Muslim Hate Preachers OK, Harry Potter Not OK

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

Mayor Sadiq Khan’s London is under pressure to cancel Harry Potter-themed Christmas lights on Oxford Street because the woman who created the series refuses to pretend men can become women.

The Good Law Project and thousands of petition signers want the display blocked, arguing it would fund “anti-trans rights” work and make some people feel unwelcome.

At the same time, the same authorities have green-lit advertising featuring Islamic preachers known for inflammatory views on gay people.

??? Meanwhile in LondonThe Deputy Mayor wants to BAN Harry Potter related festivities in LondonWhy?Because of JK Rowling’s outspokenness over the fact Men can’t become Women would upset the Trans CommunityAt the same time they allow Islamist Imans to preach about murdering Gay people??

— Concerned Citizen (@BGatesIsaPyscho) October 14, 2026

A City Hall Conservatives clip shows Conservative Assembly Member Emma Best questioning Deputy Mayor for Culture and Creative Industries Justine Simons, who appeared disappointed by a Harry Potter section of the lights and was pressed on whether she would go further and ban it.

The campaign is straightforward. Organisers claim the lights, intended to promote the new HBO series, would generate more money for JK Rowling, who has used her platform and resources to support women’s sex-based rights.

A Good Law Project spokesperson asked: “How can Mayor Khan tell trans Londoners that ‘this city is yours too’, whilst allowing a Christmas lights display to go ahead that will help fund anti-trans rights groups? The mayor must back up his words with action.”

City Hall’s response was that neither the Mayor nor the Oxford Street Development Corporation arranges the lights.

A spokesperson stated: “The Christmas lights on Oxford Street are not arranged by the Mayor or the Oxford Street Development Corporation, and this is a matter for the New West End Company and local businesses. The Mayor is clear that he will always support and champion all of London’s diverse communities, including trans and non-binary Londoners.”

In the assembly session, Best challenged Simons on the Harry Potter elements, noting the apparent disappointment and asked whether Simons would ban the fictional wizard franchise outright, in spite of its contribution to London’s tourist economy.

Simons responded with hesitation and deflection, prompting Best to reference a London tube ad featuring a cleric who called gay people “filthy” and “worse than animals.”

TfL had treated it as compliant before removal. The contrast is explicit: disappointment or pressure over Harry Potter linked to Rowling’s views, versus prior tolerance of advertising from a preacher with extreme anti-gay statements.

The Mayor’s office has a history of this.

Sadiq Khan faced criticism after ads for the Islamic finance platform Wahed appeared on the London Underground, buses, and platforms featuring preacher Ismail ibn Musa Menk (also known as Mufti Menk) burning US dollar and euro bills under slogans such as “Join the money revolution” and “withdraw from Riba.”

Menk has been banned from several countries for inflammatory teachings and has previously described gay people as “filthy” and “worse than animals.”

Critics, including Conservative Assembly Member Susan Hall, highlighted the double standard: TfL had banned or forced changes to far milder ads, such as a comedian’s hot dog promotion (replaced with a cucumber over “unhealthy eating” rules), Protein World’s “beach body ready” bikini ads, and others deemed to promote negative body images or junk food.

Transport for London also allowed ads promoting tourism to Brunei to run on the Underground even as the country had just introduced a law permitting the stoning to death of gay people.

You’ve banned adverts for junk food and body shaming on all public transport, when will you be removing Brunei tourism ads following the legislation that will see LGBTQ people being stoned to death? We should not be promoting such backward nations @SadiqKhan @TfL https://t.co/zqrGPwLn9C

— Joe (@onlyjoekin_) April 3, 2019

Critics pointed out the inconsistency of permitting promotion of a jurisdiction with extreme anti-gay penalties while restricting commercial imagery considered insufficiently progressive or healthy. TFL was eventually forced to remove the ads.

A number of people have contacted me regarding adverts for Royal Brunei Airlines on TfL’s estate, following news that Brunei has introduced a law punishing gay sex by stoning.I’ve written to @SadiqKhan in his capacity as Chair of TfL asking that they no longer accept these ads https://t.co/rWuISU7IwO

— Tom Copley (@tomcopley) April 3, 2019

Well done @TfL, @tomcopley & @MayorofLondon for removing the Brunei tourism ads on the #tubeIt certainly isn’t ‘an abode of peace’ for #LGBTQ people like me who now face being stoned to death there#BoycottBrunei #Brunei #Gay #LGBT ????

— Oliver Carrington ???? (@olliecarrington) April 3, 2019

Meanwhile, as activists and City Hall figures try to police festive lights, the BBC is preparing a two-part documentary on Rowling as “one of Britain’s most polarising public figures.”

The series, produced by Rogan Scotland for BBC Factual and BBC Scotland, will air on BBC Two, BBC Scotland and iPlayer. It uses Rowling’s life “as a lens through which to explore three decades of profound social, political and technological change.”

The production material states she is “admired by supporters as a fearless defender of women’s rights, and condemned by critics who call her an opponent of trans equality,” and that she “finds herself divided from some of the actors and fans who once championed her work.”

I think we can safely guess in what direction it will lean.

Producers say it will draw on rare archive material, Rowling’s own words, and interviews with people who have worked with her in the past. Rowling herself has no involvement; a representative confirmed she is aware of the project but has not contributed.

BBC ‘is making a JK Rowling documentary on how she became a polarising public figure’… ‘without her input’ https://t.co/wWFjUcA36b

— Daily Mail (@DailyMail) October 13, 2026

James Rogan, executive producer, added: “J.K. Rowling has achieved extraordinary literary success, with her influence spanning a generation of fans, crossing into cinema and the online world. Rogan Scotland explores her unique story from her early days as a writer to the present moment and how her unflinching personal beliefs have sparked a fraught and divisive dialogue that continues to this day.”

This framing arrives after years of Rowling stating a basic biological fact: sex is real and immutable.

She has repeatedly said she supports people living as they wish while opposing the erasure of women’s single-sex spaces, sports, and language.

Earlier this year she noted that some former Harry Potter film actors appeared to treat their past association as a licence to criticise her publicly. She observed that people who have never lived ordinary adult life without wealth and fame can remain “ignorant of how ignorant” they are.

The wider climate in Britain has made ordinary statements of reality into political flashpoints. The Supreme Court has ruled that a woman is defined by biological sex.

Parents have faced the prospect of prison time for questioning their child’s desires to transition.

Meanwhile, we’ve seen ample stories such as this one about toddlers being removed from nursery after being labelled transphobic.

Rowling’s position has remained consistent through all of it: sex is observed, not assigned, and women and girls deserve spaces and language that reflect that reality.

The attempt to turn Christmas lights into a loyalty test, the response from Deputy Mayor Justine Simons when asked about banning Harry Potter, and the decision to commission a documentary that treats basic biology as a source of “polarisation” all point to the same pattern.

Institutions and campaign groups continue to treat disagreement with gender ideology as a problem to be managed or excluded, even while other forms of exclusion and hostility receive different treatment.