Instead of buying Hogwarts Legacy, protesters raise over $5k by donating the price of the game to trans charity

The latest Hogwarts Legacy protest takes a more philanthropic route by encouraging people to send the money they would have spent on the game to a trans charity instead, and it's already raised over $5,000.  

Twitch streamer Boba recently started and shared a charity effort via Tiltify. "Support Mermaids not JK," it's titled, referring to the well-established UK trans charity Mermaids as well as Harry Potter author JK Rowling. You can reasonably treat it as a normal charity fund, but it's specifically angled to soak up money that would otherwise have been spent on Hogwarts Legacy. 

"I'm fundraising for Mermaids," the campaign reads. "Any amount is accepted but especially the amounts for the cost of Hogwarts Legacy - $59.99 for standard edition, $69.99 for deluxe (£50.00). Any amount helps." 

At the time of writing, the charity has raised over £4,600, or roughly $5,700 by current exchange rates. Not all donations stick to the price of Hogwarts Legacy – there's even a £500 donor at the top slot – but quite a few do, so the charity's message clearly came across. 

"Trans rights are human rights," reads one donor comment. "I've had no interest in the game because Rowling, but I can always get behind trans rights. Money far better spent," says another. "I'm sick of seeing the treatment trans people have to face in society and want there to be change sooner rather than later," one donor adds. 

Earlier this month, Steam users began to protest Hogwarts Legacy's release by slapping the game with tags like "psychological horror" and even "World War II." Just this week, one of the game's voice actors issued a statement regarding the harmful views of Harry Potter author JK Rowling, affirming that they were "cast in this project over three years ago ... long before I was aware of JK Rowling's views."

Although she is not involved in the development of Hogwarts Legacy, GamesRadar+ acknowledges the role of J.K. Rowling in the creation of the Wizarding World, as well as her publicly-stated, harmful views regarding the rights of transgender people. If you’d like to offer your support to the communities affected by Rowling’s rhetoric, consider donating to the National Center for Transgender Equality in the US, or indeed Mermaids in the UK.