Queen Camilla is being labeled “brave” after Buckingham Palace limited comments on an IG post featuring Camilla and J.K. Rowling, and then running to a favorable reporter for a positive spin.
Somewhere, former Royal Appointment editor for The Telegraph, C**$**a T0**** is furiously banging away on the keyboard to write her own tired take, wrapped up in the incendiary argument that protecting women means excluding and targeting trans women, and that, my friends, is REAL feminism.
But don’t worry, this piece from the Royal Editor for The Sunday Times covers that angle as well.
How brave to stand with a woman worth an estimated 1 billion.
How brave to double down on the support of a woman who created a magical world where kids felt safe1, only to tear it all down with her anti-trans stance (and donations) post-Hogwarts.
How brave to dog whistle through a megaphone to your mostly conservative, older base of support that you aren’t modernizing in a way that would suggest actual equality and support of all subjects. (How stupid when support of the institution from younger Generations is falling.)
How brave to limit comments when the reaction turned to support for trans people and a rejection of the post.
The picture, according to the piece, “spoke volumes about Camilla’s approach to her life and her role as consort.”
According to a royal source, the decision to post the photo with Rowling was:
“not taken lightly or carelessly, but in a determination to do what she feels is right. There are always risk-free ways of living her life, but she doesn’t wish to live risk-free. The safest thing is not to make a judgment on things. She feels that risks her principles. She would prefer to be brave than safe.”
The only people who could see this decision as “not taken lightly or carelessly” are people who don’t believe trans people are people.
Further down:
“Many people assume Camilla to be no more nuanced than an upper-class woman, happiest at her private home, Raymill House in Wiltshire, with her dogs, and her Aga — a Queen not keen to upset the apple cart.”
And she’s not upsetting the apple cart that she cares about! In what world is standing with a rich transphobic British woman not the status quo?
And if it’s not the status quo, then aristocrats and other wealthy individuals better start speaking up because silence is complicity.
The IG post caption states that: Her Majesty and Ms Rowling discussed the importance of ensuring that young people have access to books and the vital part reading plays in opening doors for future generations.
Yes, I hope expanding access to literature from writers of all walks of life opens the doors for future generations to extend more empathy towards others and encourages kids to take hold of their one, wild, precious life and live it to the fullest.
I hope popular YA novels with gay characters lead kids to discover bell hooks, Baldwin, Audre Lorde, Roxane Gay, and others.
I hope tomorrow’s authors take words and weave them into protective spells featuring magical castles where everyone is actually welcome, and all children feel safe, even when lost in a book.
There is the inevitable comparison in the piece to the vitriol Camilla experienced as Charles’ mistress. It’s not surprising that she feels sympathy for another woman who made a deliberate choice to engage in something that would draw ire from the public and not the group of people she terrorizes.
Camilla (and Charles) chose to carry on with an affair and use Charles’ sons for their own publicity tour to turn the tide in their favor and eventually get married.
J.K. Rowling chose to tarnish her legacy by coming out as anti-trans, but not her bottom line. Capitalism has no shame, and an HBO TV series adaptation of Harry Potter has Rowling as an executive producer.
Meanwhile, a 2017 The Guardian reported on a study that demonstrated that, even with LGBT+ bullying decreasing, 8 out of 10 trans youth have “self-harmed and almost half have attempted to kill themselves.”
Buckingham Palace is worried about a billionaire reading mean comments on an IG post, while parents of trans youth are trying to keep their kids alive in a world that tells them at every level that they are wrong.
How fucking brave.
-Meredith
Optional Homework
For more posts on Queen Camilla and Operation Parker Bowles, check out these pieces:
Camilla Parker Bowles vs. Princess Diana
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December 11, 2024
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I think we’d be going through a Harry Potter reckoning whether J.K. Rowling was anti-trans or not. There are problematic elements throughout the book, from the interpretations of bankers to Cho Chang (because how else would you know she’s also Asian!?), sarcasm
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