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.

What an absolute seething barrel of mental those TRA responses are. It genuinely scares me, the poverty of their thinking and the narrowness of their vocabulary (everything is "super gross" and "transphobic", it's like Newspeak). John Boyne has no right to discuss trans issues but it's ok for some 40 year old Java programmer with a wife and kids to declare himself female and force everyone to pander to his delusion/fetish or face legal sanctions? Fuck that, I'm getting angrier and angrier about this shit.

Oh and I agree about The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, one of the worst books I've ever read and I believe he is a cynical bandwagon jumper.

I was reading recently about a book set in ancient China about a girl (oops ‘assigned girl) who ends up dressing as a man to go to battle or something (it sounded dreary).

Oh my, it was funny the see the shitstorm - a non Asian, non transgender person writing a book about a Chinese transgender person (although I’d say probably not really but a woman who wanted to do ‘man’ stuff so played a role).

Reading comments was like was like watching ‘appropriation pong pong’.

Juno Dawson spends their days writing books about women and girls, how is this different?

Memoirs of a Geisha - written by a white man I believe. That wouldn’t happen today!

Agree with pp

This is where people will discover that all support and defence they have given people. It's not enough. They will turn on you. They will throw you under the bus with the rest of us.

Everyone. Literally everyone is loving on borrowed time as far as these activists are concerned.

As the saying goes, when they come for you who is going to be left to fight for you...

The central character in Ian McEwan’s novel Saturday is a brain surgeon. Ian is not. 🤷‍♂️ And don't even get me started on Alexander McCall Smith and Precious Ramotswe. 🙄

^ Both of these people are fine writers and the books are good reads.

Surely the purpose of the title is not to misgender Jessica but to convey information about the narrator and the plot?

Even after the Martina pile on, I still can’t get my head round why trans people would not welcome a high profile author writing a book that is clearly meant to be a sympathetic account of a transition from the perspective of a sibling?

Some novels are autobiographical. Others aren’t. Get over it, to adapt a phrase!

Boatyardblues, love both those examples!

one thing I know for sure is that women can look after themselves just fine and they don’t need a man to do the job for them.

In what political campaign do we only want the people affected by it to speak?

That was my reaction too. But this doesn't just affect women. It also affects children, and the societal changes affect everyone. If he doesn't want to stand up for women, would he stand up for children? Doesn't he care about the gay conversion effect of transing children?

Can't wait for the you tube vid of the book burning ceremony

I hope the TRAs’ abuse of the author ramps up until they peak trans him.
Maybe then he’ll realise what a toxic, science denying, women hating ideology he is trying to “ally” with, and see that even allies are treated with narcissistic contempt by these over-entitled men trying to appropriate womanhood.

It is funny how these lofty narrators bemoan a lack of nuance.

Yet are entirely unable to articulate what the nuances actually are. Despite being writers.

So they can confidently identify a lack of something, but can't define what the lack actually is, nor give a coherent explanation of their own position.

The title is My Brother’s Name is Jessica so it isn’t written from the POV of Jessica, it’s from her brother or sister’s POV.

It’s not a book purporting to speak for transkids it’s speaking for siblings of transkids.

Unless those protesting are siblings of transkids they have no more right to claim appropriation than anyone else.

What gets me is this literally is the reality for some people. Instead of trying to get something banned in an authoritarian way why can't some people say this?

Seriously if I have an old friend ask about my brother wtf am I supposed to say!?

So they can confidently identify a lack of something, but can't define what the lack actually is, nor give a coherent explanation of their own position.

It’s like dark matter. They think it must be there, and that everything must gravitate towards it, but they don’t actually know what it is.

the tras think the title is deadnaming or misgendering - and that is (literally) the worst thing you can ever do.

yes, i dont like boy in the striped pajamas- or i dont like the fact that it gained so much traction (not his fault) and for many young people is the definitive or even only book on the holocaust.

perhaps there is an awkward parallel to be drawn perhaps between what he did with that book and what hes doing with this?.

i liked hearts invisible furies though. really impressive.

