• kellyaster
    link
    fedilink
    21
    edit-2
    10 months ago

    In case people don’t know, JK Rowling’s pen name is a reference to Robert Galbraith Heath, a psychiatrist who experimented with gay conversion therapy in the 60s and 70s using surgically implanted electrodes on gay men’s brains. He claims to have “cured” one of them. He did lots of other fucked up things too, and of course Rowling denies her pen name has anything to do with him. FWIW, she also claims she’s not a bigot, but her words and actions clearly indicate otherwise.

    • partial_accumen
      link
      fedilink
      010 months ago

      JK Rowling’s pen name is a reference to Robert Galbraith Heath, a psychiatrist who experimented with gay conversion therapy in the 60s and 70s using surgically implanted electrodes on gay men’s brains.

      Unless thats some conservative dog whistle I don’t know about, (and I’m no JKR apologist) your statement directly contradicts her own official answer as to the origin of the name:

      Why the name Robert Galbraith?

      I chose Robert because it’s one of my favourite men’s names, because Robert F Kennedy
       is my hero and because, mercifully, I hadn’t used it for any of the characters in the
       Potter series or The Casual Vacancy.
      
      Galbraith came about for a slightly odd reason. When I was a child,
       I really wanted to be called ‘Ella Galbraith’, and I’ve no idea why.
       I don’t even know how I knew that the surname existed, because
       I can’t remember ever meeting anyone with it. Be that as it may,
       the name had a fascination for me. I actually considered calling
       myself L A Galbraith for the Strike series, but for fairly obvious 
      reasons decided that initials were a bad idea.
      
      Odder still, there was a well-known economist called 
      J K Galbraith, something I only remembered by the time it was
       far too late. I was completely paranoid that people might take 
      this as a clue and land at my real identity, but thankfully nobody
       was looking that deeply at the author’s name.
      

      source

    • Throwaway
      link
      fedilink
      -810 months ago

      I don’t see how. The initials JKR dont appear anywhere in there, is there something Im missing?