{"id":133496,"date":"2025-09-10T10:24:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T10:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/133496\/"},"modified":"2025-09-10T10:24:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T10:24:11","slug":"citys-approval-of-vancouver-harry-potter-event-draws-ire-of-lgbtq2-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/133496\/","title":{"rendered":"City\u2019s approval of Vancouver Harry Potter event draws ire of LGBTQ2 community"},"content":{"rendered":"

Backlash against a new Harry Potter-themed attraction in Stanley Park has one Park Board commissioner looking into cancelling the contract.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI have learned a great deal in the last five days about the linkage of the Harry Potter<\/a> franchise with J.K. Rowling<\/a> and I am very surprised at what I\u2019ve learned and I was not aware of the reputational risk of bringing a Harry Potter-themed event to Vancouver at the time that I approved this in camera,\u201d Tom Digby told Global News.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow I\u2019m just speaking as one Park Board commissioner, one out of seven, that I do not speak on behalf of the Park Board. But, I can say, I myself was not aware of the reputational risk that this would bring.\u201d<\/p>\n

In recent years, Rowling has come under fire for her outspoken views on\u00a0transgender rights<\/a>. (In 2020, Rowling described transgender hormone therapy as a \u201cnew kind of conversion therapy for young gay people.\u201d)<\/p>\n

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In April, the U.K. Supreme Court\u00a0unanimously ruled that a woman is defined by biological sex<\/a> under equalities law.<\/p>\n

Rowling celebrated the ruling, posting on social media that \u201cIt took three extraordinary, tenacious Scottish women with an army behind them to get this case heard by the Supreme Court and, in winning, they\u2019ve protected the rights of women and girls across the UK.\u201d<\/p>\n

Digby said since the announcement of the event, Harry Potter: A Forbidden Forest Experience is coming to Vancouver this winter, he said they have had a \u201cmassive wave\u201d of responses from people from all different communities.<\/p>\n

He added that many have been \u201csaying that the work that J.K. Rowling does is particularly disturbing for a specific segment of the community, particularly the gender diverse and particularly trans community.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt feels personally very attacked by actions that J.K. Rowling has taken.\u201d<\/p>\n

Digby confirmed that Rowling will receive royalties from every ticket sold for the event and that \u201cdirect connection\u201d makes him question what they are doing bringing the event to Stanley Park.<\/p>\n

Tickets for the event do not come cheap.<\/p>\n

Regular price tickets for an adult are $84 and $68 for a child aged three to 12. A family bundle, which consists of two adults and two children, is $376.<\/p>\n

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There are cheaper time slots for those who are able to attend later in the evenings.<\/p>\n

There are also deluxe tickets and bundles available, which include priority skip-the-line access at select interactives and exclusive deluxe merchandise.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJ.K. Rowling responds to backlash triggered by transphobic tweets\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Digby said they are now asking staff if there are any solutions going forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve always been very proud of our diverse gender communities here in Vancouver,\u201d he said. \u201cWe double down on that. Maybe there are special things we can do to accommodate the issues raised by Harry Potter, but maybe we might just have to terminate the event. That might be the other solution.\u201d<\/p>\n

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This event is set to replace Bright Nights at Stanley Park as the Park Board confirmed last week<\/a> that the miniature train will not be able to run this holiday season.<\/p>\n

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\u201cJ.K. Rowling, not just to myself, but to I think the global trans community has been one of the most, if not the most influential person in the world at the removal of trans rights, particularly in the U.K., but what has been done in the U.K. has bled out to the rest of the world,\u201d Ky Sargeant, vice chair of the board at QMUNITY, told Global News.<\/p>\n

QMUNITY is a non-profit organization based in Vancouver that works to improve queer, trans, and Two-Spirit lives.<\/p>\n

Sargeant said it is difficult for the trans community to understand the motives behind bringing a Harry Potter-themed event to the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think in the same way that we should choose to support local organizations, we should choose to support local properties,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we are really going through a period globally where it\u2019s important to look for things that are local to us, talent that is local too, shows that are local too, right? Fundraisers that are local to city services that we personally know that are important for our communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sargeant said she would personally like to see the event cancelled but she understands the conflict.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know for a lot of people, Harry Potter is a very beloved franchise, and for myself included, it\u2019s really got a lot of our childhoods wrapped up in it, and I know that\u2019s why this can be such a difficult conversation for a lot of people,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

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\u201cBut I think that so much of, you know, really maturing and understanding where you can\u2019t separate the art from the artist, when, in the case of this artist, is someone who is very politically active in things that I think go against our values as a community here in Vancouver and in Canada.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the question that we need to be asking ourselves, not whether it\u2019s just this thing for kids or not, but like, is this really with our values as citizens in this city?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Backlash against a new Harry Potter-themed attraction in Stanley Park has one Park Board commissioner looking into cancelling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133497,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,4199,72718,43,19630,44,41685,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-133496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-canada","tag-harry-potter","tag-harry-potter-experience-stanley-park","tag-headlines","tag-j-k-rowling","tag-news","tag-perspectives","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}