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.

John Boyne is the headliner at the PrimaDonna Festival, a new festival supposed to showcase women in the arts:

Primadonna is a new and inclusive festival celebrating the creative community, giving prominence to work by women and introducing fresh voices alongside famous names in a fun and welcoming environment.

Lots of interesting women involved in setting it up: Sabeena Akhtar, Joanna Baker, Jane Dyball, Catherine Mayer, Kit de Waal, Shona Abhyankar, Jude Kelly, Alexis Kirschbaum, Lisa Milton, Shola Mos-Shogbamimu, Sonia Purnell, Monisha Rajesh, Catherine Riley, Athena Stevens, Cathryn Summerhayes, Sandi Toksvig and Sioned Wiliam. I don't know all of them, but certainly there are some very high-powered names from the publishing world.

So we appear to have a situation in which a potentially serious and useful festival designed to celebrate women's artistic and creative achievements is being headlined by a man who has written a book in which he takes a pro-trans stance and deigns, as others here have noted, to define 'woman'.

If anyone fancies attending a festival founded by women to celebrate women but billing itself as 'inclusive' and open to all and being headlined by a gay man who's written a pro-trans novel, here's the link:

www.primadonnafestival.com/

nooo! i was thinking of going.

TRAs will probably apply pressure to have him removed from the line up anyway 😂

More and more gay men are making it obvious that - like most men women matter only if they're beong supportive of men. Every high profile gay man I come across in the media seems to be fully on board with the 'evil terfs' narrative. Dr H, OJ, Dr K, they line up to dump on women

He will be fine. He sells loads of books and has a penis.

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.
And don't get me started on Adrian Tchaikovsky's space-faring spiders and cyborg dogs!

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?
The project seems to have been dropped. Which should be totally unsurprising - the financial backers of big Hollywood movies always want a big-name star in the lead, so that they have a good chance of getting their money's worth. The TRAs really did damage the whole trans movement with this whining about "never being selected". Of course trans actors are rarely selected for big parts - there's an enormous pool of actors to choose from and trans people make up a minute percentage of that pool. Given time, a trans actor will almost certainly work their way to the top and become a "name", but that hasn't happened yet.

Doesn’t she has a trans child (and I mean child not teen)?

Do you mean Scarlet Johanssen has a trans child? Are you thinking of Charlize Theron who has started to refer to her son as her daughter recently?

Oh my god - I’ve just realised that I can’t tell them apart!

But then I thought Nicole (singer and yoghurt ad woman) was a khardasian for years. I’m still not 100% certain!

However much spin he's been saturated with, however earnest and rational he thinks his portrayals, however sympathetic he views his literary descriptions, he will never be able to do this properly, without backlash.

Because the only portrayal that the transactivists will accept is one that is so out of the realm of reality, absolutely no one will buy it.

It's simply not possible to write about them in the way they see themselves, and remain plausible. You only have to take one look at the transwidows thread. They are too steeped in the rhetoric of a cult to accept non-cult language.

Doesn’t she have a trans child?

Think that might be Charline Theron, LordProf. The child was 7 and adopted. She said in an interview that she had ‘two beautiful African American children’.

Slightly embarrassed I knew this - not very good in Feminist Chat.

Daughters I meant, not children - completely obscuring the point there!

And dratted auto correct - Charlize - why autocorrect thinks Charline is any more common than Charlize I do not know. Off to think deep thoughts now......

Yes I read that interview. I thought ‘poor kid has had a hard enough start without all this!’

From the article:

“Time and again I was told off for not realising that there is more to the subject...”

So an author asks questions and researches his subject and the response is being told off - in what other area are people this self-righteous, narcissistic and hectoring?

I also find it interesting that he's being slammed for writing from the sibling's point of view. Using a character who is at a slight remove from the main story arc is a really common literary device, which obviously enables the author to give a much broader perspective, but apparently where there's a trans character involved this is massively offensive as trans viewpoints must be completely centred in everything, at all times.

And don't get me started on Adrian Tchaikovsky's space-faring spiders

Now that was a terrific book GrumpyGran8.

Other than that the only comment I'll make is that Boyne seems to be willing to co-opt anything if it'll make Boyne look like a very decent human being™.

Having said I'll make only one comment, have a look at this:

twitter.com/john_boyne/status/1117719879870758912

Boyne tweeted to show moderation and is getting a kicking over that too.

Screenshot of the tweet nauticant links to in the above post, just in case it disappears later.

Predictably the response is tons of TRAs telling Boyne off for trying to restore civility with Glinner.

Suspect Boyne is now taking a long hard trek up to the peak of trans mountain.

And thus another trans ally begins the transition to gender criticism...

Disappointed to see Joanne Harris (Chocolat author) siding with the tras and calling Glinner an aggressive transphobe in that twitter feed

Really happy to see that apology.

Unsurprised to see the TRA's reaction to it - fury.

Surprised to see Joanne Harris's reaction to it. That's a shame.

x- post aubergine.

Yeah, what's all that about?!

I really want to read Dawson's book on "Being a boy" because I wonder how they knew enough to write that given they are a girl and always have been etc.

Didn't they feel like they were lying all the way through? Surely it was all guesswork?

I'm feeling really sorry for John Boyne. I can't help it. They're in feeding frenzy mode now..... all the usual suspects.

The guy wrote a really sympathetic book, a supportive book, 99% on message. But you rip him to shreds for the 1%.

Lunatics