A bookstore in San Francisco announced that it will no longer feature books by J.K. Rowling because on her views on gender and sexuality.

J.K. Rowling, author of the celebrated Harry Potter series, made news a few years ago after she became more vocal about her concerns over women’s rights and safety in light of certain aspects of the transgender movement. She has received an overflow of pushback for her position but has showed no signs of changing course.

“I hate seeing this,” writer Joel Miller lamented on X in response to the San Francisco bookstore announcement. “A liberal society (in the classic sense of that word) depends on open dialogue. We are impoverished if we only read people who agree with us.”

A couple of years ago, The Free Press ran a podcast called “The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling” about the world-famous author’s arc as a public figure, along with the varied cultural responses to her work. Initially, many parents were concerned about the elements of witchcraft in Rowling’s novels. The main characters are, after all, wizards and witches, and the stories grow increasingly dark as the series progresses. Today, those on the other side of the ideological spectrum now decry the author they once celebrated, although their complaints are not based on anything in the books themselves. Now, they reject the books because of the woman who wrote them. The podcast helpfully illustrates just how much water has gone under the bridge since Rowling first penned her bestsellers about “the boy who lived.”

Who’s Really Banning the Books?

Banning books is a hot topic in contemporary American society. People strongly disagree about what constitutes a “ban” in the first place. Does removing sexually explicit books in elementary school libraries violate free speech? Or is that just common sense?

This specific incident points to the deeper and more longstanding issue of whether we should, or can, separate the author from his or her work. Countless writers have been retrospectively “cancelled” for holding culturally unacceptable positions. Personally, though, I’ve read and enjoyed dozens of books while fundamentally disagreeing with the author’s worldview.

Referring back to Miller’s comments, free speech entails engaging with views one might not agree with or even be diametrically opposed to. Harry Potter is a fantasy series, and J.K. Rowling is an author with a set of particular ideas about the world. Why not enjoy the books (or not, based on taste and preference) and debate those ideas in the public arena?