National Library of Scotland censors The Women Who Wouldn't Wheesht

yes.

so it was censored.

when libraries start censoring based on equalities criteria and exclude a significant portion of that criteria, there are significant issues

The book was banned from the exhibition despite meeting the criteria (number of votes) for automatic inclusion and after passing an EqIA and sensitivity reading.

Just keeping the facts straight.

As a member of staff at the library and many on Twitter have pointed out, the library didn’t own a physical copy of the book to put on any shelf, and as of yesterday it still hadnt arrived when someone panic ordered it.

So that’s a bit of fake news int’it.

that’s terrible, truly state authoritarianism

Christinapple · Today 00:02

https://www.thenational.scot/news/25387374.national-library-scotland-responds-claim-banned-book/

Laura Webster's lies about the ban have already been discussed and proved with documentation. Why are you continuing to propagate them?

Oh Chrissy,
Well, you came
and you posted without reading,
The rest of the thread.
Oh Chrissy,
Well, you came
And you posted that shit article
But The National's a joke
Oh Chrissy....

(Dammit, now I've got an earworm for the rest of the day)

A bloke pretending to be a woman telling the 'truth' that WWWW is in the library for anyone to read and that it was one of 200 rejected oh and some bla bla about 'anti trans views' in the book.

The usual guff.

Just noticed sales have gone up on the book
I’ve also ordered Volume 2 of Boiledbeetles ( and mumsnetters !) book ( 100% of profits go to support women's charities ).

‘Today a reader, tomorrow a leader’ - Margaret Fuller

Waterstones isn’t far

I’m looking forward to action against the Library on censorship, freedom of speech and discrimination.

There will also of course be the issue of Government funding of an institution that does not uphold its own values and those of all Libraries.

and yes. The flash mob would be a highlight too lana

https://www.thenational.scot/news/25387374.national-library-scotland-responds-claim-banned-book/

False news and ragebait.

The book has not been "banned" or "censored".

"The other 323 books – one of which was The Women Who Wouldn't Wheesht – were placed on shelves in an open reading room, according to the National Library."

I look forward to a flash mob of claws (calmly law abiding women) sitting in the NLS quietly reading their copies. I’m very far from Edinburgh and don’t know the building but there are presumably chairs, benches, cafes that can be sat on for the purpose?

It can take a while - it needs to go to the ALDL first and they have a backlog, then they distribute to the libraries so a long delay is not unusual as it then needs to be catalogued.

The book was published five months before the British Library cyber-attack. How long does it take legal deposit copies to reach the six copyright libraries in the country?

IcyJoMarch · Today 12:28

Email from Alison Stevenson, 2 June 2025:
As the Legal Deposit copy of the book has been caught up in the processing backlog caused by the British Library cyber-attack,

Please, Sir! The dog ate my homework, I mean the budgie, sorry, my Nan died tomorrow!

Acquisitions placed an order for a print copy last week and this will be available in the Reading Room by the time the exhibition opens.

Quick, go to Waterstones! Or maybe one of those horrid GC termagants will drop one off?

The email trail is so chilling. You can watch the process unfold bit by bit - a library sacrificing all of its principles and then congratulating itself for being progressive.

women need to shut up etc etc.

That old chestnut. Works every time.

Just saw that JKR had reposted a guy's witty comment about TWWWW on X. I'm actually really 😬 about the responses.

So many saying the book wasn't banned, transphobes, bigots, women need to shut up etc etc.

https://x.com/euanmccolm/status/1955958416771371328

Bit depressing tbh.

Lord, I hope not.

The guy that did a song version?

It'd been bugging me since I saw it - you know what that video strongly reminds me of? Does anyone else remember that odious video from a couple of years ago made by a TIM who was 'educating' lesbians that they were bigots if they refused to have sex with transwomen. Same vibe - condescending tone, head tilt, smug smile. Obviously not the same person but very much an 'educating the unbelievers' sort of similarity.

I suppose the National and it's editor are this multiverse's version of Constable Visit-The-Infidel-With-Explanatory-Pamphlets.

They might make a fuss

They won’t get as much positive media coverage

Luckily, women aren't likely to make an almighty fuss or pick up media coverage.

She's definitely made the decision, reversing her initial instinct to include it, but she's probably made a correct calculation that there would be comparatively less hassle and bad publicity this way than the other.

I have no doubt that the blue hair bunch would have made an almighty fuss, picketed the exhibition, picked up media coverage far more widely and had Barr, Mcdermid & Cummings coming out with supportive words.

Still cowardice, but she'll likely still have her job this way and probably not have to make any humiliating apologies. I hope I'm proven wrong.

Sales of the book have shot up. Banning books doesn't work.

Lucy Hunter Blackburn

We donate all royalties from the book to organisations helping women silenced elsewhere in the world. So one good thing comes of the National Library of Scotland's censorious behaviour. We've just shot up the sales charts. So well done there, at least,