BIRMINGHAM, England — Controversial author J.K. Rowling courted controversy online when she tweeted that her iconic gay character Professor Dumbledore had actually just been going through a phase when he began a long and loving relationship with fellow wizard Gellert Grindelwald and had dated, and even married, a series of conventionally attractive, cisgender, heterosexual women.
“Dumbledore’s sexuality was never on the forefront of my mind, so when you just assume he had a homosexual relationship because I said he did, you can’t therefore assume he’s some kind of deviant homosexual! It’s nowhere in the text, it’s nowhere on the page, that isn’t how literature works, you filthy freaks!” the author emphatically insisted, receiving several replies featuring AI-generated images of a six-fingered Dumbledore holding the hand of a woman who appeared to be a construct of Rowling and several other prominent women in the online TERF space.
Fans were split, with die-hard fans of the series, its many spin-offs, and fan contributions being utterly unsurprised at this point.
“At this point, it’s not really in your hands what Dumbledore is and isn’t,” responded user Potterless-And-Proud, in a now blocked post. “Most people engage more with fan projects and spin-offs that aren’t directly connected to you than they do the original books nowadays. We especially don’t care about your weird, endless retcons that you only post online for attention. She can keep stealing from lesser-known creators. It’s not like her new work has found any kind of audience at all.”
Fans of Rowling who followed her hateful advocacy rather than her written works rallied behind her.
“I’ve been saying it all along: it makes no sense for Dumbledore to be gay,” wrote one fan account that had been created five minutes previously and still did not have an avatar. “At no point is he weird or inappropriate with those children. He only puts them in danger and constantly contradicts himself and other teachers around them for their own good! Tell me where that sounds ‘GAY!’”
Rowling was seen gleefully retweeting the same 3 bots and 10 blue check followers she always does while counting her money and insisting it definitely filled the hole where creative contentment and the respect of your peers should have gone.
