At school* Friday morning, I was mildly disturbed to see one of the few masc-presenting people in the class arrive dressed as Harry Potter. Others were in various costumes. I waited through the guest speaker, then caught up with him at break.
I said, "this is unofficial, k? I'm speaking here as a trans woman in your community, not a lab instructor. This will not affect my evaluation of your work.
"But you do know that that gear is going to make for unhappy days for any trans or nonbinary person, and many other queer groups?"
He says, "Oh, yeah, I know about Rowling being TERF and such, but i thought since I do know that, it would be ok."
I looked at him dubiously. Social work student, mind.
"For me? That doesn't really mitigate you helping to fund my loss of rights. So...why not subvert it instead? You wanna do HP, first, don't buy any more merch. Second, you don't do Potter.
"You do Herman Grainger. A trans guy. Curly hair, haughty attitude, swot, top student vibe. Subvert it! Make it something JKR would hate. That's a powerful message of allyship, instead of building her anti-trans war chest."
He liked the idea. And I think got the deeper lesson, about being in a social justice field, you need to think about these things. If you had a trans client who came in on Hallowe'en, how are they going to feel seeing you wear merch that enriches someone who wants them not to exist?
Great teachable moment, and I think he got the idea. No further action needed, to me.
* I'm working, as every autumn, at a local small college that has a Bachelor of Social Work program, as well as a summer intensive MSW program. I'm one of three long-time activists teaching community organising alongside a prof of social work. We 3 are the lab instructors. Class goal: plan and execute a social action. A rally, sit-in, whatever. Something disruptive. They get 10 weeks to plan what we each could do and have done in three days. It's a fun job. Radicalising young social workers. π