Content notices: Jkr mentions. Police brutality mentions. I use the term “queer” as powerfully reclaimed.

2020.

The year I started my transition, not knowing it would be with a broken heart. The pandemic, the high-profile police brutality and militia murders close to home, and jkr’s transphobia hit like a triple punch. Vertigo. Betrayal. Grief.

Oh, the grief!

I felt isolated in my Harry Potter-related grief because, compared to the enormity of the year’s events, jkr was nothing to everyone around me (and rightly so). Even the other die-hard fans in my life could only look on in pity. She was their feminist hero, disgraced, but not directly attacking their selfhood. I wanted so badly to feel the same, but I was profoundly hurt.

I was deep in the queer side of the fandom, which was, of course, shook to the core by these revelations. Everyone was hurriedly constructing walls around our hearts that we hadn’t thought we needed where Harry Potter was concerned. But I don’t need to tell you any of this; I reckon you already know. Many were trying to understand, to reorient, to move through our grief.

I watched it happen online: opinion pieces, podcast episodes, blog posts, The Gayly Prophet’s seminal “A Guide to Firing JKR”, video essays from Kat Blaque and Jammidodger, the Trans-Affirming Magical Care fanzine, boycotts, fundraisers, and much more.

I needed all of it, but still, I felt sick every day.

Then one evening, on my homebound commute, I shuffled the discography of a wrock artist I had found via the Transfiguration comp. Out of the car speakers, an acoustic ukulele tune and a soft but sure voice comparing fandom to a rising phoenix and calling fans “your story’s greatest win; the art, the fanfic, and the change we made.”

My heart clenched. I cared a lot about fandom, the fanworks and community, and the queer people like me who found and expressed themselves through it. I didn’t realize until that moment how much I needed help detangling it from my feelings surrounding the author. Hearing queer fandom centered like that, defiantly and triumphantly, in a message clearly addressed to her, was so painfully right. I felt some pressure build up inside me.

Suddenly, all of my grief mixed with this unbearable joy and pride of reclamation crashed through me in a huge, cleansing wave. I started sobbing so hard that I had to pull over. Again and again, they sang, “If you had to be anything, why couldn’t you be kind?” Why not, indeed. I let myself feel it all. Since that moment, I haven’t felt quite so bad as I had before.

 

2022.

A few years of trans life and wrock under my belt. I dove head-first into both after that day I experienced the healing power that only music can provide. Plus, I had many Totally Knuts albums to catch up on!

There is so much to love, so I’ll stick to my personal favorite track from each album, all of which have provoked laughter, tears, or both:

In “Trans Wizard” from Fresh, Spooky, & Queer, Totally Knuts identifies the weirdness that nonbinary wix would face at Hogwarts and calls for representation. For me, Totally Knuts and the queer wrock community they catalyzed is that representation.

The TK tune that gets stuck in my head the most is the sweet Luna ballad “Being Me” from the Pan Magic EP (although I can’t not shout out “Seamus and Dean” as a close second). For a bit of humor, “Indoor Plumbing” on Sparks, Cats, & Tea Leaves yearns for a return to Vanishing the business wherever, which is very relatable given trans bathroom weirdness. When I listen to Phoenix Flames, I always cry at “21” because they remind us that James and Lily died really young and I remember real people like Fred Hampton who was murdered by police at the same age.

Thankfully, I can always feel inspired by the Totally Knuts magnum opus about the Black Lives Matter and trans liberation movement: Rise Up, Wands Up. This is SUCH a great album and my favorite of theirs (although I might be biased given my experience with “Open at the Close” about which I’ve already waxed lyrical). I love “Expelliarmus” for imagining a future without violence against protesters.

Totally Knuts also created two amazing EPs focused on wlw and mlm readings respectively. From Witches Loving Witches, I adore “With Love, Ginny.” (She surely wouldn’t hesitate to hex a queerphobe!) Wizards Loving Wizards opens with “The Gay Lounge,” which makes me laugh out loud. I also love the jazzy vibes and the image of a queer faculty space at Hogwarts.

Out of the Binary is an album dedicated to nonbinary characters which I didn’t know I desperately needed. Choosing a favorite song was really hard, but I can never get enough of the “Bill Weasley is fabulous” refrain in “Bigender Weasley.” And since I really identify with a bisexual nonbinary Harry, I have to give my love to “Enby Rap,” a shorty but a goody.

Last week, they released a new album titled Transforming Your World, the first in their project to queer every named character in Harry Potter. (There are 650!) So empowering and so much fun.

I appreciate the different sounds in this one, including rock (“Fantastic Creatures”) and swing (“Ogg’s Boogie”), which show off TK’s versatility as an artist. “Norberta” and “Respectable Spectacles” are such fun ideas (They are canon now). My favorite track is “Ghostly Love” because after queering all the ghosts, they give some queer elder perspective: “When you’ve seen love for hundreds of years, you know it has no boundaries or fears.”

But what I didn’t expect was another song that left me gasping and, maybe, mended a little more of my heart.

At this point, we have grieved. We have spent years grieving. All while organizing in a pandemic. We are exhausted.

“I’m tired. Tired of you. All of my friends are tired of you too.”

Years of shock, denial, anger, depression… Now we reckon with the pain of acceptance. Jkr chose to use her power to threaten trans liberation. She did that; is doing that. Totally Knuts reminds us that redemption can’t be the goal. We must be the goal.

So we will keep doing what makes us happy, moving fandom forward, lifting each other up, and wrocking out.

“We don’t need you anymore. We’re already home.”

 

Thanks for everything, TK.