American Booksellers Association and Abigail Shrier

Agreed, Countess; but other similar thematic tie-ins could have been used, whereas the woman’s coat seemed essential here for plot obfuscation (along with the relatively short stature of the man concerned).

Apologies for derail. There’s a Strike/Robin chat going on in What We’re Reading that has spoilers galore- are you on that?

There’s also an important thematic reason but I don’t think I could say any more without spoilers.
It’s very hard to explain what JKR is doing here without giving clues away but when you have read the whole thing you come away thinking it is the absolute opposite of transphobic imo.
Trouble is it’s rather long and TRAs typically don’t seem to have much practice in reading long texts.

As far as I can see, the only reason ‘X sometimes wore a woman’s coat’ is in the book at all is to offer plausible plot confusion between two or three pairs of ‘women in raincoats struggling on the street’.

@IsItShining

Just back on the deliberate misinterpretation of Troubled Blood, this is a quote from The Times dated today.

They are discussing the hundreds of rape and death threats JKR has received, and her response to them.

"Her crime novel Troubled Blood, written under the name Robert Galbraith and featuring a male killer who dresses as a woman, sold 65,000 copies in its first five days last September."

This isn't the worst description of the book I have seen in terms of the entire plot of a massive book being misrepresented, but for two brief mentions in 900 pages, I'm not sure why they need to say the book features this or any character at all, especially in an article talking about a woman receiving rape and death threats for holding a perfectly reasonable viewpoint protected in law.

PrincessNutella

You're one of those bleeding heart liberal types aren't you?

Or could all the TRAs just sit down together and read a copy of The Crucible?

‘I see Goody Rawlings with a copy of a scientific book...’

"Fire all involved in the decision and their managers, transitively up to the CEO."

I've just looked up the word "transitively":

What does Transitively mean?
1 : characterized by having or containing a direct object a transitive verb. 2 : being or relating to a relation with the property that if the relation holds between a first element and a second and between the second element and a third, it holds between the first and third elements equality is a transitive relation.

medium.com/gender-2-0/we-had-some-gender-chaos-e1fd178e92be

I’d assumed that was an ironic spoof message. It wasn’t serious, surely.

IsItShining

To mix them up, they would have to have read both books. They haven't read a single page!

To be honest, seeing all the activists who didn't buy the earlier books in the series, claiming that they did, has been a wonderful source of amusement online. One activist got in an argument on twitter, claiming that there was no "lesbian representation" in Troubled Blood.

Crossdressing comes under the "trans umbrella", apparently.

"@AnneOgborn
Replace every single person on your selection committee with a trans person. Commit to sending a pro trans book with every order for the next 5 years and drop the book's publisher, and any other publisher who publishes hate. Publish a complete account of how this happened, including names of all employees involved. Fire all involved in the decision and their managers, transitively up to the CEO."

--Fire them? That seems weak. Shouldn't they be tied to stakes and set on fire upon a bonfire of Shrier's books? And the account be written in a quill dipped in blood? I mean, that seems to be the least one can do for this violency harm.

What she wrote doesn't matter, it's what they can convince people she wrote that's important.

I have the JKR book Troubled Blood, which has a lot of false reviews claiming the book is 900+ pages of transphobia

Do you think they muddled up the books? Silkworm (spoiler alert) has a fairly central trans character, to whom Strike is mildly abrasive and Robin shows a kind of exasperated sisterliness (i.e. the sort she expends on her own impulsive younger brother). Mostly, they forgive an attempted stabbing because the character is clearly going through a difficult time. Hmmm.

Troubled Blood does mention crossdressing (twice in 900 pages, ooh err) but not transgenderism.

Haven't actually read this one so not sure how "violent" it is but I was curious and looked on Amazon US. Paperback appears to be sold out and the book is at #9 on Amazon's bestsellers. Streisand Effect strikes again...

That apology is straight up grovelly masochist porn. Very silly.

I would say parody but actually it’s fairly in line with what I’ve come to expect at this point.

*this is quite true

And to the point below about the first amendment-hahaha lots of religious conservatives in America think God is above government. It's frankly anti-American and I personally think it's unpatriotic :)

I think there are areas of conservative religious bias where this practice is long established in schools and public libraries.

Always makes me wonder if the people objecting have ever actually read the Bible. Pretty much includes reference to everything they object to.

Immediately makes me think of the long history of dangerous books.

Clymene--Amen, sister!