The left has been acting for years as if the sky is falling when it comes to adult-themed books supposedly being "banned" from school children. Those books are often still available at libraries, at bookstores, and for purchase online. Booksmith, located in San Francisco, is going for their own book ban when it comes to the works by JK Rowling, however, as she dares to stand up for women's rights.
On Thursday, NBC News reported that Booksmith announced earlier this month over Instagram that they would no longer be selling Rowling's books.
The Instagram post includes a picture of the bookstore with a sign for those shoppers who are looking for "Harry Potter." As the sign and the post about it read:
"In May of 2025, author JK Rowling publicly committed to using her private wealth from the Harry Potter series to develop the J.K. Rowling Women’s Fund, an organization dedicated to removing transgender rights "in the workplace, in public life, and in protected female spaces”.
With this announcement, we’ve decided to stop carrying her books. We don’t know exactly what her new “women’s fund” will entail, but we know that we aren’t going to be a part of it.
As a group of queer booklovers, we also had our adolescences shaped by wizards and elves. Look at us, it’s obvious. If you or someone you love wants to dive into the world of Harry Potter, we suggest doing so by buying used copies of these books.
Rowling has long been an advocate for women's rights, especially when it comes to men invading their personal spaces, including at women's shelters, and she's been subject to some nasty insults and even threats over it.
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Booksmith was taking issue with Rowling daring to use her personal wealth to fund the J.K. Rowling Women’s Fund, which describes itself as a legal fund to support "individuals and organisations fighting to retain women’s sex-based rights in the workplace, in public life, and in protected female spaces." As NBC News mentioned, the fund doesn't even reference trans people. The report still goes after Rowling nonetheless, though.
In addition to the Instagram post from June 5, the Booksmith account has posted about the trans community in other ways, including a "Silent Reading Party" held on June 24 to benefit the "Trans Youth Emergency Fund."
Reporting from NBC News highlights responses from the bookstore over people expressing outrage about such a move, with Booksmith laughably claiming it's not actually about politics:
On Monday, Booksmith provided a list on its website of fantasy books similar to the “Harry Potter” series for readers who are interested in alternatives, sparking some backlash and a debate about whether bookstores should make decisions about which books their customers can access.
“So you’re going to curate your selections to only sell books by authors that you agree with politically,” one commenter wrote on social media. “Good to know. I’ll be shopping elsewhere.”
Booksmith responded: “There are plenty of books we carry that we don’t ‘agree’ with, but in this case, it’s not politics at all. When the author of a book states that all sales of those books will contribute to an anti-trans fund, the only way we can choose not to participate is by not selling the books any longer. It’s no different than when we encourage you to buy your books in indies rather than purchase them on Amazon. It stands in direct opposition to everything we believe in and that we have tried to uphold in our nearly 50 years of selling books. If you want to read the HP books, we implore you to buy them used locally, where the money stays in the community you love.”
The bookstore banning Rowling's books is a trending topic on X for Friday morning, and NBC News' Thursday post has receive a ratio with over 4,000 replies and plenty of quoted reposts taking issue with such a move from the bookstore.
Many of the replies took issue with book bans, including how Booksmith itself has called out "book bans" and even held a fundraiser about such concerns.
Among those putting out quoted reposts included Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), who represents California's 17th Congressional District, which includes the South Bay and East Bay sections of San Fransisco. The bookstore is located in Rep. Nancy Pelosi's (D-CA), district, who has not put out any such post over X.
Is this you guys?
— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) June 26, 2025
H/t @JerryDunleavy pic.twitter.com/mtIKZOZDeZ
Progressives must be consistently for free speech & not censor books because they disagree with the views of the author. What's next? Will the store no longer sell the Republic because Plato accepted slavery as part of ancient Greek society? https://t.co/H7IXuVeIqe
— Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) June 27, 2025
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