{"id":844277,"date":"2026-09-11T16:06:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T16:06:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/844277\/"},"modified":"2026-09-11T16:06:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T16:06:11","slug":"lilly-wachowski-if-you-support-harry-potter-youre-supporting-trans-genocide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/844277\/","title":{"rendered":"Lilly Wachowski: ‘If You Support Harry Potter, You’re Supporting Trans Genocide’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIn 2014, Laverne Cox made history as the first transgender person to appear on the cover of Time magazine under the headline \u201cThe Transgender Tipping Point.\u201d The accompanying story, written by Katy Steinmetz, positioned the fight for trans rights as the next big civil rights movement \u201cpoised to challenge long-held cultural norms and beliefs.\u201d It\u2019s easy to see why Steinmetz thought so. Cox\u2019s show \u201cOrange Is the New Black\u201d<\/a> had become Netflix\u2019s most-watched original series ever; Amazon Studios\u2019 \u201cTransparent\u201d<\/a> had launched to critical raves; and Jared Leto won an Oscar for his portrayal of a trans sex worker with HIV in \u201cDallas Buyers Club.\u201d<\/a> The following year, Caitlyn Jenner would grace the cover of Vanity Fair and take home ESPN\u2019s Arthur Ashe Courage Award.<\/p>\n

\n\tThen came the backlash. Republican politicians and pundits began zeroing in on trans rights, treating it as a wedge issue in order to distract from Trump\u2019s economic failings. A moral panic ensued. Just last year, more than 600 anti-trans bills were introduced at the state level in the U.S., and 29 states adopted restrictive laws pertaining to trans people. And Hollywood followed suit, scaling back its trans representation. Cox recently shared she\u2019d lost 90% of her income<\/a> amid Trump and his minions\u2019 war on trans people and DEI.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis sea change has even affected Lilly Wachowski<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tWachowski is \u2014 along with her sister, Lana \u2014 the most powerful and influential trans filmmaker around. The 58-year-old had gifted us \u201cThe Matrix<\/a>\u201d series, \u201cBound\u201d and \u201cSensse8,\u201d to name a few, and yet, after her critically acclaimed series \u201cWork in Progress,\u201d about a middle-aged lesbian who begins dating a much younger trans man, was canceled by Showtime after two seasons, she spent years pitching \u201ccool and queer trans stories\u201d to Hollywood but couldn\u2019t find a single taker.<\/p>\n

\n\tSo, Wachowski took matters into her own hands, joining forces with Bay Area film programmer Sarah Marie Flores and producer Lawrence Mattis to form Anarchists United Foundation and Anarchists United Studio with the mission of championing stories from marginalized communities. Here\u2019s how it works: The foundation provides grants and fellowships to aspiring filmmakers, mentorships via its Directors Prep & Pitch Lab and office space courtesy of United Spaces of Anarchy, while helping fund the studio. Anarchists United\u2019s first project is \u201cCassie Workman Is Witchy AF,\u201d a DIY docuseries that features the trans Aussie comic exploring the history of the occultism and magic with her trademark wit. It will debut Sept. 16 on YouTube.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a candid interview, Wachowski spoke with Variety about her new studio, trans rights and a whole lot more.<\/p>\n

