Did you know that we have Quidditch IRL? Also known as Muggle Quidditch, in real life it’s a fast-paced contact sport, similar to the popular sport from J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, minus the enchanted balls.
We also don’t have flying broomsticks in real life, but that doesn’t stop Muggle Quidditch players. As part of the rules of the game, players have to run around the field with broomsticks between their legs. The sport is pretty popular, played by more than 450 teams in over 30 countries.
However, due to Rowling’s controversial stances, many have been distancing themselves from the author and her works, including Harry Potter stars Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson – and it looks like even Quidditch leagues are now trying to do the same.
US Quidditch leagues US Quidditch (USQ) and Major League Quidditch (MLQ) announced that they are changing their names as a way to “distance” themselves from J.K. Rowling after the author’s anti-trans controversy, which began in June 2020.
The USQ has made a few suggestions for possible alternative names for the sport: Quickball, Quicker, Quidstrike, and Quadraball. The two leagues hope that the name change will help them distance themselves from Rowling’s works, who according to them “has increasingly come under scrutiny for her anti-trans positions in recent years.”
The two leagues added that their sport has become well-known as one of the most progressive in the world when it comes to gender equality and inclusivity. The sport has a “gender maximum rule,” which states that a team cannot have more than four players of the same gender on the field at the same time.
QuidditchUK, their British equivalent and the national governing body for the sport, has supported the two leagues’ decision to change names. A spokesman for Rowling stated that the two Quidditch leagues were not endorsed by the author in the first place.
Rowling’s anti-trans controversy has been a heated discussion for over a year. The issue began in June 2020, when she posted a tweet showing that she had an issue with the phrase “people who menstruate.” The author made an issue out of the phrase avoiding using the word “women.” The author has also voiced her concerns on issues like allowing transgender women in women-only spaces, but has denied transphobia accusations.
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