Gay comedian Bowen Yang portrayed Dobby the House Elf — the anxious and self-abusing servant from J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter fantasy book series — while discussing Rowling’s transphobic politics on a recent installment of Saturday Night Live’s satirical Weekly Update news program.

The segment began with Weekly Update co-host Michael Che mentioning that Rowling recently insulted Harry Potter actress Emma Watson (who played wizard Hermione Granger in the film adaptations of the books) for disagreeing with Rowling’s anti-trans political stances. Che then summoned Dobby to comment, noticed the elf’s fear, and told him, “Dobby, you OK? You don’t have to be scared.”

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“Scared? Why would Dobby be scared, sir?” Yang’s character replied. “Dobby’s just about to publicly weigh in on trans people, that’s all.”

Che replied, “Do you really have to?”

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“Oh yes, sir,” the elf said. “Master sent Dobby to go on the telly and define once and for all what a woman is, sir.”

Che, a Black comedian, said he “really doesn’t” like Dobby using the word “master” (likely for its connotations to the enslavement of Black people in the U.S.), and then asked Dobby if his master is Rowling.

“Why of course, sir,” the elf responded before regretfully admitting that he wasn’t supposed to reveal his master’s identity. The elf then began banging their head against a desk while repeating, “Bad Dobby!” as a form of self-punishment.

After Che encouraged the elf to stop the self-abuse, Dobby explained, “Well, you see, Master Rowling has done so much for Dobby and for inclusion in general. Remember when Dumbledore was gay, after the books came out? And when Hermione was Black, only on Broadway?”

The comments referred to the fact that, after releasing all seven books of the original series, Rowling declared that Dumbledore, the heroic headmaster of a wizarding school, was gay (despite there being no explicit evidence in the books to suggest the character’s homosexuality whatsoever). Also, Hermione’s character was portrayed by a Black actress in a London stage production of the play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

Dobby also mentioned that Rowling included an Asian character in her books named Cho Chang, a name that readers have mocked for its heavy-handed ethnicity.

Dobby then added, “The point is Dobby came here to say that women have vaginas and women’s bathrooms are for women only and girls and ghosts of girls.” His quip was a reference to Moaning Myrtle, a ghost of a female student who actually haunts the boys’ bathroom in the books’ wizarding school setting.

Che commented that he didn’t understand the reference to the ghost because he “never read those corny-ass books.”

When Che asked Dobby why he continually abuses himself, Dobby then said, “Why? Dobby doesn’t know. Perhaps because house elves are always the problem, even though we are only 1% of the population. But house elves aren’t the victims — Master Rowling is. She gets so much hate mail. Just this morning she received this t-shirt that says ‘They K. Rowling,'” Dobby said, holding up a t-shirt bearing an image of the author with short blue hair.

Anywhere from 0.8% to 1.6% of the population identifies as trans, according to the Pew Research Center and the Williams Institute.

J.K. Rowling uses her fortune to fund anti-trans legal attacks

Rowling has used her vast wealth, mostly accumulated through the success of her Harry Potter franchise and its many multimedia spinoffs, to personally fund legal cases aimed at diminishing rights and protections for transgender women in the U.K. and Ireland. Rowling has repeatedly vilified trans women as “men” and as threats to female safety and privacy.

A spokesperson for Rowling confirmed that the author’s JK Rowling Women’s Fund (JKRWF) has been quietly operating since late 2024, managing “her ongoing financial support for legal cases involving women’s and girls’ sex-based rights.”

The fund is just her latest effort to end trans women’s rights in the U.K. In February 2024, she pledged a £70,000 (about $89,000) to For Women Scotland (FWS), the anti-trans organization behind the legal challenge that resulted in the U.K. Supreme Court’s ruling that excluded trans women from the country’s law prohibiting sex-based discrimination.

HBO is currently producing a Harry Potter reboot to which Rowling will serve as an executive producer. Casey Bloys, HBO’s gay CEO, has repeatedly dismissed concerns about her toxic transphobia, saying that Rowling is “entitled” to “her personal political views.”

According to The Guardian, the Harry Potter franchise is worth an estimated $25 billion. In a May 28 Bluesky post, British barrister Jolyon Maugham wondered how much of Rowling’s fortune would be spent “oppressing a minoritised group she doesn’t like.”

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