An Open Letter to John Lithgow: Please Walk Away From Harry Potter

In your career, you’ve played memorable LGBTQ characters, and in interviews, you’ve talked about being surrounded by LGBTQ friends and loved ones in your life. You were nominated for an Academy Award in 1982 for playing a trans character. In a recent interview, you described your approach to Roberta Muldoon, a trans woman character in The World According to Garp, saying that you “decided to underplay everything [and] make her a perfectly normal person” who “feels more herself than she’s ever been.”

In 2014, you played a gay man in Love is Strange, and in interviews, you talked about how many gay men felt inspired by your portrayal. You also mentioned how you support LGBTQ rights, saying “Nobody in society should have to hide who they are, or feel like they’re second class citizens in any way.”

Recently, you were the eponymous character in Jimpa: a gay grandfather to a nonbinary grandchild. The movie was directed by Sophie Hyde, who was inspired by her own life as the daughter of a gay father and the parent of a trans nonbinary child. In fact, her child Aud Mason-Hyde starred alongside you as your character’s grandchild and was involved in production. Sophie Hyde said the movie took on new importance because of the recent increase of anti-trans vitriol.

Throughout your career, you’ve demonstrated your love and acceptance of the LGBTQ community. The kids’ books you’ve written and children’s music you’ve created also show so much love and respect for children. Right now, trans people—and trans young people, especially—are facing an attack on their rights and well-being. And JK Rowling is one of the loudest voices leading the charge against them.

JK Rowling has a long history of anti-trans statements, and recently, she attacked trans kids directly, saying “There are no trans kids. No child is ‘born in the wrong body’. There are only adults like you, prepared to sacrifice the health of minors to bolster your belief in an ideology that will end up wreaking more harm than lobotomies and false memory syndrome combined.” This is the same rhetoric that’s been aimed at all the identities under the LGBTQ umbrella: that we’re mentally ill, confused, and converting children.

In the United States, the United Kingdom, and across the world, the rights of transgender people are under attack. The passing of anti-trans legislation directly results in more trans teens attempting suicide, and LGBTQ+ youth are four times as likely to attempt suicide than their peers. American legislators have quoted JK Rowling directly while blocking bills about LGBTQ civil rights.

I know it’s a long shot that John Lithgow will read this, but your shares across social media make it more possible!