Open letter by UK writers in solidarity (not with us obviously)

Fair enough.

I liked something Stephen King* once wrote on the subject:

If you wrote something for which someone sent you a check, if you cashed the check and it didn’t bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you talented. Now some of you are really hollering. Some of you are calling me one crass money-fixated creep. And some of you are calling me bad names. Are you calling Harold Robbins talented? someone in one of the Great English Departments of America is screeching. V.C. Andrews? Theodore Dreiser? Or what about you, you dyslexic moron?

Nonsense. Worse than nonsense, off the subject. We’re not talking about good or bad here. I’m interested in telling you how to get your stuff published, not in critical judgments of who’s good or bad. As a rule the critical judgments come after the check’s been spent, anyway. I have my own opinions, but most times I keep them to myself. People who are published steadily and are paid for what they are writing may be either saints or trollops, but they are clearly reaching a great many someones who want what they have. Ergo, they are communicating. Ergo, they are talented.

*Speaking of someone who turned out to be a disappointment.

Any library nowadays knows how many "writers" are out there, all demanding you buy their "very important" book published by
Garden Shed Literary Company and accompanied by a couple of reviews written by their Mum and best friend.

At least one library authority out there has now banned donations altogether due to this endless flood.

Given that there are between 70,000 and 80,000 writers in the UK, that they’ve got a handful to sign this letter, padded out with a bunch of people who aren’t actually writers, I’m not sure they can claim that they stand for the majority.

Well, I'm a writer and I have a bioessentialist view of womanhood and a binary view of sex and gender. So has JKRowling. How many more of us are there?

Unfortunately, I know some of these names personally. They have been very keen to spread disinformation and whip up hysteria online and two of them have been responsible for driving another writer out of the industry. They spend all their time talking about love and kindness and are the most vicious bullies in reality and not just about trans activism.I despair, I really do.

There will be some people on there with genuine belief.

Probably an equal number who have no interest or disagree but think it’s politic

And a large majorly for whom it’s simply a bandwagon thing, and a bit of politics too.

Ahhhh, feck. Didn't see this. DD loves the Erin Hunter books.

Well, its well researched that intelligent people are more likely to believe unbelievable things as they use their intelligence to perform the mental gymnastics they need to believe them. Plus, in terms of their chosen career, they have a high internal motivator to persuade themselves the TRAs are right. Its a lot nicer to persuade yourself that you genuinely believe the the nonsense in that letter than it is to admit to yourself that you are just too scared to speak truth and to stand up for the people who are really being hurt by all this. They've seen what happened to their fellow writers who did this. They were destroyed.

I'm sure signatories to that letter will be a mix of true believers, those who have deliberately not looked too closely into all this, as it would have been too risky to have their convenient belief that TWAW challenged, and those who were too scared to refuse to sign when asked.

The point is, this letter has not attracted any very well known commercial or serious authors (maybe apart from Alice Oseman in terms of bestselling status). Suggests that this is not a prevalent a view in publishing as people think. Or people are dodging this issue with a bargepole. Most book buyers are middle aged women.

I remember one of these open letters from the creative industries and Olivia Colman's name was on it. It really stood out in a sea of the usual Jameelas / Nicola Coughlan type mid-tier entertainment TRAs. I like to imagine that words were had with her agent.

This article focuses on loos and pronouns and a misconception that feminists who do not accept TWAW do not care about safe and dignified ways to include people with trans identities in society.

I discuss these issues with lots of young people (between 16-25) and most will accept that a ‘more nuanced’ approach is needed in some contexts (e.g sport and intimate care). Typically, they see no contradiction between these ‘exceptions’ and the claim the TWAW.

The media is complicit by focusing on loos and pronouns. This is because nuance and balance does get clicks or reactions and doesn’t sell/make them money.

I think this one is a great writer 😉
Jesuis O. Mofobique

Meh. We've got Rowling 👸.

Erin Hunter isn't even a person. It's a collective nom de plume - & they got rid of Gillian Philip for knowing what a woman is. Saved me a fortune, as dd1 instantly decided to boycott the bloody Warrior Cats books she'd been tearing through at a rate of 3 a week, which is roughly how fast they seemed to be being churned out.

I mean, that just seems like a list of people who were asked “please sign this letter if you support trans rights” rather than a list of people who have actually read the judgment and who appreciate the legal status that the different classes of trans people (i.e. with and without a GRC) would have had if the opposite ruling had been given.

I doubt these people realise they’re signing up to say they’d prefer it if transwomen with a GRC were treated as women but that they’re actually fine for the ones without to be kept out of the ladies’ loos.

They knew that Equity had already released a similar letter, and gender identity culture is incredibly embedded in the creative industries, so this isn’t a surprise and doesn’t say much at all, except possibly that some people are probably still very scared of being cancelled for going against the grain.

Wrote an address on an envelope once, I think. I barely recognise any of those names!

"There are a great many jobbing writers out there who you've never heard of."

Thanks, I think this needed saying.
Signed, a fellow nobody.

I know several of the signers well and I'm incredibly disappointed. These are smart, highly educated, critically thinking women. I can only imagine that they haven't done much research into the issues and are #beingkind, but that's disappointing, too.

Everyone involved will likely be a professional writer of some description, by the way. There are a great many jobbing writers out there who you've never heard of.

Suspect very few of then have looked further than their own noses on the issue. Bunch of ignorant twats. Never heard of 98% of them.

Ageism, the one truly enduring acceptable -ism.

I only recognised a few names, and they did not come as a surprise.
Neil Gaiman must be gutted no one wants his signature anymore.

The letter appears to be 90% people you've never heard of (and I'm an avid reader) and the usual nobbish suspects, Bragg, Ince, Duker et al 🙄

I'm not sure what they hope to achieve otherwise than shining a light on their inability to understand basic science.

I am stuck by how keyboard warrioring has become so mainstream.

The SC ruling has led to a wave of proclamations about how wrong the process was, how spiteful the case was, how deleterious the outcome will be…….when people write or sign these proclamations, what do they think or hope they will achieve?

They don’t suggest what should be done to address the issues arising. They don’t show an understanding of the issues arising. They make sweeping demands such as trans people must be ‘included’ or ‘accepted’ but fail to state what this means when it comes to bringing stripped searched, or sharing a hospital ward, prison cell or medal podium in weightlifting.

beyond generating heat and tension, I’m not sure what it achieved beyond feeling like you are contributing to a cause.

To be fair he's been identifying as a singer for years so why not?

And actually, they are all a bit thick because they could not even get right that the court ruling was on the 16th April, not the 17th. What low grade 'writers' that don't even check their copy before publishing it.

Honestly, that basic error and all the deliberate lying in that letter, and appealing to the 'authority' of the continually wrong Good Law Project. I'm embarrassed for them.

I just had a quick check of Amazon top 30 best-sellers and can't find any of those authors on this list - yes, I even checked Douglas Murray (currently no 3)

I recognize barely any but this isn't my field really, despite that we are a house full of enthusiastic readers. I'm quite pleased how few of the better known people you might expect sign this have signed it at this point.