Harry Potter, Peter Pan, and the Lost Boys by Barbara Purdom

Barbara Purdom Presents: Harry Potter, Peter Pan, and the Lost Boys:
Arrested Development in Chamber of Secrets as a Preamble to J.K. Rowling’s Open Transphobia
Harry Potter Academic Conference 2024
Abstract: In 2020, J.K. Rowling became explicit about what had previously been implicit: her opposition to anyone transitioning from their gender assigned at birth. In hindsight, we can see evidence for this position in a 2003 interview and in the second book in the Harry Potter series: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Chamber of Secrets is a watershed not only because it introduces important story elements for later, from the diary Horcrux to the sword of Gryffindor, but in the book in which Harry has his spiritual coming of age, a symbolic confirmation or bar mitzvah, Rowling includes her implicit opinions on childhood and maturation. Two chief concerns are children unnaturally frozen as children-the Petrification victims-and children who never grow up because they are killed, like Moaning Myrtle. Other authors have explored similar ideas about childhood, maturation, and arrested development, including J.M. Barrie, Philip Pullman, Jane Langton, Ray Bradbury, and Cornelia Funke. In juxtaposing their works with Rowling’s, we can see where they overlap and where they diverge. We can also see where Rowling’s work supports declaring that you know who you are better than others ever can and that your biological legacy-or having a piece of Voldemort in your head-doesn’t have to mean that you cannot choose your own path.