Heckler’s veto
‘This will not happen again’: Vancouver Park Board apologizes for hosting Harry Potter event
A motion calling on the Vancouver Park Board to officially apologize for hosting an upcoming Harry Potter attraction passed Tuesday in a unanimous vote.
Members of the city’s transgender, gender diverse and Two Spirit communities had expressed concerns about the decision to partner with the event this holiday season due to its association with J.K. Rowling, author of the seven Harry Potter novels.
Some spoke at Tuesday’s meeting, include Rob Hadley, a member of Vancouver’s S2LGBTQ+ advisory committee—and someone who previously read the books to their own children.
A motion where? Passed in a unanimous vote where? Expressed concerns to whom? Spoke at Tuesday’s meeting of what?
The reporter forgot to say and apparently no editor noticed. Is it a meeting of Vancouver parks people? Then you need to say so. Is it a group of people on a park bench? Then you need to say that.
It doesn’t get more intelligent as it goes on.
Rowling has denied her views are transphobic, but the billionaire author has battled with transgender individuals on social media for years—once suggesting trans “ideology” will “end up wreaking more harm than lobotomies”—and recently launched a legal fund to support challenges to trans-inclusionary policies in women’s spaces in the U.K. and Ireland.
News flash, brainless reporter: pointing out the dangerous stupidities of trans ideology is not “phobic”.
The word is meant to signal irrational dangerous hatred of a set of people for no valid reason. The critics of gender ideology reject and dispute the ideology. That’s not phobic, it’s rational.
Vancouver has embraced such policies since 2016 through the Transgender, Gender Diverse and Two Spirit Action Plan. Addressing the meeting, Ky Sargeant, of the non-profit group Qmunity, celebrated those efforts as having had a “measurable” impact on the lives of trans residents.
What meeting? You forgot to say. It really would be nice to know.
Several commissioners said they were unfamiliar with Rowling’s political activism when they approved the attraction, Harry Potter: A Forbidden Forest Experience, which was done in a closed-door meeting without a chance for public input.
“When decisions are made in the dark, these are the kinds of mistakes that happen,” said vice-chair Brennan Bastyovanszky. Going forward, he said, the city will seek to partner on events that “reflect the actual magic of this city, which is in how we actually treat each other.”
Each commissioner present offered a personal apology to the trans community as well, with Angela Haer promising, “This will not happen again.”
Good, but not enough. Did they pour ashes on their head, whip each other, eat rotting fish, slice into a vein?
Addressing the meeting, Hadley acknowledged the popularity of the Harry Potter series and the excitement many have for attending the event, but suggested there could have been other options that would have been “palatable for everybody.”
“A lot of people who have read the books have done as I have, and put those books up for sale,” Hadley added. “And donated the funds to transgender charities.”
That’s the ticket. Anything the trans communinny doesn’t like must be withheld from everyone, no matter how few people make up the trans communinny or how many people make up everyone else. If a billion people want Harry Potter in the Park and six trans people pitch a fit, the six trans people must win. Always. No exceptions. It’s only fair.
Oh god, “Qmunity”! How Qt !
After reading it as carefully as I am able to I would guess that it was an informal meeting of some members of the Vancouver Park Board, maybe in an official room, or on a park bench, or behind a toilet block, inside a washroom, or crammed inside a one-stall public dunny at the far end of some park or other. Harry Potter could even have been pottering about nearby, or maybe feeling harried.
The possibilities are vast.
After a sign that says “Beware of the Leopard”
Really? Is there such a topic? Weather? No, global warming deniers have problems with that. News flash: There really aren’t any such topics.
If they put up a Harry Potter exhibit, I likely would not attend, because I am not interested in Harry Potter. If they put up a tribute to Ingmar Bergman, I would likely do my best to attend. There are a vast number of gradations in between, but to be honest, I imagine an Ingmar Bergman tribute would get a lot of pushback because a lot of people are not interested. Or not – those not interested might choose not to attend, grumbling at home about waste of taxpayer money on something only a handful of people might want to see. (And it’s probably a bigger handful than most people realize, but still much smaller than those that would attend a Harry Potter event.)