I had so much fun filling this request for @hptransfest thank you!
Prompt: Trans boy or nonbinary Harry Potter has long hair. Likes: lightning scar that branches down his face like natural lightning, Indian!Harry
This piece is inspired by Naveen Bhat, a nonbinary artist, actor, and filmmaker based in California.
Naveen has a truly incredible story that has recently been made into a documentary film called Escaping Arga. In 2015, Naveen’s mother took them to Agra, India for a two-week vacation. During the second week, she told them that they were going to stay in Agra indefinitely to “fix” Naveen’s queerness. The documentary chronicles their experience of being illegally detained in India, battling their parents in and out of court, and seeking support from the Indian Supreme Court.
In addition to wanting to elevate their story, I thought they would make an adorable Harry, so I reached out to them before I finished the illustration. They were very nice and gave me permission to use them as a muse!
Here’s a quote from an interview with Naveen:
“I would say please be safe. If possible, try to find friends that will love and accept you regardless of your gender identity and sexual orientation. If there is one thing I learnt from my experiences, it is that there are always multitudes of people who will love and support you. I had many people I didn’t even know coming to me with words of support online and in person. There is a great pressure that cisgender heterosexual people put on us to ‘come out of the closet’ and announce who we truly are, but they do not understand that our safety and security are at stake when we do come out. We need systemic change and we can’t do it alone. We need an active approach to allyship. ‘Ally’ is not a noun. It’s not an adjective. ‘Ally’ is a verb, and we must constantly work to dismantle systems of oppression and do everything we can to prevent another act of violence[...]. As queer people, we see ourselves getting killed and/or being devastated constantly. It’s in our movies, our TV shows, in books and on the news. Everywhere we turn, we see representations of ourselves being miserable. We are in pain. We are suffering. This needs to end now.”
