Last June, Harry Potter author JK Rowling made headlines for all the wrong reasons when she made some comments on Twitter that were anti-trans. 

Such was the uproar, all the the major players in the Harry Potter movie franchise spoke out against its creator, even apologising on her behalf. In response, Rowling doubled down on her views writing a lengthy essay detailing why she held these views.

Hogwarts Legacy is a forthcoming multi-platform video game from WB Games who said in a statement at the time that ‘JK Rowling is not directly involved in the creation of the game’, seemingly also distancing themselves from her wildly unpopular opinions. 

This week we learned from an unnamed source working on the game that players will be able to customise their characters, which isn’t unusual in an open world game of this sort. What perhaps sits at odds with Rowling’s views is that you can create a trans character, with body shape, gender, voice etc all available as customisable options.  

Having an avatar that reflects more of how you see yourself is an attraction for the LGBTQI+ community to video games so it’s great that WB Games view inclusion as essential to serving the fans of the Harry Potter franchise. 

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