\t\tWhat compelled you to form Anarchists United Foundation and Anarchists United Studios?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tThe story is: I was talking to Sarah Marie Flores, who is our third in the triumvirate of the Anarchists \u2014 between me and Lawrence Mattis \u2014 and was coming out of this TV show that I\u2019d worked on that I was really proud of, \u201cWork in Progress,\u201d which went for two seasons, got on all these top ten lists and didn\u2019t get the viewing numbers that the studio wanted, so we were summarily canceled and a few months later pulled from streaming. This rankled me. There was something particularly special about working on \u201cWork in Progress\u201d to me: It was the first time I was able to cast as many trans and queer people as I did, and in all of that representation and seeing all these people onscreen who I\u2019d never gotten to see before, I was like, This is something that makes sticking around in the business worthwhile. So, when Showtime turned around and canceled the show even though it was so critically acclaimed and really made for peanuts, it lit a fire under me. I saw all these windows closing and opportunities dwindling for marginalized voices, and I was like, \u201cSomebody needs to do something about this. Somebody needs to make another attempt at the old United Artists model where it would be an artist-run studio.\u201d And Sarah said, \u201cThat someone is us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tAnarchists United will also have the Directors Prep & Pitch Lab and United Spaces of Anarchy, a community hub providing office space to aspiring filmmakers, so it will basically serve as this ecosystem or incubator for creatives.\t<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the time of this ideating session with Sarah, I was doing a ton of mentoring through this awesome program called Queer Art Mentorship out of New York. I got 160 submissions and was like, \u201cHoly shit! How am I going to pick one person?\u201d I ended up taking on around 15 mentees out of this program and there was something that was extremely overwhelming about it but also telling as a trans person while all of this horror is happening to the trans community \u2014 the impossible amount of propaganda that has changed public opinion in a lot of different ways around trans people \u2014 that I could see how important connectivity and mentorship is. I think our connectivity is going to be the thing that saves us. We want to give people as much of a chance to work in this industry as we can while we\u2019re also simultaneously trying to subvert the industry. We\u2019re trying to connect as many people as we can, give them the tools that we can and provide a support network so that when we\u2019re able to dismantle what\u2019s happening in the industry, this network will be able to build something new in its place.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\tYou\u2019ve discussed how incredibly difficult it was to get $10 million to finance \u201cThe Hunted,\u201d an action film with an all-trans cast. It seemed like culture was at a point where it was starting to embrace trans people and trans voices around the time of Laverne Cox and \u201cOrange Is the New Black,\u201d but has since taken several steps back.\t<\/p>\n

\n\tYou\u2019re right. We were at this \u201ctrans tipping point\u201d where you had Laverne Cox on the cover of Time magazine and the NCAA deciding to pull the Men\u2019s Basketball Tournament out of North Carolina if they decided to institute these bathroom bans that would harm trans people. That was this moment in time where we had pushed this idea of trans rights as far as it had gotten. And then what happened was, it\u2019s not that public opinion shifted, it\u2019s that billionaires started pumping out negative propaganda against trans people. They started creating reports about kids with litter boxes, and the Cass report came out in the U.K. \u2014 that has since been debunked but has been used as this cudgel against trans people. This idea of \u201ctrans surgery for minors\u201d \u2014 they\u2019re still saying this shit. Jesse Watters was talking to the Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed about cutting kids\u2019 tallywackers off. None of this is happening! This is all right-wing propaganda against trans people. That is what has caused the shift.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile that\u2019s happening, our industry is being consolidated into these corporate monoliths that are run by people like Larry Ellison, and Larry Ellison is a radical conservative idealogue. Make no mistake: That ideology is permeating everything under the Paramount label, which will soon include Warner Bros. unless somehow these lawsuits hold up.<\/p>\n

\t\tI was going to ask you how you felt about the Ellisons and Paramount taking over your former home of Warner Bros.\t<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s completely bonkers! They\u2019re like these Death Stars. They want CNN because they want to make it into Fox News. I got involved with Anarchists and I had written this script [\u201cThe Hunted\u201d] with my partner as this receptacle for all my anger. I was using it as this piece of art that was an incredibly cathartic experience to write, and it was a salve for both of us. It\u2019s political, but to be trans in this world that we live in is political. My body is political.<\/p>\n

\t\tI think all art is political.\t<\/p>\n

\n\tAbsolutely. Art that doesn\u2019t take a political point of view is a political point of view. I\u2019ve said this before, but if I never make another movie again, I\u2019m fine. I\u2019m getting old. But in my experience of pitching stuff, I\u2019ve pitched a lot of wonderful, cool queer stories and trans stories, and Hollywood didn\u2019t want any of it. There was this TV show based on this comic book \u201cCosmoknights\u201d that I was going to direct, and it was from me and Emily Andras, who made \u201cWynonna Earp.\u201d It\u2019s \u201cStar Wars\u201d with lesbians in space. Amy Poehler was producing it, and we pitched it all around town. We had a cool bible that Emily had written, and I put together a jazzy video for it, and everybody passed. We had this cool adaptation of \u201cManhunt\u201d by Gretchen Felker-Martin, which was a bestseller on all these top ten lists, and couldn\u2019t get that going. This is around 2022, and now it\u2019s four years later and I haven\u2019t made a thing. I cannot find a studio that will do any of it.<\/p>\n