The irony is, I read the book and thought it was incredibly bad - largely because of its unquestioning acceptance of the extreme trans narrative. As I mentioned on another thread, at one point Jessica explains that they still fancy girls, and are not planning surgery, so when they eventually get a girlfriend, she will have to be "very understanding". The writing slides between what's meant to be satire, I think (the parents are comedy figures, with their oh-so-stupid lack of awareness; especially the mother, who is too busy chasing a political career to care about her children) and sentimentality; the whole thing is deeply unsatisfying. And I read it as someone who has up to now been a fan of Boyne's work.

You really cannot please anyone in this debate, so it seems!

one thing I know for sure is that women can look after themselves just fine and they don’t need a man to do the job for them

yeah, i think once he's experienced the full on wrath of the tras - he might reconsider. (will he experience the full on wrath of the tra movement? we'll see)

yeah it was a surprisingly poor piece.

I’ve recently started watching Tim Pool on YouTube. He’s made quite a few videos about Transactivism closing down stuff that is actually broadly beneficial to their cause, due to purity demands. This is a recent one, a Canadian Pride event is cancelled when an activist group demands that the Police be prohibited from participating. Rather than get involved/choose sides, the organisers have shut down the whole thing.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=652fIEvQheU

Tim Pool’s general topic of interest is the authoritarian ‘left’ and identity politics. I found him through a video he made defending Caroline Farrow, and then went back and watched his older videos tagged as feminist or trans. He’s possibly the only non GC feminist commentator that acknowledges that the ‘Get the L Out’ women were smeared in the mass media.

He’s still very cautious re criticising the push for trans rights, but then he is a) American and b) attempting to be as impartial as possible (with the caveat that no one is truly impartial) but he absolutely sees the conflict between trans rights and womens rights and is clear that a debate has to take place.

Once he manages to let go of the trans-people-are-super-duper oppressed and all at-imminent-risk-of-suicide narrative, he’ll be where we are.

Anyway, I post it here because (like a previous poster) the purity-Politics reminds me of the Scarlett Johanssen thing - has anyone actually been cast in that role or has the project started collecting dust?

It’s not a book purporting to speak for transkids it’s speaking for siblings of transkids.

That's part of the problem for the TRAs. Only trans voices should be heard. Siblings of transkids and trans widows are supposed to be silent. Anything else is 'denying their existence', and means that they want them to die.

According to TRAs, being trans only affects the trans person, so the rest of us shouldn't have any say. But we have to change the way we speak to and about trans people, and change our laws, and change our society around their demands. So in what way doesn't it affect us?

Oh, Boyne will probably get into trouble over the sports issue, too. Jessica plays football, and eventually quits the team due to bullying. The team coach wants Jessica to carry on playing, because they are the best in the school at football, and it doesn't matter how they identify. From Boyne's POV, this makes the coach a trans ally; but of course, really, Jessica should be welcomed with open arms onto the girls' team. Not that there is one....

I fear John Boyne doesn't have much time for women :-/

Oh, and in a small defence of Boyne, the interviewing journalist may well have asked him what he thought of Glinner, it is the Irish press, after all, and Glinner is seemingly the only Irish ‘celeb’ voice on the topic.

That said, I do take some schadenfreudic pleasure that Boyne has seemingly announced that a man shouldn’t be speaking on feminism, only to turn around and be told that he, a c*s person, shouldn’t be speaking about transgenderism!

Perhaps he thought that being ‘G’ would give him some kind of Shield of Marginalisation? 😂

Interested to see if Jesse Singal comments - in his YouTube chat with Megan Murphy he first talks about his experiences reporting on trans issues, and then talks about his reporting on identity politics in Young Adult Fiction. Both worlds have now firmly collided, so Singal’s opinion is one to look out for.

As is Juno Dawson’s - will Juno join the fray shouting down a non-trans author or will Juno’s previous identity writing YA fiction as a gay man cause a divided loyalty? Suppose it depends on who you might piss off in the publishing world...

I doubt I will agree with a lot of the book, but I feel the inability to be able to talk about this freely, really did a lot of harm to me. Its refreshing to at least acknowledges that there is a reality that needs to be explored and talked about.

Megan Murphy and Jesse Singal:

m.youtube.com/watch?v=nJj5b_dAvRs