Waterstones come out as GC and fire TRA for social media post

It seems the Independent journalist who wrote that piece is also an author.

Interesting. I read the comments last night. Comments on this thread have been a lot more supportive and understanding of Tilly.

There's an old saying.
Treat others how you would like to be treated.
If Tilly had done this, she'd still be employed and happy.

I have no idea what your saying.
Wanna try again?

I don’t understand how the existence of trans MPs or whatever refutes my point about the emotional tenor or TRA discourse.

Um, you don't KNOW she has had no history of warnings! It seems given how quick this was, this was the last straw. They've clearly had problems with her for a long time.
Attacking a feminist and advocating BOOK-TEARING or bookburning or bookbanning is the actions of a FASCIST. I don't think a shop that sells.... books, wants to be associated with a fascist bookburner. It was MAJOR slip. Not minor.

I'd rather be called a 'bigot' which seems to mean no fucking thing these days, (by an actual misogynist fascist bookburner), than be a hateful misogynistic fascist bookburner who takes delight in harming women and girls basic human rights. I know who the good guys and the bad guys are.

It always comes as a shock to the be kind brigade when they get a taste of how they treat other people. The cloak of righteousness is supposed to protect them from any negative consequences of their actions.

Somehow it's fine for others to be treated appallingly but outrageous for the be kinders to have even the slightest hint of anything other than praise

And just look at the state of this thread. Anyone would think this wasn't about helping women at all (this is supposedly a feminism/women's rights forum)

feminism is not about supporting women qua women. I do not support women whose political views damage women as a class. The internalisation of precisely that form of patronising, woolly liberalism got us where we are now - it’s distinct and dangerous ideology which exploits female socialisation to disempower women from actually advancing their interests.

tilly has it all - woolly liberalism, twee ‘be kind’, quirky bookshops and fucking whimsy In spades. The four tent poles of the ‘be kind’ patriarchy 😁😁😁

Effectively Tilly seems to have 2 jobs: a weekend job as a shop assistant and a self employed job as an influencer.

It seems these jobs have merged in her head into one, and talking about books has become her whole identity.

Plus she is in a little social media bubble which is mainly about people telling each other they are fabulous.

Sadly for her, Waterstones were only interested in her employment with them and she has found this out the hard way.

Not just Hove. There were loads of book shop employees bragging about hiding gender critical books on X last year. It really is pathetic.

It seems hiding books has been a problem at Hove Waterstones for a while. This review is from 4 months ago.

I just find this behaviour so flipping childish.

i rather think that Instagramming is her main job tho, and the bookselling in the shop was only weekends.

Nevertheless she has been fired while on vacation which isn't great. She's travelling while having Covid which isn't great. She advocates censoring people she doesn't agree with which isn't great. In short: nothing about this is great. Except for the writer (i have no opinion on her opinions since i don't know what they are) who seems to have made a lot of sales.

she can still be an important book person on the instagrams, and hopefully all her SM followers can buy lots of books using her affiliate links and that can help her out in the meantime.

It's obviously devastating to lose your main job, and I hope she gets on her feet quickly, I honestly do. Losing your job is a horrible way to find out after fucking about on the internets.

I didn't realise that Tilly had locked her Twitter. She blocked me a few months ago, when I disagreed with some TRA stuff she posted.

I'd love to work in a bookshop again if it wasn't for the whole retail side of it :D :D by which I mean having to work bank hols/Christmas etc.

But Tilly has clearly staked her entire identity on being an 'important book person' hence the devastation. Maybe she shouldn't have attacked an author then. Really hope this just quietly goes away.

I've never worked in a bookshop, but I have worked in front line retail and hospitality. I was actually vair jalous of my uni friend who had a job in waterstones, that was a golden ticket - one of the best jobs that you could reasonably get as a student. And you got a discount on books!
There's nothing wrong with being a retail assistant or bookseller if you like - I'd far rather work in a bookshop than a pub (and I've done that too).

Yeah,it's tragic.

Fresh comments are arriving: "there's a comment that I wrote, dear editor, dear editor (etc)... there's a gap in thread (etc)"

Has anyone thought how gleeful Tilly comes across in her comment to Christina Dalcher?

With the "Oooh" and saying she'll "enjoy" tearing up her books.

I think that's what I find most distasteful about it. It's not that she simply disagrees with CD but that she seems delighted to have found a "transphobe."

It seems odd to be happy to have an excuse to destroy books that she apparently enjoyed reading.

We all know what would happen if an employee of Waterstones tweeted they were going to chuck a trans or trans rights author's books in the bin. The TRAs would want blood, and would be celebrating with glee when they got sacked.

Yes, the MRAs/TRAs would be marching outside their local Waterstones and bringing bags of knives, molotov cocktails and wire-wrapped baseball bats. That's what those violent maggots do.

as to book banning: again I'm with JKR on this. When Fatherland came out all those years ago it was immediately banned in Germany. I had a copy because i bought it in UK and i like Robert Harris. Didn't think much of the ban, because the book wasn't spreading Hitler's propaganda. Mein Kampf - not so much. But again, should it be banned? or should there be a much more open discussion about what it actually means? If we have good arguments against what Hitler (or anyone) says we should be prepared to stand up and refute it properly. Not just knee-jerk bans. Some of the books for children? yeah. I don't have much experience because i don't currently have small kids in my life. But i don't want 8 year olds learning about anal sex but banning them? frankly they shouldn't be published in the first place. i do want questioning older teenagers to be able to get answers though, so for older children there may be some value in books with answers.

I don't necessarily think people should lose their job because of wrongthink - especially not when it is not illegal wrongthink. Companies are very good at having social media polities, and i am ok with people falling foul of them and getting the book thrown at them, up to and including losing their job. In Tilly's case - she was too big for her boots, thought nobody could come for her, and that she is on the RSOH. FAFO indeed. I am not celebrating someone losing their job though.

i don't want to reply to Tilly, i want to reply to all the idiots saying "oh nobody should lose their job because of their views"

but I'm not going to because the twitter pile-on wouldn't be worth it. But other people are. And i am Silently Judging.

I listened to the Witch Trials of JK Rowling podcast. There's a whole section about when some Christian conservatives tried to get Harry Potter banned from school libraries, and JKR says something like, "There is no book in the world that I would ban."

I actually wonder whether that is true. I'm thinking of some of the pro trans books which are aimed at children and young people, such as the one with the drawing of the teenage girl pointing out all the things she hates about her body and describing her breasts as "fatty lumps that need to be gone".

I'd like to talk to her and say, "You know you said there's no book in the world that you would ban? Are you sure? Not even that one?"

But then if I did ever meet her there are a thousand things I'd love to ask her.

Brefugee you can't reply to Tilly as she has locked down her account

i do find it strange that TillyLovesBooks is prepared to destroy books because the author has views that Tilly doesn't agree with.

Back to the main point. When did people lose the ability to argue? debate? discuss? Irvine Welsh (sp?) is as GC as JKR but is he targetted by Tilly and their ilk? VOX (have ordered, haven't read) has 3,5 on Goodreads currently. The blurb tells me it's a bit Handmaid's Tale-ish so probably worth a look. There are a LOT of self-important reviews in there so. meh.

I really would like to reply on X to all the "oh poor Tilly. I wonder what DocStock has to say about people destroying books by authors they don't agree with and then losing their job?"