When I first caught sight of the poster announcing this year’s Fancy Dress theme, I grimaced. Its nostalgic depiction of the Hogwarts Express and the Weasleys’ Ford Anglia, far from filling me with excitement, cemented one thought, clear as day, in my mind: 

There was not a single transgender person on that committee. 

Since 2020, the once-beloved author of “Harry Potter,” J.K. Rowling, has been using her vast wealth and influence to push the idea that the majority of trans women are male predators “pretending” to be women and the majority of trans men are poor girls who have been coerced into transitioning.

But, as disappointed as I am with the Fancy Dress committee for associating their event with such a person, it’s not all that surprising that this six-year-old controversy didn’t cross the minds of the committee members. If you’re not transgender yourself, it’s all too easy to just half-remember that Rowling was “canceled” on X for one thing or another — or to never have heard about the controversy at all.

That is the problem. Too many of us allow discourse on trans people to pass by unchallenged, unacknowledged. But it’s more important than ever that we pay attention to what’s being done to trans people in this country. 

Things have rapidly been getting worse for trans people in America since the very first day of Trump’s second term. His executive orders defining gender as sex assigned at birth and preventing minors from receiving gender affirming care are now more than a year old. 

On March 11, the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention and Human Security released its third red flag alert for anti-trans genocide in the U.S. The institute described the U.S. as in the early to middle stages of a “denial of identity” type genocide against trans people, where legislation and speech are being used both to prevent people from expressing their trans identity and to destroy institutions that enable them to develop that identity. 

Anti-trans laws passed across the nation have been increasing both in number and intensity since 2021. According to the Trans Legislation Tracker, 126 anti-trans laws were passed last year, more than double the amount passed in 2024 and a record high for most anti-trans laws passed in a year. 

Justifying these laws are the same anti-trans talking points that position trans people, at best, as whiny and domineering and, at worst, as delusional criminals that pose an existential threat to society. 

J.K. Rowling is actually a great case study of this frustratingly pervasive rhetoric. 

Rowling, like anyone clever enough not to outright threaten trans people, frames her criticism of trans activism as simple concern for the well-being of girls and women. Rowling and her “gender critical” peers make the argument that trans-inclusivity obscures the meaning of “woman” in a way that threatens the progress made by feminism. “‘Woman’ is not a costume,” Rowling writes in her essay on the subject. “‘Woman’ is not an idea in a man’s head.” 

But this is incorrect. The suffering and oppression of women are established and real, but women are not discriminated against because they have XX chromosomes. They are discriminated against because they are perceived as women, and misogynists, consciously or otherwise, wrongly define “woman” as inferior. 

“Woman” is, in a sense, a costume — one that’s forced onto you at birth and takes quite a lot of time, money and legal documentation to take off, for the record — and an idea in a man’s head. It’s an idea in all of our heads, and we all define it differently, whether we can put that definition into words or not.

To dully describe “woman” as “a human being who belongs to the sex class that produces large gametes,” as Rowling defined it on her X, is not only recursive logic (you are a woman because you belong to the class we’ve already defined as woman), but also categorically denies the effects of social conditions on how we understand what makes a woman, a woman.  

There are aspects of our traditional definitions of gender that are worth holding onto. Female and male are useful, general designations for doctors to help treat patients, though more precise language is sometimes necessary, considering the variation within both groups. Legally, it’s also important to have a definition of “women” distinct from men for the purpose of protecting them from gender-based discrimination. 

But the politicians pushing for the removal of trans people from public life don’t actually care about any of that. Trans people are a threat to power because we challenge one of the foundational norms of society. We are a threat because we challenge powerful people’s right to control culture and identity. 

It may seem petty to complain about the theme of a dance. But even small decisions can work to create an unwelcoming environment for trans people in a world that is already so hostile towards us. 

Maybe that is an acceptable loss to you — after all, if you’re not trans, do you really have to care? But I can assure you, a world that embraces gender non-conformity is a happier one. Femininity and masculinity are all too often nothing more than restrictions. They don’t have to be. 

And if that doesn’t convince you, here’s a secret: These regulations don’t stop at trans people. When you hand the power to define what gender is to the government, you don’t get that power back. What will you do when the new definitions of man and woman exclude you, too?