Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling is one of the most influential and successful women in the entire world. But even though she’s a liberal feminist who went from rags to riches, the most extreme “social justice” activists have turned on Rowling in recent years because she’s dared to stake out a centrist position on gender issues that diverges from the orthodoxy of modern transgender activists. For this most heinous thought crime, Rowling has faced astounding levels of denunciation and backlash — and is now literally being erased by a museum in Seattle.

The Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle recently announced that it is removing mentions of Rowling from its Harry Potter collections. In a bizarre blog post announcing this shift, a transgender employee writes that “there’s a certain cold, heartless, joy-sucking entity in the world of Harry Potter and, this time, it is not actually a Dementor,” comparing Rowling to the famous soul-sucking monsters from the books. The blog post then goes on to refer to Rowling as “She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named” and avoids using her name, in another comparison to Voldemort, the Harry Potter series’ main villain.

The museum goes on to accuse Rowling not just of being “super hateful” and “transphobic” but also levies a long list of baseless accusations such as her supposed “support of antisemitic creators, the racial stereotypes that she used while creating characters, the incredibly white wizarding world, the fat shaming, the lack of LGBTQIA+ representation, the super-chill outlook on the bigotry and othering of those that don’t fit into the standard wizarding world, and so much more.”

Ah, yes, it’s wildly offensive that a book written in the '90s didn’t feature any transgender characters. Almost like… nearly every other book written in the '90s. And how dare Rowling write a book series with mostly white characters that’s based in a nation of… mostly white people. But these charges against Rowling are almost thrown in as an afterthought, simply meant to check off all the "woke" buzzwords.

The main thrust behind why Rowling is being erased from the exhibit featuring the literary and cinematic classics she created is her alleged “transphobic tweets.” But when you actually look at what J.K. Rowling has said on these issues, her positions aren’t hateful or extreme at all.

In a recent podcast series published by The Free Press, an outlet founded by journalist Bari Weiss, Rowling explains her positions in-depth. The interviews reveal someone who has deep empathy for transgender people and respects their rights to live freely but, as a sexual assault survivor and feminist, has serious concerns about the need to preserve single-sex spaces and is deeply disturbed by the way women who speak out against transgender activism are being punished or silenced. How horrifying!

Just consider a few of Rowling’s “radical” tweets :

There’s nothing in any of these tweets that is “hateful.” In fact, the sentiments Rowling expresses are remarkably mainstream and are shared by most Americans and even many members of the LGBT community, such as myself.

So, the entire campaign against her, embodied most recently in this Seattle museum’s unhinged decision, is based on a lie. These activists are not seeking to distance themselves from a genuinely hateful bigot; they’re punishing a centrist liberal for daring to break with liberal orthodoxy in relatively minor and nuanced ways.

Yet even if Rowling did have genuinely offensive or controversial views on this issue or another, that still wouldn’t justify the attempt to remove her from Harry Potter history. She achieved truly remarkable success, writing one of the biggest book series in modern history and becoming one of the richest women in the world. It’s not “feminist” or “progressive” to erase a woman’s success simply because she has the “wrong” opinion on some issues. And that’s an insane approach that would destroy our ability to appreciate almost any art from the past.

Think about it. Is there a single writer, musician, or artist from 25 years ago who didn’t have some opinion that would be, by liberals’ 2023 standards, deemed “problematic”? Of course not! But appreciating someone’s art shouldn’t require agreeing with their entire worldview. In fact, that’s the opposite of the point: Art is supposed to connect and reach people from all walks of life and backgrounds.

If the Seattle Museum of Pop Culture is going to erase any mention of “problematic” artists, it won’t be long before it has few interesting exhibits left at all. But more broadly, if society doesn’t stamp out this toxic and illiberal “cancel culture” mindset, it won’t be long before it irreparably tears us apart.

Brad Polumbo ( @Brad_Polumbo ) is an independent journalist, YouTuber , co-founder of BASEDPolitics , and a Washington Examiner contributor.