Usbourne publishing calling mums transphobes

Izzy (the Year 8 protagonist) inspires her father to go on breakfast television and discuss the issue with an evangelist pastor. He wins with these insane arguments! Apparently!

So... the book takes an interesting turn into the issue of trans kids. An article appears in the newspaper about the issue of trans kids and we are firmly told that 'clever' girls know the papers are lying!

Multi level marketing. It is a business practice where it is a pyramid scheme where those at the top get a commission from all of those they recruit and then the people that these workers recruit. It means that those at the bottom (often mums needing a bit of extra cash) are paid a pittance for each book sale while those above them make the real money.

I absolutely agree with the analysis by Red - it's essential to understand and address the biggest picture possible. Politics, money, culture wars, wokeism, power. And how Western capitalism shores everything up. Jennifer Bilek is a great person to follow on Twitter for this.

However, this movement also relies on the personal. Relies on as many individuals as possible being netted - whether they actually truly believe it or feel that they must stay quiet because they assume everyone else is on board.

The implied threat of being shunned carries immense weight and power. Both Red and I, and so many who dare to question, are living that reality. Either personally or publicly.

The power of MumsNet is that it makes the public personal and the personal public. It brings difficult and complex issues into the living rooms of women and parents and makes them relateable to our own experiences and our own families, so that we have a personal focus of engagement and connection.

For a long time I've known that we need to see the biggest picture, we need to join all the dots together. But for the picture to make sense, we have to expose and call it out on every level.

The personal is corporate. The personal is political. The ideology relies equally on change happening simultaneously from the bottom up and the top down.

Every layer needs exposing for it to make sense to us as a society.

There are absolutely times to grey rock, but I don't think this is it. The discussions are too important here - safeguarding and a narrative that has the power to silence and manipulate us all.

Ffs.

"Usborne apologises for puberty book that says breasts exist to make girls ‘look grown-up and attractive’ "

Gross. Misogynistic and a more than a bit peado-y.

Oh dear Lord, was that them? It was awful.

"Looks like they have previous form for misogyny:"

twitter.com/NorthernSoleuk/status/1216056916079730690?s=19

"Usborne apologises for puberty book that says breasts exist to make girls ‘look grown-up and attractive’ "

t.co/M5FjpIdZb1

MLM

Multi-level marketing - also (or used to be) called pyramid selling, network marketing, and referral marketing.

Basically piss your friends and family off trying to sell them stuff.

Abbreviation help please! What is "MLM"??

(Sorry for the interruption ! It's bugging me - once I know I can go back to the beginning.)

I want to know how they punish the non believer children.

Let us guess how this fairy story ends.

Does Izzy's mum now become a lesbian, her daddy a second mummy and they all live happily ever after? Do they all gleefully share clothes and spend the time painting their nails? Does Izzy realise she is a boy and transition herself?

I think I feel we must set our own agenda and write our own stories and hope that their truth rings out rather than fight a battle on someone else's ground and be seen to be 'attacking' in anyway.

The truth is something you repeat and has power in its own right.

madamnomad.com/2018/10/07/not-woke-my-experience-as-the-child-of-a-trans-individual/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
A blog on the experience of someone genuinely in this position...

These are the last two paragraphs

Trans people aren’t bad people, but my experience with the trans individual I know best was akin to child abuse. I don’t know how else to describe my exposure to such graphic sexual issues so early and often. In addition to the sexual content, the feelings of betrayal and abandonment I associate with my father’s behavior as he navigated his transition leave me feeling jumpy and twitchy every time trans issues come up.

There is no hate here, no agenda. There is only pain, a lot of prayer, and the fervent hope that this pain will one day become something good.

It's funny how these fictional stories all have happy endings where everyone lives happy ever after and no one has the guts to explore the real life stories of those affected by a family member who is trans.

We are all just invisible or erased by fictional fairy stories.

It frustrates me no end, especially as I feel that challenging this particular fantasy only serves to strengthen its message which I find just so objectionable and at odds with my own real life experience and that of many others.

It's like being gagged a second time by cuckoos who seek to make money out of an ideology which silences our experiences for the first time.

I know I'm yet to find something good come out of what happened to my family. If anything it's still the 'gift that keeps giving' in terms of the pain it creates.

Stonewall are a neo-liberal organisation that exists only because it can sell wokism. Its purpose isn't to promote LGBT rights and issues. Its purpose is to support those who work for the organisation and the interests of those who donate to the organisation.

