‘Hogwarts Legacy’ Debuts First Transgender Character Of The ‘Harry Potter’ Franchise

The Hogwarts Legacy game has been mired in controversy ever since it was announced, with Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling’s transphobic commentary inspiring a movement to boycott, sparking a heated debate about the ethics of media consumption within the gaming community.

Hogwart Legacy, as the developer is keen to emphasize, was created without the involvement of Rowling. The open-world game allows the player to customize their character, and create a trans Hogwarts student if they like; the game has even introduced the series first canonical transgender character, Sirona Ryan.

Sirona is a witch that runs a tavern in Hogsmeade Village, an NPC (non-player character) that the player can speak to. While Sirona doesn’t outright say that she’s a trans woman, she implies it through her dialogue, when she talks about her old classmates, and says: “Took them a second to realize I was actually a witch, not a wizard.”

The character seems likely to have been created as a gesture of goodwill towards the trans community, especially in response to the Rowling controversy, but her existence sparked mockery online, as gamers poked fun at her unfortunate name.

Rowling, you see, is famous for her on-the-nose naming conventions in the Harry Potter series, with character’s names often conforming to ethnic stereotypes, like Seamus Finnigan, Cho Chang, Kingsley Shacklebolt and Padma Patil.

Hence, Twitter users had fun mocking the unintentional humor of “Sirona Ryan.”

Others viewed the character as an example of empty representation, with some resenting her inclusion in a game that profits from Rowling’s creation.

Rowling did not include a transgender character inside the Harry Potter series, but ironically, the rules of her Wizarding World provide many opportunities for magic users to experiment with gender norms. Most notably, there are Polyjuice potions that can transform the user into someone else entirely, which are often used to change gender.

In the context of Rowling’s current fixation about gender identity and public bathrooms, certain details of the Wizarding World stick out; boys are not allowed to enter the girl’s dormitory, but girls are allowed to enter the boy’s spaces.

There’s a lot of drama in Harry Potter that takes place inside bathrooms, specifically, and multiple instances of dangerous male characters disguising themselves to enter safe spaces, sometimes by transforming into women.

Harry’s rival, Draco Malfoy, is always accompanied by his two henchmen, Crabbe and Goyle; at one point in the story, Malfoy forces both of them to transform into little girls, for some reason.

There are several instances of characters changing and choosing their identities. Harry Potter himself famously rejects the Sorting Hat’s assertion that he’d be a good fit for Slytherin, and identifies himself as a Gryffindor.

There is also a character named Tonks who is born with the ability to shapeshift, and can freely move between male and female at will.

All of these identity shifting-opportunities helped inspire the tsunami of queer Harry Potter fan-fiction that has emerged over the years, which often explores the implications of Rowling’s rules in regard to gender and sexuality.

Sirona is Harry Potter’s first canonical trans character, and she seems to have been inserted into the franchise in response to controversy, without the input of Rowling.

In the minds of fans, however, the rules of the Wizarding World make a perfect landscape to tell LGBT-inclusive stories, even if its creator doesn’t seem to see it as such.