American Girl is all about equality. So why did it partner with JK Rowling?

In 1986, schoolteacher Pleasant Rowland began to publish a series of books about nine-year-old girls growing up at important moments in American history – and dolls crafted in the likeness of each book’s protagonist.

Early characters ranged from the spunky Molly McIntire, who hosts a British refugee during the Second World War, to the courageous Addy Walker, who liberates herself from slavery. Children could read Molly and Addy’s stories, but also cuddle these characters, brush their hair, and change their period-accurate clothing.

 After Mattel acquired the company, American Girl’s focus expanded to modern tales of female empowerment. Though Molly and Addy are still available, a discerning customer might now opt for Corinne Tan, a jock who stands up to racist bullies at her local ski hill, or Evette Peeters, an environmentalist who masterminds a clean-up of the Anacostia River with her biracial family.

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Each American Girl novel is punctuated by a profile of some real-world girl who is making a positive change in her community. The message, clear to any young reader, is that you, too, can make your river cleaner, your ski resort more diverse. Real go-getters can even pick up a non-fiction Smart Girl’s Guide — to Race & Inclusion, or Body Image, or generally Making a Difference — for even more tips on healing the world and themselves.

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 American Girl defines and distinguishes itself by its rigorous intersectional feminism. It enjoys a truly rare degree of esteem and approval among feminist fans old enough to have outgrown – and grown critical of – their more problematic girlhood enthusiasms, like Disney’s damsels in distress, or the manipulative tweens of the Clique novels. Fans flock to pro-choice rallies outside the Supreme Court bearing images of Julie Albright, Kit Kittredge, and Courtney Moore on their picket signs.

 Of course, American Girl also, simply, sells toys. Not all of these toys are virtuous. Sometimes, a girl simply wants to send Corinne to the salon, or strap Molly and her beagle into a scooter with a dog-sized sidecar for a joyride on the open road. So it’s fine, perhaps, if the American Girl® Harry Potter™ Ultimate Collection doesn’t contribute much to the company’s girl empowerment project.

 What the Ultimate Collection does contribute to is the substantial wealth of Harry Potter author JK Rowling. Once a single parent subsisting on public assistance, Rowling now possesses a fortune of £850 million and lately has wielded her singular cultural capital to promote violent and anti-trans far-right extremism.

Here, then, is a question: Is it ethical for American Girl to partner with JK Rowling? And is it ethical for you, the adult doll collector or nine-year-old doll enthusiast, to go along with the partnership? To purchase a Gryffindor sweater for Kit, or perhaps a plush owl for Addy?

 This is not a question of banning the Harry Potter books, nor is it a question of separating the art from the artist. Rather, it’s a matter of contracting with the artist to manufacture children’s toys – which represent certain details of the art – and then selling those toys and paying royalties to the artist.

 And the artist, as you may or may not know, has been roundly condemned – by civil rights groups like GLAAD and the Human Rights Campaign, by over 1,500 members of the United Kingdom and Ireland’s publishing industry, and even by Daniel Radcliffe, who portrayed Harry Potter in the blockbuster film series. In Rowling’s corner: the Republican Party and Vladimir Putin.

When, days after launching an illegal invasion and murdering 2,571 innocent civilians, a dictator likens the denunciations of the global community to the criticisms leveled at Rowling, it ought to be clear that we’re no longer in the realm of individual conscience.

AdBridg.cmd.push(function() { AdBridg.display("div-gpt-ad-inarticle3"); }); JK Rowling’s Crusade Against Trans People

The Harry Potter novels have long been controversial across the political spectrum, but more recently, Rowling has become an outspoken regurgitator of far-right talking points.

Her greatest hits: She endorses conversion therapy and opposes the provision of gender-affirming care, including even non-medical interventions like chest binders for children and teenagers. She believes trans women ought to be incarcerated alongside men, which would leave these women vulnerable to being raped and assaulted. She justifies this belief by claiming, without evidence, that trans women “retain the same patterns of sex offending/violence” as cis men. (In fact, trans people are four times more likely than cis people to be victims of violent crime, and the mortality rate of trans women is three times that of cis women.) 

Rowling also possesses the wildly retrograde belief that allowing trans women to work in caring professions, such as nursing, would endanger female patients. She cites the (imaginary) statistic that “98-99% of sexual abusers are male.” (Though cis men do account for the vast majority of sexual abusers, sexual abuse by cis women is also common. Trans women do not form a statistically significant number of the medical professionals known to have abused patients.)

She also advocates banning trans women from women’s sports, comparing “the physical advantage conferred by an athlete going through male puberty then competing against women” to Lance Armstrong using performance-enhancing drugs to win seven Tour de France titles.

Importantly, these are not just transphobic arguments – they are misogynistic ones. Rowling claims to be a feminist, but her argument about the “physical advantage conferred by an athlete going through male puberty” is quintessentially anti-feminist. It’s the party line of the cigar-chomping owners and operators of the major leagues who conspire, to this day, to ban women from men’s playing fields. And the notion that caregiving professions should remain the sole domain of women, that men have no business nursing or babysitting, is straight out of the 1950s.

This is not the only evidence that Rowling’s commitment to feminism is flimsy. “Feminism is rotten at the core,” tweeted Matt Walsh, a pundit and self-proclaimed fascist, in 2021. “There is no good feminism. It’s one of the worst things to ever happen to western civilization.” Earlier this year, Rowling complimented Walsh, saying that his film What Is A Woman? had done “a good job exposing the incoherence of gender identity theory and some of the harms it’s done.”

Here, “gender identity theory” is a euphemism for LGBTQ people, whom Walsh openly loathes. “Millions of kids are being converted to LGBT through sexual indoctrination at home and at school,” he rails, sounding like a modern Anita Bryant, or a male Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).

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In sharp contrast to Rowling’s praise, many a major, reputable publication describes What Is A Woman? as “science denying propaganda” which treats “cruel, mindless prejudices” as “‘common sense’” while portraying LGBTQ people as “immoral… [threats to] the Western Christian way of life.”

And all of this evidence, frankly, is just the glimmering shard of the iceberg’s tip on the homophobic, transphobic, and misogynistic ideas she has touted.

And she is a liability.

Much of the cast of the Harry Potter films has publicly denounced her. HBO did not invite her to participate in the 2021 Return to Hogwarts special which reunited the films’ cast and crew. Clothing brand MeUndies issued an apology for producing a line of Harry Potter products, declaring that they “strongly disagree with [Rowling’s] comments” and “have already set up an internal Diversity & Equity Board to… help vet potential partners moving forward.”

What American Girl Has Said About Rowling

Reached for comment by LGBTQ Nation, American Girl issued the following statement:

“American Girl was built on a foundation of diversity and inclusion. Harry Potter has some of the world’s most beloved and popular characters and a collaboration has long been asked for by our mutual fans. American Girl remains committed to creating stories and products that inspire our fans and champion empathy, equality, and mutual respect.”

On American Girl’s Facebook page, any person who expresses concern about Rowling’s bigotry receives an identical reply from the brand’s social media team: “Thank you for reaching out. Your comments have been shared with the appropriate teams at AG.”

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The company seems to reserve warmth and friendliness for Harry Potter fans. (A woman named Shannon: “Harry Potter is awesome! Love JKR!” American Girl: “Thank you, Shannon!