The writer is cashing in on this too. Its self interest and about money over everything else. It will continue until the money dries up.

It is not interested in vulnerable groups because its priority is exploiting people who want to be nice at the expense of those who are genuinely vulnerable.

Its so far away from its initial aims its scary.

Stonewall itself is the issue as its the legitimising force, not the book. I think thats what you have to keep in mind. People will forgive just about anything because they see the word Stonewall.

Thats why the LGB Alliance is so important because it exposes the issues at their core rather than helping to promote a book for a publisher who just in it for the money and the woke points. The best efforts lie with the organisation imho.

The book itself reads as being incredibly grubby and erasing boundaries that children shouldn't be being exposed to, but how do you tackle that? The woke crowd label it as being prudish... cos they don't see the issue directly. Sexual liberation is lauded as being progressive. You'll get no traction for pointing out the obvious flaws here for that reason.

Its only via other means that the house of cards falls.

Worryingly a trend in dehumanising those who are 'expendable' or 'lesser' is part of current politics on both the left and the right atm because of the collaspe of the centre... If people don't want to see the abuse of other humans because its conveniant to them, it doesn't matter what you say, because they'll ignore it. History tells us that. Its only the expose of it in horrific terms they can no longer deny which wakes up people.

Sadly I think thats the track we are on, and I can't see a way to put the brakes on and prevent the runaway train of it all.

I wish I were more cheerful, but its all about the money and the fashion.

You have to hope more than anything that the fashion changes, as thats what is supporting a lot of it at the moment. The next question then becomes 'what next?'.

LangCleg, Sat 11-Jan-20, 22:34:19, just above:

It's the same old cycle. We never face up to why we lurch from one scandal to another because nobody is ever able to point out safeguarding failures without being punished (as I have been on this very thread) by people outraged because they can't see the forest (the safeguarding failure) for the trees (the current group that cannot be criticised) until it's too late. Doesn't matter what the group is.

Yes, this.

I get what you're saying Red, but if we grey rock we'll not be able to shine the sunlight on the main issue- Stonewall trying to gaslight children of transitioners. I think that's worth talking about.

You really can't win by pointing out how fucked up this is.

It's the same old cycle. We never face up to why we lurch from one scandal to another because nobody is ever able to point out safeguarding failures without being punished (as I have been on this very thread) by people outraged because they can't see the forest (the safeguarding failure) for the trees (the current group that cannot be criticised) until it's too late. Doesn't matter what the group is.

Ugh. Present simple tense in fiction. It's like an infectious disease.
That excerpt is normalising the representation of womanhood as pink and silky. Wonder why we almost always see this with late transitioners? Is there a pattern?

That paragraph above is disturbing.

The reality is that publishers go off units sold. If this bombs they won't go there again.

Thats the danger. It highlighting the creepy grooming crap you create a Barbara Streisand effect.

You really can't win by pointing out how fucked up this is. Neo-liberal capitalism speaks. Its all about the bottom-line...

Well, if I go by the 'woke-rules', I don't need to read the book, do I? I should just be led by those who tell me what is good and what is bad.

John Boyne, bloke who is gay, wrote a book called My Brother's Name is Jessica about a boy struggling to cope with the transitioning of his sibling. Bad. Apparently. Boyne told to 'stay in your lane'.

Sarah Hagget-Holt, woman who is lesbian, wrote a book called Nothing Ever Happens Here. about a girl struggling to cope with the transitioning of her parent. Sarah lauded. No 'lanes' referenced.

NB: Sarah works for Stonewall. John, doesn't.

Agree. Let's say no more about it.

The tweet is a marketing strategy. It is designed to drive sales by a) attention b) woke buying it to prove how they are woke and not 'terfy' c) early sales might not be as good as they'd hoped somehow.

Anyway, the tweet isn't aimed at anyone 'terfy'. Its aimed at anyone who thinks 'terfs are evil' and are desparate to virtue signal because they fall for marketing campaigns aimed at promoting neo-liberal wokitalism.

Either way, don't feed the publicity. Grey rock is best.

Children are already conditioned to stand up for their fathers far more than is healthy for them.
Children's book publishers like this one do their part in maintaining the dominance/submission paradigm.
Still, you would think they would have learned something from their puberty book kerfluffle.

Megan nailed it in that quote above.

All hail Philip Larkin.