\t\tWhy the name \u201cAnarchists United?\u201d\t<\/p>\n

\n\tAnarchists United was a name that our partner Lawrence Mattis had gotten the domain for. He was like, \u201cCan we name our company this?\u201d And I was like, \u201cYeah, it\u2019s great.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tYou have one of the most renowned replies in Twitter history. Elon Musk<\/a> tweeted out, \u201cTake the red pill,\u201d then Ivanka Trump enthusiastically wrote, \u201cTaken!\u201d to him, and then you replied, \u201cFuck both of you.\u201d I\u2019m curious how you feel about the co-opting of \u201cThe Matrix\u201d by those on the right who don\u2019t really seem to understand its messaging.\t<\/p>\n

\n\tI mean, I can\u2019t sit in a room and explain the movie to every single person who watches it. Even if I did sit in a room with Elon Musk and Ivanka Trump \u2014 yikes \u2014 it doesn\u2019t matter. They\u2019re not misunderstanding the film; they\u2019re co-opting a message. And that\u2019s what fascists do: They co-opt the messages of progressives and use it to their benefit to confuse and obfuscate what is going on and the intention of their ideology. They do it with everything. They do it with Martin Luther King Jr. Look at how they\u2019ve changed the idea of what antisemitism is.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTwitter<\/p>\n

\t\tElliot Page recently said in an interview that he\u2019s not getting calls after \u201cThe Odyssey,\u201d despite delivering a much-heralded performance in a movie that\u2019s on track to make $2 billion. And the reason he\u2019s not getting calls, despite being an Oscar-nominated actor in one of the biggest movies of the year, is almost certainly because he is trans.\t<\/p>\n

\n\tYou\u2019ve got to hand it to Christopher Nolan for casting Elliot in the first place. That right there is the definition of allyship, and the fact that Christopher Nolan is going out there and talking up Elliot about how awesome he was to work with speaks volumes about him as a human being. But who is following suit in the industry? There are people out there who have the power to cast trans actors, but what the fuck are they doing? Are they so inured with the system that they\u2019re burying their heads in it? Seems like it.<\/p>\n

\t\tWhat made you want \u201cCassie Workman Is Witchy AF\u201d to be the first project for Anarchists United?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tI became pals with Cassie. She had this animated show called \u201cSorry About the Mess\u201d \u2014 a delightful show about her experiences when she was living in Olympia, Washington, and it has a supernatural vibe and there\u2019s this talking badger named Keith. I was like, \u201cOh my god, this is hilarious and I want to work with this woman.\u201d They had this project set up at [Paramount] and then the show wasn\u2019t able to be financed. She came to visit me in Chicago, we sketched out the entire plot to it, she got to work and started writing and then the funding fell out. And then she cooked up \u201cWitchy AF.\u201d We did it on a microbudget, got some buddies to direct, crewed up in New Jersey and shot it in a few days.<\/p>\n

\t\tElon Musk and J.K. Rowling<\/a> are two people who have inflicted an enormous amount of cultural damage on the trans community. What are your thoughts on them?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tI mean\u2026 these people are Nazis. They\u2019re literal Nazis. There is a one-to-one connection between Elon Musk and the Nazi community. He did a full-blown Sieg Heil on a national stage. I think that the global community needs to firewall the U.S. from their populaces in a way because this country has allowed Nazi propaganda to proliferate at such a degree that it has become dangerous to the global population. As much as another country can, I think they need to be fighting back against hate speech and shutting those platforms down. They\u2019ve had some success in Brazil and Europe, but it\u2019s kind of over for the U.S. and the U.K. at the moment. What Twitter does and what Meta does in the U.K\u2026 they\u2019re cooked.<\/p>\n

