Hello everybody! Welcome back to Could it Be?, where I review LGBTQ+ headcanons! In this week's (long) headcanon review, we'll be having a look at one of my personal favorites: lesbian Ginny Weasley! Now, I know this one is pretty controversial and can be hard to understand, so I'll break it down.

So, at first glance, this seems pretty impossible. And yeah, if you count Cursed Child as canon, it pretty much is. But in my opinion, Cursed Child just breaks too many canon facts and has too many OoC (out of character) moments for anything in it to be considered canon. This isn't anything against the actors or anyone involved in the actual play, which I hear is very good (though I haven't seen myself), just the actual plot. 

Lesbian Ginny also doesn't really work if you consider the 19 years later epilogue, but personally, I like to disregard that when making theories and headcanons. In my opinion, it was simply unecessary and kind of forcing a final narrative on readers. However, if you think of Cursed Child and the epilogue as canon, I totally understand and don't have anything against that.

Now, with that out of the way, let's have a look at lesbian Ginny.

The main thing, at least for me, is that Ginny's crush on Harry seems like textbook unreachable-celebrity-boy-crush (see here if you don't know what that is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrTlAT5kVXs). You know, the way a lot of lesbians in denial about their sexuality will pick one male celebrity to have a crush on that they know would be completely unrealistic to actually date, in order to prove that they feel attraction to boys? Yeah. Ginny's crush on Harry seems like exactly that to me. Harry is probably one of, if not the biggest teenage celebrity in the Wizarding World. Even her whole "not talking to Harry for a year" thing seems in line with that: her "unreachable" boy crush accidentally became totally within reach for her, so she doesn't talk to him, convincing herself that it's because she does have a crush on him, in order to subconsciously distance herself from him even more.

Now, that might seem like a stretch, but I honestly think it's one of the few possible explanations for Ginny's silence. Not talking at all when Harry is anywhere near her for almost two years is very out of character for Ginny. Even Ron points out in Chamber of Secrets that "normally she doesn't shut up." And while Ginny's silence around Harry is generally interpreted to be her having a crush, I think it would also be reasonable to say she's just starstruck: I mean, if your brother suddenly became best friends with Emma Watson, you'd probably still be nervous to talk to her (especially as a literal eleven-year-old), but that doesn't necessarily mean you're head over heels for her. And then, of course, Ginny shuts herself off from pretty much everyone during Chamber of Secrets because of the whole diary situation. 

So then Ginny's "crush" on Harry is pretty much ignored until Order of the Phoenix, when Harry starts catching feelings for her, and of course they do actually start dating in Half-Blood Prince. 

Now, I'll get back to that in a minute, but first, we also have to talk about Ginny's two other boyfriends, Michael Corner and Dean Thomas. In case you don't remember, Ginny was dating Michael Corner for some of Order of the Phoenix, and Dean Thomas for a bit of Half-Blood Prince. 

Michael Corner is a Ravenclaw in Harry's year. He's friends with Anthony Goldstein and Terry Boot. Ginny supposedly started dating Michael in an attempt to "move on" from Harry. However, I think that if we continue looking at this through a queer lense, you could definitely interpret this as her trying to prove to herself that she could love a boy, especially considering that the wording of her trying to use him to move on from Harry implies that there wasn't actually anything there. Ginny proceeded to dump Michael after he was sulking excessively after Gryffindor beat Ravenclaw at Quidditch. 

Ginny then started dating Dean Thomas, one of Harry and Ron's dormmates, towards the end of Order of the Phoenix, and their relationship continues well into Half-Blood Prince. At first, their relationship goes well. However, they soon start to argue a lot. In an attempt to stop arguing with Ginny, Dean starts being overly chivalrous to her, but that only annoys Ginny, and they eventually break up after he opens the portrait hole for her. Now, Ginny's relationship with Dean may seem a lot more genuine, and yeah, compared to her relationship with Michael, it is. However, see if you can notice what I did about her announcing her relationship to Ron: 

Ron: "Just choose someone -- better -- next time."

