn’t settle for donations.
On the identical entrance web page of their web site asserting their ban of Harry Potter and different J.Ok. Rowling books, Booksmith options an announcement it’s taking part in a “Books Not Bans” marketing campaign to ship “queer, affirmative” books to individuals in areas of the U.S. which have ‘banned books’:
Step proper up, expensive readers. We’re becoming a member of our comrades at Fabulosa Books in a drive known as BOOKS NOT BANS. From now till endlessly, we’re accepting donations that we’ll use to ship crates of queer, affirmative, essential books everywhere in the nation to individuals who want them. These are going to individuals who desperately want them however who stay in e-book deserts and communities the place new e-book bans are rolling out every day. We don’t must inform you issues are severe on the market: it is a lifeline for individuals whose lives and wellbeing are at risk.
We’ve the good luck to exist in an area the place we’re capable of characteristic, learn, speak about and promote completely any books we like: as people, we’ve fought laborious to have the ability to make a life in San Francisco that offers us entry to that form of freedom, and now we’re extending a hand to individuals who want our assist.
To donate, merely ask to purchase any amount of $10 e-book vouchers within the store or add them to your cart on our web site. Each greenback might be used to straight funnel queer books into the palms of people that want them. For the protection of our associate organizations, the recipients of our donation crates will stay nameless.
In case you hear about our program and wish to join us to a different group who desires to function a distribution location, please share and e mail Fabulosa Books at information [at] fabulosabooks [dot] com.
love,
the Booksmith
a little bit extra information on BOOKS NOT BANS:
1. we run all of it 12 months lengthy
2. you may ALWAYS take part, in retailer or on-line
3. 100% of your donation goes to the challenge
4. it’s extra vital now than ever earlier than! https://t.co/pxx7FS3m6I pic.twitter.com/0UeqpynKi7— The Booksmith (@Booksmith) December 12, 2024
