Open letter to The Bookseller says 'transphobia acceptable in British book industry'

If you re-read many of the speeches and comments from the those who seek to tell us that speaking about transgender people this way is a valid opinion, and in your mind replace the word transgender with 'Jews' or 'Refugees' or 'Gay Men', you'll see how unpleasantly familiar it becomes

OK. Let's do this.

"Gentiles aren't Jews, tho."
"Refugee groups shouldn't be given privileged access to the ONS over and above other stakeholders"
"Gay men should compete in the sports category according to their sex."

SmallPug I didn't know that, so this explains the Tweet from the account, thanks.

There's no evidence. The only thing they have is that some people don't agree and there are some books being published by gender critical authors - hurrah. It is depressing working in the industry and seeing how much support this stuff gets all the time. It seems captured. However, this time, it doesn't seem to have had much, so perhaps they're tiring of it? I'm told there are other gender critical people in the industry but apart from a few I know, I don't know who the rest are. I constantly hope that we'll hear the end of it in publishing but so many are so captured and believe the lies. Some of the absolute guff that's trotted out would be hilarious if it wasn't so dangerous.

They haven't given examples of trans people being discriminated against or treated badly. They have not said anything specific about what they want publishers to do. It's just a load of badly written narcissistic waffle.

The only reply I can see on the Bookseller’s tweet puts it beautifully:

‘ Replying to
@thebookseller
If you can fathom exactly who is accused of what out of this let me know. I don't know where to begin with that letter, it is so muddle headed’

Exactly what do they want, what are they asking for?

Seems to be an effort to get jk Rowling dropped from all publishing, ever. Only then can they feel safe.....

Who else are they talking about?

I really do not understand what the point of that letter is.....

Did someone say that's the edited version?

On Twitter, her account writes 'Shirley supports this open letter to The Bookseller, and sends her kindest wishes to her trans and non-binary colleagues in all roles in publishing, as well as readers and their families.' with a link to the letter.

I was disappointed to see that Shirley Hughes is involved.

have been through more uncertainties and self-exploration than most cis men and women can imagine

How on Earth do you know???

We need to start to understand and talk about gender as a spectrum, a whole colour wheel, rather than just pink and blue

Uh, yes, we've known that for centuries. Gender is such a large and complex and ever-changing spectrum that we all have our own gender expression and feminists and GNC people have always worked to make that expression more free and less shackled by "pink and blue" type concepts. It is sex that is not a spectrum. Gender-express away, no one's stopping you.

The hardest thing to say here is that the deepest damage is being done unwittingly, by those who don't understand

It must actually be hard to be deep inside genderism ideology and experience it being damaged, albeit by logic, reason, the law, and safeguarding efforts. Yes it is being damaged because it makes no sense, is causing physical and mental harm and regressive stereotyping, destroying freedoms and protections, and needs to be dismantled.

That is not the same thing as "damaging" an individual. It isn't harming someone to not agree with them and point out that they are making no sense.

I an SO GLAD the Hachette CEO is taking the stand he is. The book world is absolutely full of trans ideologues and nasty bullying disguised as lovely caring sharing inclusivity.

How absolutely ridiculous. The usual non-arguments in the usual turgid prose. It just makes them look silly.

But can I just thank nauticant for bringing that video into my life? Brilliant.

Well, anonymity is for the oppressed. No one else should need, or indeed be allowed, anonymity. Or something.

Hang on a minute. I thought all the TRas were up in arms about the letter from the Women's Writing Club to the Women's Prize being signed by anonymous and pseudonyms. But this one is fine? What a bunch of hypocrites.

An anonymous open letter is just... not a thing?

Actually, the more I think about it the more I love it. The Bookseller “edited it” - so it was even longer, good lord! - and it’s been written by a group of anonymous writers etc. They all just couldn’t bear to disappoint or disagree with each other (‘be nice’) in order to get a coherent argument or through-line structured together. I’d have loved to see the shared Google doc.

I really don’t understand why they made it anonymous, though. That’s weird.

For DARVO purposes, I’m assuming. So they can pretend to believe their careers are at risk or maybe someone will threaten their families for this letter full of TRA boilerplate. It’s a bit of victimhood posturing.

signed anonymously from a number of trade figures, including publishers, writers, illustrators and booksellers' - no editors, though, judging by the rambling, over-long text.

It’s a shit letter. I reckon I could have a good stab at naming some of the people involved. You can just look at the quote tweets on Twitter and draw your own conclusions.

I really don’t understand why they made it anonymous, though. That’s weird. It’s not like falling over yourself to say “publishing is not diverse or inclusive to trans people” is a controversial or minority opinion at the moment!

The worst thing about it is its ‘be nice’ message and all the annoying false equivalence drawn - and the “those of us familiar with history” patronising tone.

have been through more uncertainties and self-exploration than most cis men and women can imagine

Ye gods, the narcissism. How do “cis” people put up with this 💩 ?

We need to start to understand and talk about gender as a spectrum, a whole colour wheel, rather than just pink and blue

Oh, for goodness sake!

Who on earth is talking about 'pink and blue'?

No Blacks, No Irish’ or drinking fountains labelled ‘Whites Only

Women's single sex spaces are being compared to acts of bigotry and prejudice,

This is an edited version of the letter passed to The Bookseller:

Good God! There's writing on both sides of that paper!