I wonder if people are annoyed because Dumbledore is such a revered
character, that he's such a deep well of spiritual strength, and not the
stock gay character too often seen in literature--at best, the comical,
asexual straight girl's best friend and at worst, the sinister,
self-serving ultra-materialist. People have been fed such a diet of junk
about GLBT people--unfortunately, through literature as well as movies and
tv--that they can't accept this twist after loving Dumbledore for six
books, not being sure of him in the seventh, and then finding out they
could still love him. The fallout symbolized by that one statement Dawn
mentions--"We did not need to know this"--is absurd, of course, but it does
give us an opportunity to make visible a crushingly invisible group of
people. My initial reaction was, Why did she wait so long? In reflection,
though, I am glad the ball is now in the court of people who assume that
the entirety of a gay person's life is sex,so now,gay + Dumbledore equals
cognitive dissonance. It is definitely time literary works responsibly
reflected two truths: everyone knows gay people, and therefore, characters
in literature should know gay people or be GLBT; and GLBT people are as
good, bad, beautiful, and ugly as straight people.
Renee Gravelle
Library Media Specialist
Dunkirk High School
Dunkirk, NY 14048
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