Why I Left the American Girl Subreddit

Yesterday, I unsubscribed from the American Girl subreddit.

This has nothing to do with American Girl as a brand. This doesn't mean I'm giving up my dolls. This has to do with a decision that the moderators of the American Girl subreddit chose, which is to ban any critical discussion of the author of Harry Potter from the subreddit.

As I stated in this post I made when American Girl released its Harry Potter products, the transphobic behavior that the author of Harry Potter has exhibited has made it morally inconsistent with my values to support the franchise in any way. At the time, I suggested that if you wanted to buy the products, to offset the costs by donating to a charity to help the transgender community.

I wrote that post in September 2022 - three and a half years ago. During that time, only 4 states in the United States had banned gender-affirming care for minors. 14 states had banned trans youth playing in sports teams consistent with their gender identity. Only 3 states had Don't Say Gay laws limiting discussion of LGBT people in school and books with LGBT identity.

American Girl was still selling the Kira books, which was the first time an openly LGBT+ character, Kira's Aunt Mamie, was included in a fictional American Girl narrative. Nonfiction books that included the transgender community, such as A Smart Girl's Guide to Body Image, were still being sold.

Now, four years later. things have changed. We have a president that has implemented de-facto nationwide bans on gender affirming care for minors and has made it harder for adults to access gender affirming care. 23 more states have outlawed gender affirming care for minors, and a few are looking into banning gender affirming care for adults. 11 more states have banned trans youth playing in sports teams consistent with their gender identity, and people from the political party that was all for protecting trans people in 2022 are slowly starting to drift away from supporting them. 6 more states have implemented Don't Say Gay censorship laws, including North Carolina, the state where I attended school from kindergarten to twelfth grade.

Kira's books are long gone, and since then, there has been no LGBT+ representation in any American Girl fictional narrative, even in cases where casual representation could have made sense, such as the theater program in Kavi's story and the 1999 Seattle setting of Isabel and Nicki's story. Due to a pressure campaign that circulated in right-wing media, American Girl quietly retired the Body Image book and any other book that mentioned transgender people. And yet, American Girl has been trying to hard to sell the overstock of the Harry Potter merchandise, even marking it down to 85% off.

But if you look across the pond, in the UK, that is where you will find the author of Harry Potter's direct impact the most. In April of last year, the United Kingdom Supreme Court erased transgender women from the definition of "woman" given in the Equality Act of 2010, which is supposed to protect from discrimination. The author of Harry Potter, which still profits from the brand to this day, donated money to the organization that sued to make this happen.

Because people haven't been able to stop financially supporting the Harry Potter brand, transgender women in the United Kingdom are not legally recognized women anymore.

And because of that, if American Girl released the Harry Potter collaboration today, I wouldn't suggest offsetting the costs of a purchase with a donation to the transgender community. I would suggest not buying the product at all - period.

Which brings me to the title of this post. Why did I leave the American Girl subreddit? While I do understand that moderating these conversations can be hard, the point of the American Girl community is to not keep quiet about injustice, even if it's criticizing the company's decisions. Banning any discussion of the author of Harry Potter's behavior, even if it's in good faith, is censorship. And if someone posts about the Harry Potter collection without knowing about the author's behavior, it is important to educate them about her harms that aren't just opinions anymore, but have affected real life policy.

AGDN is, and will forever be, a safe space for the transgender community. I am not transgender, but some of my best friends are. I care about my friends. As a lesbian, I care about my transgender siblings. And I will do whatever in my power to keep it a safe space for all American Girl fans - especially those who have been marginalized by the brand itself.