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.

I think what will peak a lot of people with the John Boyne story is how impossible it is to square the idea that a trans girl has always been a girl, same as us standard cunty types (to use that wonderful FWR expression!), but is also somehow trans and unique and possessed of a special brave and stunning life journey that only other trans folk can understand.

So: trans women are women
AND
Trans women are unique and special and no-one else can understand or articulate their lived experience

There is no way that anyone can honestly believe those two inherently contradictory things. Most of the TRA supporters say they believe it but I doubt they do because it is a logical impossibility.

Wow. James Charles, James Charles! is under attack for stepping a millimetre out of line.

It makes for an interesting thread as, for once, many of the contributors are people who identify as transmen.

And, to noone's surprise, therefore, the thread is less abusive and aggresive, full of appeals to forgive James, understand him, whilst still ask for understanding that transmen with vaginas are still men. no 'beaver bother' gamer types that I can see, no 'die in a fire TERF' equivalent, lots of apologising for him and his actions as simply miscommunicating, misstepping, lots of 'calm down everyone'.

Also, to noone's surprise, very different to John Boyne's twitter thread responses.

I'm so surprised! Not!

(And it makes me very sad watching 'transmen' tying themselves up in knots trying to apologise and getting confused in the process, for something 'transwomen' aggressively push onto lesbians.)

For example, this post on the thread:
And it’s weird for them to like someone even if they don’t have a dick. And if that same dick loving person has the opportunity to get with a trans girl, they won’t because HEY. THEY DONT LIKE GIRLS. But they happen to like a guy despite the vagina attached

So many young people, particularly females, so confused right now.

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

Taken a smidge further should such a book written by a trans person about transpeople exist...I probably shouldn't be allowed to read it

I mean...thats where its going surely

Having a browse through this:

twitter.com/search?q=john%20boyne

there seems to be a number of threads. Shock from moderate people that there's a surprising amount of aggression out there waiting for minor transgressions to attack. TRAs and their "If these cis people ^^ don't say what we want they should STFU. Or they'll be sorry.". And the right kind of progressives shaking their heads saying "well, he did ask for it".

Looks useful from the gender critical point of view. Many people are looking at this and not liking what they're seeing. Especially when they're seeing other people who think what's happening is just fine.

And for those who don't know James Charles, he's not quite the 'poor kid' - he has over 3 and a 1/2 million followers. A recent signing-event in a UK shopping centre was overwhelmed. He's followed by a lot of impressionable children.

He's the social media equivalent of an author like John Boyne, though more present in many teenagers' social media and life.

Those of you with tweens and teenagers - many of your children may follow James. it's key how he responds here, and how his followers react.

Another response on twitter:
i totally agree he’s talking more about genital preference but he outright implied trans men aren’t real men and really should’ve just edited that part out of the video and still honestly should

James is currently being twitter-policed as to how he defines his sexuality. Many teenagers are watching. This is more important than it may look at first glance!

Just wanted to say welcome to all our new posters and lurkers.

It was Cancer Research rebranding women as ‘cervix havers’ that made me realise enough was enough. Some feminists have been trying to sound the alarm for decades already.
Ultimately it doesn’t matter exactly what brought you here, or when you arrived at this point. I’m still please you made it alive!

Such insidious language from those
posters - it’s everywhere. We don’t have vaginas attached like some afterthought, they’re an intrinsic and immutable part of our bodies, they dictate almost everything about us and they way we are and have been treated. It’s very subtle the way that TRAs try to reduce the worth of the vagina to fuck holes.

nauticant Yup definitely some newly peaked people there. Good to see words like "dogma" and "ideology" being used more often. If anything's going to break the "stunning and brave" narrative, it's challenges to free speech.

Men might not give a shit about women. They may not care about trans men in their spaces. But they'll damn well start caring when their right to say whatever they please gets encroached on. Fight entitlement with entitlement.

Incidentally, has anyone read Julian is a Mermaid? It’s great. A little boy encouraged to feel free to smash gender expectations and be himself. It’s getting a fair bit of attention.

there are a lot of people who believe if a person is trans whatever they are saying then we must all bow down to them.

its absurd.

eg this is a recurring theme:
I think though that the opinions of people who were impacted and hurt by JB hold more value than anything he'll ever say

I am impacted and hurt by people who say a man who claims to be a woman is a woman. Actually I'm not, but if I say I am, are my hurty feelz worth more than anyone else's opinion?

Maria MacLachlan's just blogged about him deleting his Twitter account www.peaktrans.org/what-trans-community/

Was just going to tweet a link to that, Staffori. Snap! I thought it was really good. I also read the link to Maria McLachlan peak trans story - thought that was worth a read too.

That is one fantastic blog post. I hope JB gets to read it.

”If you need to borrow some big girl pants, you know where to find me.”

Careful Maria. If he starts wearing girl pants, who knows where it’ll end?

*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 having attempted to re-define biology and language they're now re-defining literature? FFS.

What the TRAs appear to be forgetting is that they make up far too small a percentage of the population to be the only demographic for this book.

And nobody is going to buy/read such books except TRAs. So publishers won't be interested. So they will have to self-publish (any crap can be self-published). Then they can just stay in their crappy-book literary ghetto and leave the rest of us alone.

Talk about overplaying your hand.

This is literally hilarious. Also, Martina and Sharron didn't delete their accounts and they got much worse for much longer (but we are used to being verbally and social medially abused so it is water off our backs ladies), but a man just cannot take it for one day.

Boyne is on BBC Breakfast after 9 talking about this.

Just saw him on BBC Breakfast. I felt bloody sorry for him, he sounded completely fed up.
I’m so glad he wasn’t made to apologise to anyone he may have “offended”, because as it’s the BBC you never know.

He did manage to get in that he’s only been British’s on Twitter and Twitter doesn’t represent any community.

I watched that too (thanks for heads up, Floral). He came over well - particularly on an author's right to put over different points of view, not just his or her own experience and in making the point that it was about the sibling, not Jessica. Incidentally, I know I don't read YA fiction but is it true that sibling perspectives on transitioning have been done to death, as one of John Boyne's detractors said? Not true of adult fiction.

The book community seem to be rallying round him. I think this is going to be the thing that nudges a lot of people off the fence. Book people are very tribal too and, though lots of them are woke, books trump identity politics for the vast majority, because their identity is very much as book lovers and readers. They also really value the connection that twitter gives them with authors and are furious that he's been hounded off. The TRAs are very much being perceived as the bullies here, rather than a poor, marginalised, oppressed minority.

I think this will actually work in JB's favour in the end. It's giving him the kind of PR in publication week that money can't buy.

And the vicious reality of this ideology spreads into another area of everyday life, and more well-meaning, 'live and let live' would-be allies have their eyes opened. It's out in the open now. Ordinary people are witnessing it, and waking up.

We have discussed this in a FB author group and though one woman went out of her way to explain why "cis" is not derogatory, almost everyone else defended their right to centre all kinds of characters in fiction, including serial killers, prostitutes, etc, without having to actually have lived that life!