Dating Disasters·
NOT ALLOWED TO GO
Two lovers clash over a $2,500 trip to Universal Orlando, as one partner refuses to participate over Rowling's views, arguing money and autonomy collide with moral principle.
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A $2,500 vacation to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter turned into a fight over whether one man was "not allowed" to go.
The 27-year-old poster had spent years wanting to visit Universal Orlando. Only after receiving an inheritance from his father's will did he finally have the money to book it. He planned the trip carefully: Universal, the new park, and some time split with his best friend between Universal and Disney World, because they likely would not get another shot at the trip anytime soon.
He told his girlfriend about it up front. They had been together for four years, and at first she said she was excited for them. But she made one thing clear: she did not want to go herself, because she did not support Harry Potter or J.K. Rowling's views on LGBT people.
Then the conversation shifted.
According to the poster, once she learned Rowling was allegedly using her fortune to fund anti-trans campaigns, she became upset. She said going would mean supporting transphobia and anti-trans people. He says he tried to explain the practical side first: the trip was nonrefundable. The plane tickets, hotel, and park passes could not be refunded. If he canceled, he would lose about $2,500.
That didn't change her response. She told him money did not matter. "It doesn't matter, it's not about the money, it's about the principle and I'm not allowed to go," he quoted her as saying. She also pointed to her trans brother and said she could not support a trip tied to Rowling.
The poster says the argument got sharper from there. He said they had already agreed early in the relationship that he could do whatever he wanted regarding Harry Potter, and she simply would not participate. Now she was trying to reverse that understanding.
He pushed back. "I respect what she's saying and where she's coming from, but I'm not throwing away that kind of money," he wrote. He said he could not justify wasting thousands of dollars on a nonrefundable trip he had planned for a long time.
His girlfriend, he said, kept holding the line: he was "not allowed to go" because it would mean supporting Rowling and, by extension, anti-trans people.
For the poster, the issue was no longer just Harry Potter. It was whether a girlfriend could effectively ban him from taking a vacation he had already paid for. As he put it, "she can't just ban me from going somewhere, I'm an adult just like she is and I can make my own decisions."