Ginny: "Well, I've chosen Dean Thomas, would you say he's better?"

Yup: Ginny says she "chose" Dean Thomas. If you didn't know, another very common experience for lesbians in denial is just randomly "choosing" a boy to have a crush on, and it definitely seems like that is exactly what Ginny was doing with Dean. So, I think it's safe to say that her relationships with both Dean and Michael were pretty superficial. 

So then, after a Quidditch victory in Half-Blood Prince, Harry and Ginny finally kiss. Ginny says that she was always holding out for Harry, even when she was dating other guys (which, if you think about Harry being her one celebrity boy crush, does seem kinda gay), and the two officially start dating happily. 

So, what gives? This seems to pretty much unwravel every arguement I've made here about her relationships with boys being fake. Except, there's one key factor to consider here: there's a literal war going on. 

War, especially in the Harry Potter universe, can bring people together really quickly. I mean, look at James and Lily, who were married with a kid at 20 years old. Look at Lupin and Tonks, who fell in love, got married, and had a kid all in the course of two years. And though we don't know exactly when Molly and Arthur got married, Molly said that they got married early because of the uncertainty of the first Wizarding War. 

So I don't think it would be that radical to say that a lot of the couples that rushed into things during the two Wizarding Wars probably weren't actually made for each other (if you ask me, Lupin and Tonks were one of those couples, but that's a separate thing). And, in my opinion, Ginny and Harry were definitely not a perfect match. 

Harry's time with Ginny, especially during Deathly Hallows, is always described as a moment of peace (in the books... in the movies, they're just tying each others shoes). And I think it's safe to say Ginny felt the same way. But I don't think it's fair to say that that definitely means that they were supposed to be with each other romantically. 

I think you could compare this to Luke and Leia kissing in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. They'd just gone through something very traumatic and they felt close to each other, so they kissed. Does that mean they were supposed to get together romantically? Absolutely not! They were gosh darn siblings! They didn't know it at the time, but that was literal incest.

While Ginny and Harry obviously aren't siblings, I do think they were supposed to just be friends. I mean, we haven't even mentioned the weirdness that is Ginny being Harry's best friend's sister. 

And, it would be immoral to mention the lesbian Ginny headcanon without at least briefly touching upon Linny (Ginny x Luna Lovegood). I won't say much about it here, partly because Linny is my absolute OTP and I know I would be biased, but I think it's important to mention that there was probably definitely something between them. Like, the way Ginny gets so defensive when anyone calls Luna "Loony," or how she insisted she and Luna stay behind and keep watch when Harry's trying to sneak into Umbridge's office in Order of the Phoenix... yeah, there was definitely something there. And Linny is honestly the only reason I say that Ginny was gay and not aroace (see last week's issue [https://www.hogwartsishere.com/library/book/26546/] if you want to see who I do think is aroace). 

Linny aside, though, I think that if you really take a close look at all of Ginny's relationships with guys, none of them really seem like true love. So, despite everything J. K. Rowling says about Ginny's undying love for Harry, from the things we actually see Ginny say and do, I think there's a surprising amount of evidence that Ginny was actually not interested in boys. This headcanon is obviously not flawless, especially considering that she apparently marries Harry in the epilogue and Cursed Child (by the way, even before I knew that gay people existed, I was really mad to find out that that happened when I was like 6 years old), and it's definitely never going to actually be canon, but I really like lesbian Ginny as a concept, and I'm really disappointed that we'll never get to see it from any canon sources.

Well, that concludes this week's Could it Be?, hope you enjoyed! If you want me to review your favorite LGBTQ+ Harry Potter headcanon, owl me with your headcanon or post it in the club, AGGatH Readers (https://www.hogwartsishere.com/groups/70203/), and I'll include it in future issues!