Rare Birds Books have announced they will be opening as a bookshop in Edinburgh selling new books. The tweet says they will be "entirely dedicated to women's writing" but in answer to the inevitable, 'Will you be trans inclusive? Would appreciate an explicit statement on this!' they say, 'Yes, definitely!'.
Whilst this is neither a 'rights aren't pie' moment as presumably they will stock thousands of books so there should be plenty of room for all. It is also not a safe-guarding issue like single sex spaces often are. So why am I bothered I am asking myself?
It think the crux is these two questions that I would ask them on twitter if I was not on there under my work/real name:
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Will this mean including transwomen, or transmen or both. Because, 'transmen are men', no? What will you be doing about writers who lived very much like a man and you may call trans now, important writers like Radcliffe Hall. Will RH be excluded? If not, is that not transphobic?
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Will you stock the works of brave crusaders for women's rights (might wait for a hopeful 'yes' on that before continuing) like Selina Todd, Kathleen Stock, Helen Joyce, Jane Harris, JK Rowling, etc?
And finally - I think in the end the whole thing is disputable - a mis-described trade.
If anyone on twitter does tax them over it, I would love to see the responses.
twitter.com/rarebirdsbooks/status/1412477317176336387