The highly awaited and long-expected Harry Potter video game is yet to be released this week. Yet, it has already received backlash and boycotts, especially from the transgender community, due to the Harry Potter book series author's history of alleged transphobic comments.
Video gamers and players are thinking twice about whether to support the Hogwarts Legacy video game that debuts on February 10 on PlayStation 5, PC and Xbox Series X/S due to J.K. Rowling's anti-transgender statements.
According to Forbes, the video game has garnered huge positive reviews on Metacritic and has even climbed the bestseller ladder through pre-orders from online vendors like Amazon and the Epic Store.
Despite its positive reviews and on-the-rise anticipation, however, some fans and gamers are boycotting the video game as a protest to J.K. Rowling and her list of offensive comments to the transgender community, especially since she is reported to earn royalties from the video game's sales even if she was not involved in the creation of it.
Backlash despite game's first-ever transgender woman character
Some popular game review sites have denounced the author's comments and shown support for the transgender community in the review, while others like Kotaku, Polygon, and Eurogamer have not yet released any review of Hogwarts Legacy despite its release tomorrow.
Jessie Earl, a trans-YouTuber and writer, took to Twitter last December to remind the public that purchasing the new video game while Rowling continues to use her platform to target trans people is "harmful to trans people," to which Rowling replied, accusing her of "purethink."
Earl recently published an article via Gamespot, where she declared, "If you are not willing to give up a piece of entertainment in solidarity against the harm J.K. Rowling continues to enact; then how can trans people feel assured you'll be willing to fight for us in more important areas, such as anti-trans violence, be it physical, mental, personal, systemic or legislative, especially as the discrimination continues to rise?"
The negative criticisms and boycott of Hogwarts Legacy continue to surge despite the announcement that it is set to feature the first-ever transgender woman character in the Harry Potter universe.
The character even has not been shielded against criticism as her name, Sirona Ryan, allegedly sounds masculine as it begins with the "Sir" and ends with a common male name, "Ryan." Others noted that Sirona refers to a Celtic goddess of rebirth and healing.
Read also: Study Reveals People Who Read 'Harry Potter During Their Childhood Grew Up To Be Better Adults
Still on track to sell despite of
Nevertheless, Hogwarts Legacy is reported to sell well and has numerous supporters who think that Rowling's controversy is far from the video game itself.
Popular streamer xQc, with over 11 million Twitch followers, stepped up against backlashers, slamming them back over making gamers feel bad for purchasing a video game when "people fund all sorts of evil with their purchases across the board in way worse ways," he defended.
The new video game is already a hit on Twitch days before its release date, with one million viewers and 120,000 followers.
J.K. Rowling has regularly been under siege for the past years because of her opinions on biological sex and the trans community. She admits to knowing transgender people and even loves them. She just questions the alleged deletion of the concept of sex.
She continued to be in the lion's den when she authored the book "The Ink Black Heart," the sixth installment of her thriller series Cormoran Strike, with a character getting killed after being criticized for being a racist, ableist, and transphobic. She also made louder controversy noise when she called out Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon for supporting a bill that makes it easier for trans people to be legally recognized with their preferred gender. She labeled Sturgeon a "destroyer of women's rights."
