This Is Also Why Yes, Remus Lupin Is Canonically Disabled (i Don’t Give A Fuck If He Only Uses A Cane

this is also why yes, Remus Lupin is canonically disabled (i don’t give a fuck if he only uses a cane in the movies, someone not using a mobility aid doesn’t make them nondisabled?? that’s such a ridiculous argument, plus just because harry didn’t mention him using a cane in the small amount of time he saw remus doesn’t mean he literally never touched a mobility aid. not to mention the movies are part of canon) and yes, it is ableist and really shitty to erase that and write him as able bodied. and this is why he will always always always be queer AND disabled in anything i write or draw.

I think some of y’all missed several days in queer history class so I’m just gonna put this as simply as I can:

If we accept the fact that lycanthropy is an AIDS metaphor (JKR has said she intended it as such so idk what to tell you), then it’s actually NOT queerphobic to extrapolate from that that Remus should be read as queer. I would argue that it’s more of an issue to read him any other way.

I know some of y’all like to make a big fuss about how it’s problematic because AIDS isn’t a gay disease. Babes, idk how to tell you this, but in the historical context in which Harry Potter was written, in the real fucking world during the AIDS crisis, for all intents and purposes, yes it was.

The powers that be in the US and UK governments knowingly and intentionally let the AIDS crisis get as bad as it did because of their belief that it was a gay disease. Were they correct? Did it ONLY kill gay men? No. But did it disproportionately affect gay men? Yes. Did we lose MASSIVE numbers of gay men during the 80’s and 90’s because the government was letting them die on fucking purpose? Baby, yes we did.

And to erase that from a text which is ostensibly a metaphor for that disease is to erase the violence enacted upon that specific population. They died quietly, and without fanfare, and so you have been allowed to forget that their deaths were targeted. They were targeted with inaction on a deadly disease and they were targeted because they were gay. It doesn’t matter if you like it. In the 80’s and 90’s, when the lycanthropy metaphor was written, when the books take place, AIDS was a gay disease.

Further, in that context, it only makes sense to read Remus as queer. The “one good werewolf” in this lycanthropy=AIDS=queerness simply cannot be read as straight.