Warner Bros. Games Says JK Rowling's Transphobia is an "Opinion"

You may or may not have heard that Warner Brothers Games is currently working on their first big original Harry Potter game. Called Hogwarts Legacy, it's set 100 years before the events of the book, and as near as I can tell, it's the first proper Harry Potter game to have nothing to do with the characters in Harry Potter (assuming you don't count that mobile game).

Normally, this would be really exciting for Potter heads, but the unfortunate realization that the creator of these stories and worlds, JK Rowling, is an unabashed and unrepentant transphobe, has tarnished that excitement considerably. It's reached the point where people aren't terribly excited to buy this game out of fear that it'll support JK Rowling financially, which is fair. I've long been of the mind that you shouldn't give money to people you don't like.

Warner Brothers, aware of this, has been trying to distance themselves from this reputation since the moment the game was announced. They started by saying she had nothing to do with the game (which doesn't mean she won't be making phat stacks on royalties), but now Warner Bros. Games president David Haddad has tried a different approach: saying JK Rowling can do whatever she wants.

In an interview with Bloomberg, he said this when pressed on the issue:

Not a lot I can comment on, other than, since we did get so many [questions], I wanted to be responsive the best way I could.
The way I think I’d like to do it is, I’d like to echo something you’ve heard from our most senior executive leadership.
While JK Rowling is the creator of Harry Potter, and we are bringing that to life with the power of Portkey, in many places, she’s a private citizen also. And that means she’s entitled to express her personal opinion on social media. I may not agree with her, and I might not agree with her stance on a range of topics, but I can agree that she has the right to hold her opinions.

So.... that's a thing. It's true that private citizens have the right to say whatever they want, but her hateful thoughts aren't really "opinions", mate. Opinions suggest that the issue is somehow disputable, and the notion that transgender folks should be treated like humans isn't really an "opinion". It should be a fact. What you should be saying is that her views are wrong, but she still has the legal right to hold them.

So yeah, not a good look. I expect there'll be some backstepping in the near future, as I would attribute this more to careless phrasing than actual malice.