John Boyne's new book 'My brother's name is Jessica'.

[Helmetbymidnight]

John Boyne (author of boy in the striped pajamas) is bringing out a book called My brother's name is Jessica, and this is simply not acceptable, apparently.

He's written an article here:

www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/john-boyne-why-i-support-trans-rights-but-reject-the-word-cis-1.3843005?fbclid=IwAR0WqWp2a3dIu-4pxDKS7k9XQO5lZR4PCKh_AFhAeTRoZMm0TmuiCBvoUjQ

Doc and co are going nuts at him. Not as nuts as they would if it was written by a straight woman, I imagine, but even so.

It's about time the world of books got stuck into this debate. They've been very slow on this one.

It's very ironic.

When asked to explain how the words of JB were harmful, a member of the community says to just accept the words of the community as true.

However they then have no answer when asked why they too do not respect the voices of women who ask that some spaces are kept to women only safe spaces. They have no thought that certain communities of women who have been harmed are being completely ignored and told their suffering and potential harm do not matter.

Oh this is veeeery interesting!

Potential to peak a whole load of very woke folk, I reckon. Publishing is stuffed full of them, and it's not like John Boyne, his publishers or his literary agency are inexperienced.

And they will have had it sensitivity read, of course, and no one will have objected to it. So the backlash is pretty interesting ... because now it is not just to the fact that he objected to 'cis', but they are calling him out on the whole work and the daring-to-imagine thing.

There will be some conflicted people who are scratching their heads about it. Excellent.

53 reviews on Goodreads to date, average 3 stars. Lots and lots of one stars from people who haven't read the book.
www.goodreads.com/book/show/41433621-my-brother-s-name-is-jessica?ac=1&from_search=true

So, if the book is not out yet then they are objecting to something they haven't read.

Why am I not surprised?

It is like 11 year old school pupils who, "Hate x or won't read y" And then suggest it is rubbish.

Some absolute essay reviews over on goodreads. Save it for your blogs guys.

"Trans readers and writers shouldn't have to do the work for you - this title and synopsis are obviously violently transphobic in their misgendering and deadnaming of Jessica and their centering of cis characters' feelings " VIOLENTLY TRANSPHOBIC TITLE

Can’t you report bad faith reviews on Good Reads?
I really hate people misusing the feedback facility like this - and I object to anyone who tries to police my reading matter. I’ll make my own mind up!

Just read the Irish Times article about deleting his Twitter account. (Thanks for link). I read a lot of the tweets to him and his replies yesterday. A few criticised his references to Glinner but very politely. The rest were from people accusing him of transphobia. I hope he noted that balance.

As for the article about his cis privilege, as posters have already noted, a gay man of his age can’t have escaped homophobia.

A warning to any other authors hoping to write on this topic to read this board first so the backlash is less of a shock. It still shocked me a bit and he was clearly expecting a very different reaction.

Some of the reviewers on Goodreads have read the book. They would have had advance copies, which are sent out in the hope of getting good reviews in early, This strategy has massively backfired.

I'm waiting for reviews from the "lovely" transgender friends of JB. They should be coming out in droves, saying that he is not transphobic, he's an ally, stop dissing him, and the book is actually pro trans, helping the normal world to understand.

I suspect, though, that they have all gone into hiding. Secretly cheering on the trolls.

John, you have waded into a viper's nest. We could have warned you...

It's interesting that the majority of old goodreads reviews, from those who read an advance copy, are largely very positive. The one stars are new reviews from those who admit they haven't read it.

I'm crying here.

This is funny as fuck:

Saw bandwagon
Jumped on bandwagon
Realised bandwagon was catering out of control and full of angry baboons

I wonder if we should have a sweepstake on when he will come onto MN whimpering about how we were all right, all along, and how sorry he was to have thought we were all evil harpies.

I missed all this yesterday and today; this is just gold. Total gold.

I'm waiting for reviews from the "lovely" transgender friends of JB. They should be coming out in droves, saying that he is not transphobic, he's an ally, stop dissing him, and the book is actually pro trans, helping the normal world to understand.

An absolute boatload of them won't be able to comment at all. Because an entwined cross-section of their professional and personal lives (if they are writerly, media-type trans folk) will mean that saying anything at all in defence will go down in

So I bet you that in private there's a lot of sympathetic stuff going on, but there's just no good way to spin this AT ALL - as you can see with the apology to Glinner or the attempt to denounce "trolls". Whatever anyone does or says now will be Wrong, Wrong, Wrong. So they'll be silent for fear of upsetting the future apple cart.

What a shit show.

it is unsettling though. If this is how they treat their allies...

What a shit show.

I completely agree.

No one, but no one, can write about this with any degree of neutrality and satisfy the TRAs.

It has to be brave, stunning, marginalised, agonising, and every other negative, yet ultimately positive, adjective you can think of.

I remember once reading the bare bones of a play (I think). Written from the perspective of a transwoman, married to a man. Who after years of marriage found out that their wife used to be a man.

The denouement, the ultimate reconciliation and begging for forgiveness for being a bit that they were a bit cross about not being told (because they didn't notice, apparently, despite epic and long lasting sex sessions), was the epitome of implausibility.

It was like the Cinderella complex on steroids, with a goodly dose of LSD.

This is the paradox. You can't write about this in the way transactivists demand and, at the same time, make it something that people actually want to read.

