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Harry Potter ... the new gay icon?
Wizard books tell a coming-out story of secret desires and discovering a separate culture, argues US literary critic
By Liam McDougall, Arts Correspondent

HARRY Potter, the boy from 4 Privet Lane who finds that he has magical powers, might just have another reason for feeling a little misunderstood by 'normal' society. The young wizard may, in fact, be gay.

According to controversial gay US commentator Michael Bronski, the plot of JK Rowling's books follows an identical path to that of the traditional coming-out story. Not only have Harry's differences made him an outcast in his own family, he is emotionally and mentally mistreated by his relatives, the Dursleys, who are 'proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much'.

Bronski also claims that throughout the Potter story, in which Harry is confused by his secret desires and is forced to live in a cupboard -- or closet -- to deny who he really is, Rowling's language and story details 'lend themselves effortlessly' to a gay reading of the bestselling series.

'I think the reading grows with each book. Any good novel can have any number of readings, and I certainly think my gay reading of Harry Potter is there.

'In the early chapters there is a constant reminder that Harry should not bring his 'abnormality' into the Dursleys' house. All of the language -- that the Dursleys are normal and that they never mention the M-word -- very much lends itself to actual society, where there is still a strong feeling that the G-word or the H-word should not be mentioned.

'I related very heavily to those early chapters in the first book. It struck me in the first few pages that here was a revolt against accepted, conventional life. A lot of gay people I know read the books that way, and it really mirrors their own experiences of discovering who they really are. They can relate to moving into this other world -- the Muggle world -- but also to being separate from it.'

Although Bronski, author of a number of books including Culture Clash: The Making Of Gay Sensibility, is careful to stress he does not believe Rowling wrote the books as a gay allegory, he argues that, especially in her latest book, The Order Of The Phoenix, she seems to 'play more openly' with a gay reading of the books.

He points to one section when, during an argument with Harry, the obnoxious Dudley mentions that Harry's cousin spoke in his sleep about someone named Cedric, and lashes out at him: 'Who's Cedric -- your boyfriend?' He also argues that the young wizard's wand is also described in more phallic terms. Not only does Harry impress by producing a full-formed corporeal creature (a Patronus) from his wand, instead of just 'vapour and smoke' -- hinting at the boy's maturity -- in another section a house owl scolds Harry by warning him to put his wand back in his pants.

Bronski added: 'Even more intriguing, from a queer perspective, is how Rowling has structured the double world in the Potter books. In gay life, there is a separation between gay culture and mainstream culture, just as there is between magical culture and Muggle culture in the books.

'You might argue that this could stand for any minority group. But certainly with racial differences, African-American people don't have to have secret signals for each other -- you are black or you are white. In the Harry Potter books the magical people have ways to recognise each other in much the same way as gay and lesbian culture historically dev ised certain invisible codes, such as wearing a certain item or clothing or colour, or having a saying, to show their sexuality.'

Bronski's comments are an open attack on the Christian right, which has launched a campaign to have the books banned because, it argues, they glorify sorcery, celebrate the occult and encourage witchcraft. Such is the ferocity of the campaign that in the past four years more attempts were made to ban Rowling's books from US libraries than any other title or author.

In the UK, too, the Potter books have been censored. Carol Rookwood, head teacher of St Mary's Island School in Kent, banned the books from the school because the Bible condemns witches and wizards as evil, while the books portray them as fun and harmless.

She said: 'Our ethos on teaching comes from the Bible. The Bible is clear about issues such as witchcraft, demons, devils and the occult. It says clearly and consistently from Genesis to Revelation that they are real, powerful and dangerous. Throughout it insists that God's people should have nothing to do with them.'

In a letter sent to parents, Rookwood said: 'I believe it is confusing to children when something wicked is being made to look fun'.

Publishers Bloomsbury and Rowling's agent, Christopher Little, were unavailable to comment last night. However, the reassessment of the latest Potter story as the most openly gay text in the series will further infuriate the growing number of Christian groups who believe that Rowling's books are playing a part in turning impressionable children away from the teachings of Jesus Christ. It also comes at a time when the issue of homo sexuality in the Church is right at the top of the political agenda.

'The Christian right just might be, at least partly, right,' said Bronski. 'The Harry Potter books are a threat to accepted ideas about the social welfare and mental health of children. Not because they romanticise witchcraft and wizardry, but because they are deeply subversive in their unremitting attacks on the received wisdom that being 'normal' is good, reasonable or even healthy.

'It would be lousy literary criticism simply to claim that the Potter books are gay; they can obviously be read in a myriad of ways. But they are profoundly queer in the broadest sense of the word. They are at heart an attack on the very idea of normality. The Harry Potter books tell children again and again that being normal is dull, unexciting, unimaginative and deadening.'
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