\t\tThere is a big \u201cHarry Potter<\/a>\u201d series coming out on HBO soon and there are many people opposed to it because of J.K. Rowling\u2019s transphobia.\t<\/p>\n

\n\tShe is funding trans genocide. J.K. Rowling funds trans genocide, full stop. So, if you support \u201cHarry Potter,\u201d you\u2019re supporting trans genocide. The money that goes into you enjoying these products, a portion of that money goes to J.K. Rowling and that money goes into her funding anti-trans legislation all over the world. In the same way that if you are against Elon Musk, you boycott or don\u2019t buy Tesla; and if you\u2019re against global warming\/climate change, you try not to buy as much gas, you try to mitigate your use of these products. It\u2019s simple math. So, your enjoyment of these shows, and continued support of these shows, is supporting my eradication.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tMorpheus (Laurence Fishburne) speaks to the people of Zion in \u201cThe Matrix Reloaded.\u201d <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\u00a9Warner Bros\/courtesy Everett Collection \/ Everett Collection<\/p>\n

\t\tYou had an interesting quote once where you said that you can look back on your and Lana\u2019s work \u201cthrough the lens of our transness,\u201d and I\u2019m curious how that applies to \u201cThe Matrix\u201d in particular.\t<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen I look back, I can see the things that attracted me and Lana to that particular story. We were invested in liberation. So, without an understanding of what we were trying to liberate for ourselves, we were finding sympathetic and empathetic connections to other modes of liberation \u2014 specifically Black and brown liberation. There\u2019s a reason why Zion is mostly Black and brown folks. We were inherently predisposed to seeing our own liberation connected to these other modes of liberation. When you talk about the suppressive system and how it is this system of control and how it governs society, for ourselves, being deeply closeted, we could feel there was an oppressive dynamic.<\/p>\n

\n\tWe didn\u2019t know what \u201ctransgender\u201d meant. We weren\u2019t exposed to the idea of how there\u2019s this gray space in nature and this gray space in gender, so it took us a while to go to our bookstores, read about gender and read about the spectrum of gender and sexuality, and slowly we were able to put those pieces together. But in the meantime, we happened to live in Chicago, which is not only one of the roots of Black Power in this country, but also has a horrible history of segregation. You literally drive across the tracks and there\u2019s the white side of the neighborhood and the Black side of the neighborhood \u2014 North Side and South Side \u2014 and learn about the horrible history of redlining in this city. We\u2019re finding these connective points and it\u2019s all coming out in this story of Neo meeting this rebel hero of his, Morpheus, a cool Black guy with shades of Fred Hampton and the Black Panther Party. So, that\u2019s how it starts.<\/p>\n

\t\tAnd the agents trying to take out your Fred Hampton.\t<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s right. And then I get to my transition and I\u2019m able to look back at all this stuff and see that the story is this gumbo of all of this stuff that we were living through at the time, as well as our own dreams and desires for getting out of the fucking closet.<\/p>\n

\t\tAre there any upcoming projects with Anarchists United that you\u2019re particularly excited about?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tWe have this project with Abigail Thorn, an actor and philosopher who had this YouTube channel called PhilosophyTube. She was also amazing in \u201cHouse of the Dragon,\u201d where she played a pirate. She has a thing called \u201cBillionaire Killers\u201d that we\u2019re excited about. It\u2019s a post-apocalyptic story where all these billionaires are in these bunkers and they\u2019ve got to dig \u2018em out of these bunkers. There\u2019s the Cassie Workman animated show we\u2019re trying to get going called \u201cSorry About the Mess,\u201d and a show that\u2019s a man-in-a-can-type story that is being directed by an old friend of mine, Lyndon Barrois, who\u2019s a visual effects artist and sculptor. There\u2019s a bunch!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2014, Laverne Cox made history as the first transgender person to appear on the cover of Time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":844278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[11,88,9346,11783,163815,41749],"class_list":["post-844277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-elon-musk","tag-entertainment","tag-harry-potter","tag-j-k-rowling","tag-lilly-wachowski","tag-the-matrix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=844277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/844278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=844277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=844277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=844277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}