But surely if you were a boy like the one in the book it WOULD be confusing and possibly upsetting if the person you thought was your brother was in fact your sister it's so mad we are literally not allowed to have any reaction to someone transitioning other than the one prescribed

But surely if you were a boy like the one in the book it WOULD be confusing and possibly upsetting if the person you thought was your brother was in fact your sister confused it's so mad we are literally not allowed to have any reaction to someone transitioning other than the one prescribed

This is what I was saying to those objecting.

I also highlighted that no matter how much they want to snap their fingers and change themselves and all around them, that's not the way it works, that's not the way the brain works. If you've seen someone as your brother for years, it doesn't just stop because someone says so, you'll still think of them as your brother.

If it was truly 'misgendering' surely the sibling wouldn't even call their brother by their new 'girl' name?

Trans readers and writers shouldn't have to do the work for you

Then write your own damn books. Except, from what I’ve read by transwomen, most can barely string together anything beyond a series of buzzwords.

There’s a huge difference between writing a novel and knocking out a series of tweets or some wank in a genderqueer journal people only pretend to read.

I also highlighted that no matter how much they want to snap their fingers and change themselves and all around them, that's not the way it works, that's not the way the brain works. If you've seen someone as your brother for years, it doesn't just stop because someone says so, you'll still think of them as your brother.

It's the refusal to understand that their claims of actually BEING the opposite sex just does not compute with 99% of the population. It just doesn't. We are biologically programmed to know sex is binary, to allocate a sex to the people we meet and know. It's only people who have lived in the bubble for years and decades who can somehow re-wire their brains to even begin to believe the mantra TWAW.

There’s a huge difference between writing a novel and knocking out a series of tweets or some wank in a genderqueer journal people only pretend to read.

Also, they'd be so geared towards pushing the message down the throats of ignorant unwoke readers it would invariably turn out to be a parody -- like the one Datun describes above. Perfect trans characters who are so perfect perfectly and pass so perfectly that not even their partners notice the difference.

This is what one of the TRAs says:

1) John is not trans therefore this isn't his story to write.
2) When it comes to transitioning, the trans person themselves should be centered. Not their siblings. This perspective has been done countless times already.

So according to them, other people who know the transgender person, or is related to them, are not allowed to have an opinion, or a point of view, even though they are affected by the person's transition. Only the trans person can have their story written, and it must be written by someone who is trans.

Taken to its logical conclusion, trans people would only be able to write about trans people (so all the characters would have to be trans), and anyone else wouldn't be able to feature any transgender characters at all.

But surely if you were a boy like the one in the book it WOULD be confusing and possibly upsetting if the person you thought was your brother was in fact your sister confused it's so mad we are literally not allowed to have any reaction to someone transitioning other than the one prescribed

Well...

Indeed.

I, and people like me, must be silenced. Learn our place as the 'non-special one' because we have 'privilege'.

The privilege of being told our reality is unimportant and comes second to our trans sibling and having our memories erased.

Its a very healthy family dynamic, that one.

'I wonder if we should have a sweepstake on when he will come onto MN whimpering about how we were all right, all along, and how sorry he was to have thought we were all evil harpies.'

Nope, not going to happen.
He will do the hair shirt thank-you-for-educating-me grovel to the TAs.

Nope, not going to happen.
He will do the hair shirt thank-you-for-educating-me grovel to the TAs.

I don't know with this one. He isn't going to want to give up the publicity and knowing that 17,000 new readers are on here each week* would be terribly good for his readership.

*I think it is 17,000 new readers each week, datun has the correct figures on this one.

On a similar theme, this poor kid got torn up a few days ago for making a video saying he wasn't 100% gay because he was sometimes attracted to trans men, before realising, y'no.... whispering no dick cough cough. Apparently no apology will ever suffice to undo the violence and he needs to delete the video or edit out that comment. The Orwelian desire to erase all wrong-think from history is really stark, though I don't get the impression that most TRAs have the literacy level for 1984. Maybe we could start tweeting them the highlights?

twitter.com/jamescharles/status/1116816911763775488

He's got a huuuuuge fan base so hopefully this has peaked a few of them. I honestly think we just need to stand back and let the TRAs drive every ally away. Aren't they always telling us to amplify their voices? Lets do that. If you can't be publicly gender critical then be the best ally you can be and start sharing twitter threads on fb like "omg can you believe how transphobic john boynes is here?" You can peak loads of people and any passing handmaidens can't say a word about it.

The TRAs don't want allies, they want vassals

Can you imagine the awful quality of content which would be TRA-approved? Saddam Hussein’s novels and Soviet-era textbooks would have nothing on these books! All characters would embrace the trans (main) character’s gender, realising and cursing themselves for any prior ignorance of the fact that this was the true identity all along. Maybe one character would be a transphobe who was violent and hateful and bullying and eventually dies. The trans character would nevertheless be endlessly praised by the others for their bravery and beauty and strength, despite the fact that in this whitewashed world with completely woke characters, it would actually be quite a supportive and positive transition process. Then the trans character would win the Nobel Peace Prize for services towards being their true authentic self and inspiring those around them. Not inspiring them to also transition, though: it would be necessary for all other characters to be two dimensional and boring and grey to reflect their ‘cis’ privilege and dull contrast to the hero/ine.