Polari prize nominees withdraw over inclusion of 'terf' John Boyne

For those buying Earth - it's part of a quartet - Water, Earth, Fire and Air.
Best to read in order (certainly read Air last), but Earth is a good standalone.

I've been ringside at this rodeo for 8 years (a moment, compared so some here) and every so often something so outrageous happens that I find it impossible to even start listing all the ways in which it is sinister, offensive, frightening, dangerous, appalling... etc etc.

This is one of those occurrences.

Have bought the hardback of Earth, which is the very least I can do. My heart goes out to John Boyne.

I posted upthread about all this <gestures wildly> being an informal section 28 aimed at people with GC beliefs, or in effect reality.

Well, at least some of the tras are trying to formalise it. Doesn't look like it's going to get anywhere which sort of disappoints me. I'd like to see it debated in parliament.

This is the person who started the petition, whose entire life seems to be TQ+.

About Hannah-Rose Tristram – We have fallen into the place where everything is music – Rumi https://share.google/JOxzC2DKUFq2T1Ayw

Exactly this.

I’m so upset at this outcome. I don’t always love John Boyne as an author, I like some of his books more than others. As a person, I’m in awe of him. He’s amazing.

I’m in Ireland, it is still really hard for certain positions to be stated overtly. The article that’s been objected to by those connected with the Polari prize is so tempered and even mild in terms of what could be said, and focused on supporting JKR. A few weeks before that he wrote an eviscerating, brave article in the Sunday Independent, calling out how the Pride movement has been captured here in Ireland, to now essentially exclude lesbian & gay people. He hates the term ‘queer’ and was eloquent about why.

There’s almost no coverage in the Irish media about what’s happening to him, and while he is certain that he doesn’t care, I fear he’ll be, if not cancelled with his work, erased from the public landscape, media interviews and so on. It’s awful.

The cry bullies could set up their own prize for people with the approved opinions

They’d still end up squabbling and cancelling g each other (see French revolution’s reign of terror)

The cry bullies could set up their own prize for people with the approved opinions.

I was thinking of The Polarise Book of the Year. Competition will be fierce , possibly even lethally so.

It's our ball, we don't like you John Boyne you're nasty and we don't want to play with you so we're going home and taking our ball with us and everybody will hate you because you made us do it by being nasty, so there!

Very mature🙄

And now online bullies are happy to treat a gay man as if he has no claim to an LGBTQ+ prize.

You are spot on here. Gay men are going to feel like "women" soon as they have to make way for trans inclusivity.
It makes me very sad that a good man is being treated like this.

Thanks to the pp who flagged up The Heart’s Invisible Furies is 99p on Kindle - can’t find original post, sorry - got it last night.

You would have thought these days were almost over but Boyne is getting the full-on JKR treatment in exactly the same way, in that it is clear that his statement has not been read or taken on board with any good faith by his critics, who now see him as some cartoon bogeyman.

That statement from the prize goes on about upset - I charitably thought that may include the significant upset to JB - but as they mention him only by name, I guess not. How cruel. He has done nothing wrong. And now online bullies are happy to treat a gay man as if he has no claim to an LGBTQ+ prize. It is shameful, intolerant behaviour and I hope the Polari Prize is finished for it.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyvme385e6o.amp

Thought this bbc article struck a good, critical tone. And I'm not sure it was an accident that under the subhead 'which authors objected?' the first one mentioned was a bloke called Sasha Coward!

Already is in this household! The Echo Chamber is so funny. Of course it is a fantasmagoria and the characters are more ludicrous than the real denizens of London media land. But only slightly....

excellent description of where we are.

Not sure @DeanElderberry . You'd expect it to be more objective, if only because it used to be the Cork Examiner and probably still has a largely small C conservative readership?

Yet again the comments accurately call out the totalitarian bullying of the T. Depressing as it is, the more unhinged and authoritarian these instances are, the more they confirm to society that transactivism is genuinely harmful and anti democratic. Things like this will bring this shitshow to an end as step by step, organisations steadily remove the unstable bullies and their toxic influence.

And I'll bet there's been a spike in book sales for JB.

Haven't read it in ages tbh, they started paywalling everything. On gender I remember they had a few decent pieces by Alison O'Connor but I think that was about it, and they carried out and out nonsense on the genderist side including the Louise O'Neill piece that characterised Rowling's discussion of domestic abuse as playing "Oppression Olympics".

What is the Examiner like? Since it's supposed to be a national paper these days.

Compare and contrast. I unsubscribed from The Irish Times a few years back. The Irish Independent has been a bit better but the Irish media overall is suffocatingly homogeneous and incurious. Sure aren't we great.

Reported in the Times (not the Irish one) now as well:
https://www.thetimes.com/article/17c947b4-ee9b-4052-a78c-d49009015157?shareToken=239b8d536f8333faa6c6ff02eea58bcc

Thanks for the link.
The Irish Times is notoriously pro-gender-woo, though I think it has started to give a slight nod toward objectivity these days - it reported the UKSC ruling, for instance, without giving the last word to TENI [Trans Equality Network Ireland] which is what it always used to do😡
The Irish Independent seems to be the most open to a somewhat GC angle..

JB will have sold more books than the rest of the writers on that list combined. A prize that is judged on the political complicity of the author rather than the literary merit of the book will swiftly make itself irrelevant as it will no longer be a marker of quality.
JB is a talented and versatile writer. He can appeal to children and adults across different genres. I recently read Earth which was nominated for the Polari in less than a day. Others have said that the Echo Chamber is laugh out loud hilarious and it really is.
He can hold his head high for showing such integrity and like JKR he is a stand out winner.

The toxic gender identity movement destroys absolutely everything it touches, doesnt it? (as well as people's brains, rationality and ethics).

… children’s and adult's bodies, families, education, healthcare, institutions, political parties, countries…

I will go out and buy one of his books tomorrow.

Thanks! I was able to read it but thought it was coz I had the subscription.

Didn't seem to be behind paywall, but if it is you get one free look here is an archive link https://archive.is/1Z12Z If it doesn't click just copy and paste into browser bar.

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/2025/08/18/literary-prize-cancels-annual-award-following-backlash-over-inclusion-of-irish-author-john-boyne/

There's an article about this in the Irish times too, I just came on to post it and saw there's already a thread. Sorry, the article is behind a paywall. It's shocking to read though, so biased against John Boyne and 'terfs' in general. Hard to believe it's one of our main national newspapers (I'm in Ireland).

Inspired by this thread, I've just started it, it's very funny 😂