Trans artist rebinds Harry Potter series to erase J.K. Rowling’s name

Laur Flom spends hundreds of hours ripping off the covers of Harry Potter books, tearing out their title pages and rebuilding them with self-designed covers that don’t

mention who wrote them. All so that she will not be named. Flom, who is transgender and identifies as nonbinary, is a 23-year-old bartender in Toronto but

moonlights as a printmaker and “book artist.” A Harry Potter fan since childhood, Flom says they were hurt by J.K. Rowling’s transphobic comments in recent years. So about a year

ago, Flom started a project to remove all mentions of the author’s name and rebind the entire series with self-designed, self-made covers and end pages. Under the username

@sensitivequeer, Flom has posted dozens of short videos to TikTok documenting their efforts. Since January 2022, Flom has rebound some 30 books — four complete sets of

the seven-book series, one of which they kept, and two individual books for separate clients. Each book takes about 12 hours to finish, and Flom allots two months to do a full

set, for which they charge about $1,185. Although Flom initially intended to only make a set for their own bookshelf, the project struck a chord after some of their

videos went viral. One of the most recent, a 1:46-minute clip showing Flom rebinding “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” from start to finish, has racked up more than 2.6

million views.