Not putting it in the tags of that post because it's only tangentially related but the notes of the moral panic post made me FINALLY realize why exactly it always feels wrong when people go, "You either disown Harry Potter OR you're a transphobe".
Like imagine if it was the satanic panic. "You either quit being a Christian OR you're personally responsible for this shit."
The Muslim panic (which is still going on btw)? "You either renounce your American (or British!) citizenship OR you're an Islamophobe."
Gay panic? Watch out, citizens of basically every country prior to just a few years ago and members of most religions even now. You're obligated to give it up.
Now far be it from me to say a piece of media is as important as a religion or citizenship, but... if you can see the problem with the extreme examples, you can hopefully see what's troublesome about the idea in general.
"This thing is tainted and therefore you must NEVER touch, lest you be BAD," is just... it's practically the definition of purity culture, isn't it? "Some vocal Christians are horribly homophobic, therefore Christianity ITSELF is evil." Like we can understand and express why it doesn't work like that, right?
So in the same way, we can see that, "The author who wrote this very popular book series became a horrible TERF years after the books were complete, therefore you have to renounce the series in its entirety even if it was incredibly formative for you," is... messed up. It's not good.
We shouldn't create moral panic or police people like this. If we do, we're no better than the people who are creating moral panic about and policing us.
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