The truly frustrating thing about bigotry is its reductive nature. It takes the wonderful complexity that is a human being and reduces it to a single caricature. The woman at the movie theater who upset me so much sat through the same movie I did. She watched the same characters struggle and evolve, but in the end, at least in regards to the character of Allegra, she couldn't or wouldn't bring herself to see the person behind what she'd labeled a perversion. Unfortunately, the same can be said for whatever the opposite of bigotry is. That force that drives The Advocate to out dead people and movie stars who've decided that they'd rather not share who they share their beds with. It's all two sides of the same coin, taking a single characteristic of a person and transforming it into everything worth knowing about that person.

The re-reading of Potter-verse has already begun, with close analysis of every Dumbledore related word. Particularly close attention is being paid to the relationship between Dumbledore and Grindelwald, the wizard young Dumbledore first befriended but eventually defeated, which J.K. Rowling recently characterized in a speech as a romantic attachment. When I first read about Dumbledore's attachment to Gridelwald, the passionate charge in the relationship was clearly there. Rowling isn't a subtle writer. Yet I was also so clearly reminded of incidents in my own life where I formed an overwhelming attachment with another person.

There's nothing so amazing as experiencing a "meeting of the minds," when you meet someone who "gets" you. There's a movie called Heavenly Creatures which portrays this circumstance so clearly, and also portrays how this kind of intense, passionate teenage friendship can go completely, horribly wrong. As a film librarian, I had a patron complain about this movie once — and when I say complain I mean this person was completely beside themselves, they were so upset by this movie which was, they insisted, clearly advocating for teens to kill their parents. Unfortunately for the person who wanted the film removed from the system, I was enthralled by the movie. I actually considered sending them a thank you note for suggesting I watch it.

Now, I've never murdered any of my parents, nor faced a former friend in a wizard duel, but I related to both these stories under discussion here, because I've been young and felt alienated and discovered a friend who felt the same sort of alienation at the same time. Even though I'm an actual grown up now, I can still feel exhilaration when I read or view a work of art that captures a universal human experience so beautifully. And my question to J.K. Rowling, or my concern or my confusion or whatever it is that's making this gnat buzz around me, is "Are you telling me that I got it wrong?" I thought I was reading about a universal human experience, something that Rowling is generally damn good at capturing. Was it in fact a "gay" experience? In labeling Dumbledore gay does Rowling wish to expand my understanding of him, or narrow it? I believe that Rowling means for it to expand. In a perfect, wonderful world, it does expand. Certainly learning that my aunt was gay expanded my understanding and appreciation of her life.