Painting, with toxic mustard

Personally, I'm hangin' in a happy middle ground where I can squee and flail about Hogwarts' fabulously flaming fearless leader while still being sympathetic to frustration with the way that the revelation finally came about.

I am, however, all headdesky over the (maddeningly persistent) argument that outing a Potter character would have been "distracting," thematically incongruous, "inappropriate," or somehow "overburdening" in a children's book.

I've seen permutations of this from people who generally think are pretty clever and clued in, people who I'm shocked to see trying to compartmentalize things like "love" into neat little sub-categories so as to justify a position so heteronormative that it would effectively wall queer desire and affection into a literal ghetto of untouchability. I've even seen this position defended by those whose own personal lives and loves are being shunted into that ghetto, and who just seem not to notice.

So I'm taking this opportunity to post a transcript of the paper that I gave this past May at Phoenix Rising (well before Dumbledore was outed, obviously) which I think is particularly germane to the topic at hand. Comments and discussion are, of course, welcome.

The file (approx. 6000 words/19 pages), in .pdf version, can be downloaded by clicking the link:
“A Power He Will Never Know”: Love, Public Space, and (National) Salvation in Harry Potter