The fictional sport of Quidditch was pulled out of the pages of the Harry Potter books and turned into a real-life sport. Now the popular game’s organizers are changing its name to “quadball” to protest Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling and her views on transgenderism.
In Rowlings’ fictional game, young wizards fly around on broomsticks and chase magically charged balls to score points. But in real life, people — mostly of millennial age and lower — hold a stick between their legs as they run around pretending to be on a flying broom while they try to throw a ball into a net for points.
Organizers of the more grounded, magic-free version of Quidditch say that they have a real sport on their hands. But now they are distancing themselves from the sport’s rightful inventor, and changing the name of their game because Rowling opposes allowing men posing as transgender women to play sports against natural born women, the Washington Post reports.
“This is an important moment in our sport’s history,” said Chris Lau, chair of the IQA board of trustees, in a statement released on Tuesday. “We are confident in this step and we look forward to all the new opportunities quadball will bring.”
The group’s statement explained further: “First, J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter book series, has increasingly come under scrutiny for her anti-trans positions. LGBTQ+ advocacy groups like GLAAD and the Human Rights Campaign as well as the three lead actors in the Harry Potter film series have criticized her stances.”
Staff members and child actors play a game of Quidditch during the unveiling of a Harry Potter themed floor at Hamleysà Regent Street store in central London. (Kirsty O’Connor/PA Images via Getty Images)
People practice quidditch during a boot camp organised by the Italian National Quidditch Team at Parco di Trenno on September 8, 2018 in Milan, Italy. (Emanuele Cremaschi/Getty Images)
J.K. Rowling has been at the forefront of criticizing sports for allowing trans “women” to play against natural born women under the proposition that trans athletes are far more powerful than women, and allowing them to play tips the playing field toward trans players, thereby destroying women’s sports.
As a result, the 56-year-old author has withstood withering attacks by the woke left for several years.
In April she blasted trans activists saying that their attacks were similar to the ways the Soviet Union enforced its cultural agenda.
In a Twitter thread responding to the left’s claim that “trans women are women,” Rowling shared Václav Havel’s parable of a greengrocer who hung up the Marxist creed “Workers of the World Unite” in his shop window to passively conform to the groupthink of the Soviet Union. She contended that “trans women are women” is exactly the same sort of cultural fascism indulged by the Soviets.
Most recently, Rowling backed singer Macy Gray when Gray insisted that surgery cannot really make a man into a woman. Gray later backed down in the face of the attacks from the trans mob.
Responding to Rowling’s very public stance on transgenderism, though, may not be all there is to the name change. There is likely an ulterior motive. Warner Bros. studios, which owns the Harry Potter brand, allowed the group to use the name Quidditch for its league, but disallowed the organization to make any money using the name, the New York Times reported.
Changing the name of the “sport” to Quadball could allow it to cash in on its efforts. If Warners decides not to sue.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston, or Truth Social @WarnerToddHuston
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.