Publishing in Britain has a serious transphobia problem, one that has only worsened since an anonymous letter to the Bookseller warned, three years ago, that it was widely tolerated within the industry. More openly anti-trans books are being published with substantial platforms. Many publishing workers are discontented about industry transphobia, but fear online harassment and punishment from their employers if they speak out against it. As such, the story of the anti-trans books industry remains unwritten.
Since 2020, British publishers have released a glut of books that argue that trans people are deluded, mentally ill, or socially dangerous. ... This trend amounts to more than a handful of scattered titles. These works are connected to a small but dedicated gender-critical milieu.
Most presses don’t want to be directly associated with transphobic material, but will not publicly denounce it; most people in the industry don’t want to be associated with transphobic material, but very few are willing or able to risk actively opposing it, lest they be labelled too political. The consequences for speaking out are stark: one publishing professional told me fear of “backlash and severe professional risks” has curtailed how much they speak about transphobia, both within the office and outside it. There’s also little protection for many bookshop employees: a Waterstones bookseller was fired in July for saying she would “tear up” her own copies of a gender-critical author’s books, allegedly a breach of the company’s social media policy.
But the suppression of open dissent isn’t ultimately about the specifics of transphobia – it’s a fight to preserve a vision of publishing as a Disneyland industry: a maker rather than a withholder of dreams. Indeed, some of publishing’s main characters becoming associated with anti-trans advocacy, such as J.K. Rowling, are problems for its Disney magic. So is anyone who questions what it takes to operate its rollercoasters.
One way these conditions have crystallised domestically is through the quiet ambivalence of the books industry towards trans people, which is a bellwether for its approach towards other groups whose humanity becomes politicised. The proliferation of gender-critical books over the past five years is part of a swirl of movements that have made many public spaces uncomfortable and hostile for trans people, as well as entrenching violations of their basic dignity into the public sphere. If your employer has published or hosted materials that denigrate you, or dehumanise you, or argue against your ability to determine your own gender, then that poisons your work environment; it emboldens anyone who wishes to be hostile to trans staff, and cows trans people by promoting hostile rhetoric as legitimate and protected speech.
Obstructing the work that has created these hostile conditions would have been terribly inconvenient. Everyone in publishing knows each other, works with each other, is dependent on each other’s goodwill, and to speak up is to disrupt a whole chain of relationships. But the endangerment and humiliation of trans people is not a regrettable but unavoidable side effect of a free literary marketplace, or a titillating transgression of orthodoxy. It is, whether it likes to acknowledge it or not, a political choice, and should be opposed – or at the very least understood – as such.
NB These are just a few paragraphs from quite a long article, and reflect the bits that stood out for me, not necessarily a reflection of the article as a whole!
https://vashtimedia.com/books-transphobia-gender-art-antizionism/