[HPforGrownups] Re: Lilly a Lesbian?

[Neil Ward]

No: HPFGUIDX 20992

Chris Dosset said:

<< I sincerely wish that in a future world, authors can mention that the kid
hero has gay parents and that'd be as ordinary as if the kid had  straight
parents.  That one of his uncles is married to a man and the  kid would
think of it as normal as the other uncle who is married to  a woman.  It
would appear that in our current world, I'm asking for too much.  Am I?>>

I'm afraid the answer is yes.  It will always be an issue until people stop
assuming heterosexuality as a default.  Being gay is not a choice; the
choice is in whether or not to be honest or open about your sexual
orientation.  That is made doubly difficult by demonstrations of intolerance
and ignorance by the people around you.

For a sizeable chunk of the earth's population, homosexuality or bisexuality
is the norm and not some sort of wild adventure, challenging normality and
daring to be different.  "Being gay" is not a career, it's just one of the
many characteristics of humankind.  On a daily basis, I can assure you (not
that most of you need assuring) that "being gay" takes a very distant back
seat to grocery shopping washing clothes, watching television, paying the
bills, sleeping soundly and reading busy message boards... <bg>

In the Harry Potter books, our gang have reached the age when puberty has
arrived for most, and sexual interests are stirring.  In the real world,
there would be no doubt that some of those students are lesbian, gay or
bisexual, even if they haven't realised it yet.  I agree with some that it
doesn't necessarily follow that JKR will address this directly, but if she
plans to explore relationships between the students (and it looks like she
might), I would be disappointed if they prove to be unrepresentative of real
life.  Relationships aside, JKR could, as others have pointed out, indicate,
or even imply, that certain characters are lesbian or gay without tying a
big label on them.

I've expressed a more cautious view before, that JKR would avoid the whole
gay issue because of the backlash that could, and probably would, result.  I
still don't think we can assume that she *should* do anything other than
continue to write wonderful books, and there have been a great many works
fiction that didn't obviously exclude gay people simply because they failed
to mention them.

The Harry Potter series is not a panacea for the ills of the world;  it's JK
Rowling's story - a fantasy - and if we don't see what we'd like to see, we
are capable of reading between the lines [enter, stage left, the vast array
of slashfic on offer].

Some people express concerns about having their children read about
homosexuality in the Harry Potter books, and I can understand that this is a
difficult issue for those who hold to the idea that homosexuality is
"wrong".  I see the issue as one of the responsibility of parents to tell
their children the truth about the world around them, and not one of the
responsibility of the author to keep such challenging issues out of her
books.  Is the truth such a bad thing?

(Sorry, I know this thread was on its last legs and teetering on OT, but
I've been too busy to respond and I wanted to say something...)

Neil
________________________________________

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"The cat's ginger fur was thick and fluffy, but it was definitely
a bit bow-legged and its face looked grumpy and oddly
squashed, as though it had run headlong into a brick wall"
["The Leaky Cauldron", PoA]

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