Skip to the story
All stories

Yarn shop apologizes for Harry Potter kits, donates proceeds

St. Louis Park store removed merchandise after backlash over author's gender identity remarks

AI-assisted coverage comparison, editor-supervised · How this was made

Published
Yarn shop apologizes for Harry Potter kits, donates proceeds

What this story says

  • Needle & Skein, a yarn shop in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, apologized for selling Harry Potter-themed kits.
  • The shop removed all Harry Potter merchandise from its shelves.
  • Proceeds from the kits sold will be donated to Point of Pride, an organization supporting transgender people.
  • The controversy is connected to author J.K. Rowling's public comments on gender identity.

Who covered it

Left 0%(0)Centre 33%(2)Right 67%(4)

Percentages are shares of the 6 outlets carrying a published leaning rating. Coverage measured .

Trust

48/100

Craft

60/100

Hype

41/100

6 sources · methodology

Thin on the left so far

None of the 6 outlets with a published leaning rating that ran this story are rated left.

This story is still being watched, so it is a count and not yet a finding. Coverage keeps arriving for hours after an event, and a side that has published nothing this morning may publish by tonight. If it is still true when we stop checking, we will say so plainly.

Needle & Skein, a yarn shop in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, has apologized for selling Harry Potter-themed kits. The shop removed all merchandise related to the book series from its shelves. It also pledged to donate all proceeds from the kits that were sold to Point of Pride, an organization that supports transgender people.

The controversy stems from remarks made by Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling regarding gender identity. Critics have accused Rowling of transphobic statements since 2020, while she has maintained her views are based on biological sex. The shop's apology was posted on Facebook and received significant online engagement, drawing over 1,400 comments and nearly 160 shares by Tuesday morning, according to Patch.

Disagreement on donation amount

The Beltway Report stated the shop donated triple the profits to a transgender support organization. The other reports from Patch, nytimespost.com, Fox News, and Power Line indicated the shop would donate all proceeds from the kits sold.

What the coverage left out

None of the right-rated digests mention how many people raised concerns about the kits or how long they were on sale. The centre-rated report from Patch also stated this information was not included in the shop's apology.

Still developing. We have re-checked which outlets are covering this 4 times, most recently on 13 Nov 2026, 08:45, and will add the sides that appear.

How each side covered it

Our own reading of the reporting listed below, written from the outlets’ articles rather than quoted from them. The reasoning is set out on our methodology page.

Left

0 rated outlets

No outlet rated left has run this story so far. We are still checking, and will say plainly if that does not change.

Centre

2 rated outlets

  • The centre-rated report from Patch led with the apology and removal of Harry Potter merchandise. It detailed the shop's statement, including the author's admission of a mistake and the pledge to donate proceeds to Point of Pride. Patch also noted the controversy's link to J.K. Rowling's remarks on gender identity and the significant online reaction to the apology post. The report quoted the shop's closing statement: "With love and humility, the team at needle & skein."

Right

4 rated outlets

  • The right-rated reports from The Beltway Report, nytimespost.com, Fox News, and Power Line focused on the apology, the removal of merchandise, and the donation to a transgender support group. The Beltway Report and Fox News specifically named Point of Pride as the recipient. Power Line framed the event as an example of "wokism" penetrating society. Nytimespost.com included a screenshot of the shop from Google Maps and mentioned the apology was posted on Facebook.

Questions about this coverage

How did the left and right cover Yarn shop apologizes for Harry Potter kits, donates proceeds?
Of the 6 outlets on this story carrying a published leaning rating, 0% are rated left, 33% are rated centre, 67% are rated right. Those percentages are shares of the rated outlets, not of every outlet that ran it. The sections above set out what each side emphasised, in its own terms.
Is Yarn shop apologizes for Harry Potter kits, donates proceeds left or right?
Too few of the outlets on this story carry a published leaning rating to say. 6 of them do, and this site does not characterise a field under 12: at that size one newsroom filing moves the share by ten points. The percentages above are the count as it stands.
Is the coverage of Yarn shop apologizes for Harry Potter kits, donates proceeds biased?
Yarn shop apologizes for Harry Potter kits, donates proceeds is one event reported by 6 outlets, and this page does not rate the story as biased or unbiased. What it publishes is the spread: which outlets ran it, where named rating organisations place each of them on the spectrum, and what each side chose to lead with. A leaning rating describes an outlet's record over time, not this article, and the two should not be run together.
Which side is not reporting Yarn shop apologizes for Harry Potter kits, donates proceeds?
When we first saw this story, outlets rated left had barely covered it. Coverage accretes for hours after an event, so that is where to look rather than a verdict — the split above is the current count, and it is the one to read.
Which outlets covered Yarn shop apologizes for Harry Potter kits, donates proceeds?
6 that we know of, every one of them listed further up this page with a link to its own report and to what we hold on the publisher. Nothing here is a summary of somebody else's summary: the outlets are named so the original reporting can be read.
Why did the yarn shop apologize?
The yarn shop, Needle & Skein, apologized for selling Harry Potter-themed kits. The apology was prompted by backlash related to author J.K. Rowling's public statements on gender identity, which critics have described as transphobic.
What action did the shop take?
Needle & Skein removed all Harry Potter merchandise from its shelves. The shop also publicly apologized on Facebook and pledged to donate all proceeds from the kits sold to Point of Pride, an organization supporting transgender individuals.
What is the connection to J.K. Rowling?
The controversy is linked to J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series. Since 2020, Rowling has made public remarks on gender identity that have been widely criticized by trans rights advocates as transphobic.

Read it at the source

6 outlets, grouped by the leaning a published rating gives them. Every headline links to the original; an underlined outlet name opens our profile of that publisher.

How did this read?

About the coverage, not about the story. We do not ask whether you agree with what happened — we have no honest use for that answer.

Yarn shop apologizes over Harry Potter kits | MediaBias News