To think that this book should not be sold to young girls?

[WandaWomblesaurus]

twitter.com/Waterstones/status/1623584986740953091?s=20&t=WU0D0fzc6ClGJC5R-gJnuw

Waterstones tweeted celebrating a book that is about transing girls. Here is one of the illustrations from the book.

AIBU to think that this is directly promoting self harm to young vulnerable girls?

100% this. When we hit puberty and realise we have become sexual objects for many men, our natural instinct is to retreat.
I dreamt of becoming a nun. My friend started wearing an abaya. Both of us trying to evade the male gaze and street harassment.

I see the so open-minded their brains have fallen out brigade are starting to congregate.

To even suggest to young girls full of angst over their changing bodies that they can get rid of their breasts if they wanted to, is criminal.

Wow that's really sad and I agree, it goes way, way too far.

To the PP who mentioned Judy Blume - I read a TON of Judy Blume growing up, practically everything she wrote, and although there was plenty of anxiety and confusion about adolescence and the female body, there was never anything like the level of self-hatred and self-revulsion expressed here.

What?
Been taken out of context to generate outrage?!
In the words of Victor Meldrew, I don't believe it!
disclaimer yes I do

Jesus that's grim

I think perhaps people should read the book before calling for it to be banned.

I haven't read it but I do know it is very easy to criticise unfairly individual passages taken out of context.

"There's gold at the end of this rainbow! We're delighted to announce our magnificent shortlist of brilliant authors and illustrators for the Waterstones Children's Book Prize 2023!"

Pretty celebratory I would say.
Gold, rainbow, delighted, brilliant.

What about the actual content of the book? Or is that ok because you don't like my use of the word celebrate?

It’s grim.

I'm well aware of what censoring is. It's exactly what you seem to be suggesting so lm surprised by your response.
I think you need to re-read my post. The key words are YOU and IN THIS WAY.

I wanted to look a bit into this rather than the one image the OP posted - these three pictures are apparently from the same book.

Let’s not confuse censoring with safeguarding.

It's propaganda pushing self harm.

That's horrible & I'm agog that Waterstones is promoting it

Full on propaganda and grooming.

Love the “down with the kids” styling - Punisher t-shirt, gaming. 😆 Cringe millennial tropes.

Yep, I meant it the other way around and didn’t @ the poster I was replying to, my mistake

What the fuck. This is awful. I worry for my kids. Things are going too far. When will people wake up?

I think many have woken up, but no decisive action by the majority.

There need to be more organised calls to action and boycotting/protests etc

Oh god my DD (12, autistic) has this book. Trans/gay literature is all the rage for her age group it seems.

Fortunately she is GC as fuck and happy to give mini lectures on how much healthier it is to learn to accept the body you have rather than taking hormones and chopping off healthy body parts! She fully believes that biology trumps gender identity and has shown no trans inclination. I'm hoping this continues throughout puberty, which is just getting going for her...

They didn't tweet a celebration
If they did tweet a celebration it was about a different list
If they did tweet about this book it's been taken out of context
If it wasn't taken out of context it's all just outrage
If it wasn't outrage you are all bigots and need gone.

Right?

Where did she get it from?

The dangers of telling lies to children as shown via this US whistleblower,who managed a "transgender centre" for children.

When she spoke about needing to be thoughtful and consider the harm, she and a colleague were told: "get on board, or get out.”

www.thefp.com/p/i-thought-i-was-saving-trans-kids

And here's a UK whistleblower example:

medium.com/@kirstyentwistle/an-open-letter-to-dr-polly-carmichael-from-a-former-gids-clinician-53c541276b8d

That's just one in the UK, there are others showing where being so open-minded your brain has fallen out, leads to.

Fucking hell that is a grim book. I wouldn’t want my dd anywhere near it. The vast majority of girls going through puberty dislike what’s happening to their bodies, we find it weird and uncomfortable. This book would be telling them the solution is to take drugs which, according to the Cass Review aren’t even tested on teenagers!

Sorry @7Worfs - I completely understood what you meant and didn't mean to quote you!

I absolutely agree with you. We recently had that terrible case where a teenage girl killed herself because of easy access to dangerous online materials.

Somehow we imagine that offline content is safer. But here is a book promoting mutilation, self harm, sterilisation, osteoporosis and stunted growth not just being published but actively promoted to children by the biggest chain of bookshops in the U.K.?

There’s a big difference between censorship and alarm that Waterstones have chosen to shortlist something for a children’s literature prize.

Or do some posters think that considering a book as part of the shortlist for a prize is not celebratory?

What is more celebratory than giving something a medal?