How trans activists in publishing hijacked a children's book competition to pursue a personal vendetta

There's a disturbing pattern of talentless, spiteful unknowns trying to use this debate to make a profile for themselves by creating attention seeking shit on social media about feminist women, too. Look at all the publishing scandals, and Milli Hill etc.

Onjali Rauf is worth 100 of these online idiots calling her out and it makes me furious. She gets good things done and really makes a difference in the world. Her TRA critics have nothing.

This is really despicable behaviour.
I will order a book each for my neice and nephew as soon as that paycheck arrives!

Book bought in solidarity.

Thank you @PurgatoryOfPotholes for posting about this. I saw Glinner's update on this last night and just felt depressed. But also happy that the amazing Gillian Phillip is still speaking up for women. Thank you for expanding on what has happened. That a publisher and an author of children's books that are about bullying is engaging in, what can only be called, bullying, really beggars belief.

Kereen Getten is the author - black, Jamaican - who joined in with her white, privileged, middle class publisher (no double the beneficiary of inherited money/connections/nepotism). This is the blurb from Kereen Getten's book, Two Sisters, A Story of Freedom:

Ruth and Anna are inseparable, but Anna’s light skin allows her freedoms that her sister Ruth cannot enjoy. When they are both shipped off to grey Georgian London their differences force the sisters apart. But with whispers of freedom on the city’s streets, will Anna find the courage to stand up for her sister before it’s too late. A journey of sisterhood, struggle and survival from Jamaica to Britain as part of Scholastic’s Voices series.

Where is your sisterhood, Kereen, for your fellow woman of colour? If not for her, what about the people who share your skin colour whom Onjali Rauf helps? What happens to them if Onjali is cancelled and her organisation trashed in the process? For whom are you joining in with this witch hunt?

Asian/African/muslim women, who do not enjoy an equal place in popular culture, music, sport, modelling and all the other glamour public spaces that seem to attract the TRA movement and their acolytes are, I think, a big threat to TRAs. This is because their experiences, in war zones, in period huts, at the hands of genital mutilators, forced marriage, child marriage/rape, forced dress codes, removal of freedom to work, to drive, to have a relationship with whom she wants to; all of these visceral experiences of pure misogyny, 21st Century oppression at it's darkest, exposes the rights of a man to wear a frock and call himself a woman and claim supreme oppression as being the most luxurious, the most white, the most western centric, the most culturally imperialistic of beliefs. It's much easier for them to latch on to the experiences of black people living in the West, who live lives like everyone else in the West, but who suffer discrimination based largely on skin colour and educational failures, and find parallels (albeit spurious ones) with their experiences. Women that come from strong cultural and religious backgrounds, whose culture and religious beliefs have not been co-opted by white westerners, whose experiences are far removed from anything most people in the West are ever likely to experience, is far too much of a reach for them to ape and mould and shape into their own. So they have to be silenced.

I am stunned by this, and have real concerns that her actions may undermine the award in future years. Why should children / schools take part if their nominations are erased in this way? I'd be suggesting individual schools hold their own reading challenges if this is the way that borough wide awards are manipulated. Dreadful behaviour.

It’s the moral superiority even when doing something awful. I just read earlier about young journalists emailing Jesse Singal and pretty much telling him to commit suicide and they still think they are in the right. It’s staggering.

It's the worst thing about it, the performative wokery, and the thing that most ensures I will never ever stand by and let these types of hideous, narcissistic, amoral bullies win.

Copy bought also ..... I doubt this is the outcome that silly, silly woman imagined.

Can I clarify ...this individual deliberately falsified a document listing shortlisted authors, for circulation then openly bragged about it? Have I got that right? How can this be acceptable behaviour, surely she should face some sort of consequence for that?

Thanks for this thread, Purgatory.

I mean, this agent edited a shortlist to remove a black author.

That kind of stunt is normally only found on certain fringe forums on the internet.

I cannot actually believe this agent is real. Who the heck would want to do business with someone who is publicly petty and vindictive? It's a recipe for disaster and reputation damage. She could tank her authors' careers with moves like this.

These people don't seem to realise they are in the adult world now where actions actually have consequences. It's bizarre how blinkered they are.

It’s the moral superiority even when doing something awful. I just read earlier about young journalists emailing Jesse Singal and pretty much telling him to commit suicide and they still think they are in the right. It’s staggering.

What a nasty piece of work. The racism of trans activism - along with the vile homophobia and misogyny - is nauseating.

From the Twitter feed of the person responsible for 'branding' at Ash literary

So much cod diversity! Remove a Muslim woman who helps end human trafficking in order to protect men in dresses (most of whom are western, white men ) who identify as trans.

Wow.. so progressive! Diversity and representation for women is now about white, western men in dresses. What a time to be alive!

Raif wrote a book a couple of years ago for World book day and it’s just gorgeous. I read it often with kids because there aren’t many really nice short books in our library at school.

Copy bought. Awful awful behaviour and absolutely par for the course that this sheltered privileged little girl can’t see what she’s done and apologise because she’s absolutely in the right. After everything that has happened in the last 48 hours this is quite upsetting, ultimately it hurts the children who voted for this author. It’s designed to hurt a support fund for refugees and by goodness we are about to watch another group of people lose their homes.

@PurgatoryOfPotholes

It's a weird extension of command theory - what these woke types do is good by virtue of them doing it. It's a religion

I guess it kind of makes sense if you're consciously marketing yourself as a religious agency?

If you loudly and publicly denounce all the right sinners, it means the devout believers will be comfortable working with you.

Not sure about the mass-market appeal, if it means this sort of toxicity, but working in a niche is a viable strategy.

I will be buying a copy for DS and a copy for his cousin who is a similar age, and one for his younger cousins when they are a bit older.

Especially since refugees are going to be an even bigger topic of conversation soon.

Just had a look at Ash's list of authors.

ashliterary.com/#authors

First up, a 'wife and wife duo' who haven't actually published a book yet?

As long as you’re not a “bigot” (as defined by a nonsense, unscientific, misogynist ideology) you’re a good person! So it doesn’t matter if you do bad things! FFS.

Concerns raised regarding racism, misogyny, censorship, fairness, professionalism etc etc - is just bigoted apparently.

JK Rowling is a "privileged white woman" but it's worth remembering the whole she's transphobic hoo haa really blew up when a load of disgusting TRAs tried to derail her Ikabog project, which was intended to be something nice / distracting for children to do, in lockdown in the middle of a pandemic.