They just straight-up shamelessly lie about her.

When HBO announced its upcoming reunion special “Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts,” the star-studded lineup did not include You-Know-Who.

In the weeks leading up to the highly anticipated program, streaming New Year’s Day on HBO Max, not a single teaser, trailer or poster has featured “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling, who has come under fire in recent years for repeatedly expressing anti-transgender views.

That’s a lie.

Rowling has been known to object to lies of that kind, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Los Angeles Times (normally a respected newspaper) issue a correction with apology.

She hasn’t “expressed anti-transgender views.” It’s not “anti” to point out that only women are women and thus men are not women.

Despite her absence from HBO’s marketing campaign, however, Rowling does appear in the special, which samples footage from a 2019 interview with her. The archival clips of Rowling are fleeting, accounting for less than 30 seconds of the nearly two-hour-long show.

So, insultingly minimal. The whole gigantic enterprise came out of her head, but they simply have to pretend she doesn’t matter. That’s “anti” if you like.

An HBO spokesperson told The Times that Rowling was invited to do a new interview but that producers felt the previously captured footage was adequate. HBO did not respond to requests for clarification as to whether Rowling declined the interview or filmed a new interview that producers then decided to leave out of the special. 

Which hints that she probably did do an interview at their request and that they insultingly dropped it in the trash.

More than 20 years after “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” hit theaters, Rowling’s anti-trans rhetoric has continued to fuel discourse about separating art from the artist…

It’s not anti-trans and it’s not “rhetoric.”