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.

Joanne Harris is the self-identified Queen of bloody Everything on twitter. The real-life smugness makes her books unreadable for me now.

What a shame, I love Joanne Harris’s books

www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/whether-john-boyne-likes-it-or-not-he-is-a-cis-man-with-cis-privilege-1.3860808?mode=amp#.XLRkc6VlUNM.twitter

I don't even know where to begin with this but the author (and these are facts in the public domain, put out there by the author in case any flying monkeys descend) "transitioned" about two years ago after a life as a middle class middle aged married man with kids. Who knows what inner turmoil they (or any person) endured but John Boyne grew up in 70s and 80s Ireland, a very homophobic religious place where homosexual acts were only decriminalised in 1993. It was no picnic for young gay and lesbian people. So it's kind of mind-boggling to see the oppression Top Trumps being played by someone who, regardless of their inner "identity", had absolutely no experience of the sort of discrimination and overt hostility suffered by gay people during this era.

John Boyne grew up in 70s and 80s Ireland, a very homophobic religious place where homosexual acts were only decriminalised in 1993. It was no picnic for young gay and lesbian people.

JB sounds like someone who has swallowed the myths about "the most marginalised, murdered, hated, assaulted" group in the Universe. His compassion and desire to do good probably springs from his own experience of homophobia.

His encounter with judgmental, hate-filled persecutors may serve to remind him of what it was like for gay men and lesbians in the 1970s and 1980s.

And not before time.

I'm loving this. Serves him 100% right.

I never understand why trans people want to push the "cis" label on to us. It seems an anathema to their current strategy.
If they get everyone/the majority comfortable and using that qualifier for man and woman then they have to accept that you can't say trans women are cis women, trans women are a subset of cis women etc.

Had a look at the reviews for the book on goodreads (www.goodreads.com/book/show/41433621-my-brother-s-name-is-jessica) it seems like no one has read it but everyone wants to criticise it. All are saying the same comment essentially "let trans people tell trans stories", the trans person in the story should be centred etc. except for this isn't about a trans person its about a non trans boy whos sibiling is trans, why can't that story be told by a non trans person? Being not trans is a perspective that a trans person cannot have, if we can only write our own experience then a trans person could not write this.
Didn't read any criticism about the boy in the striped pyjamas that it should only be written by a German or a Holocaust survivor or should centre the child in the concentration camp etc.

Was it Juno Dawson who said all gay men are just transwomen in denial.

then they have to accept that you can't say trans women are cis women, trans women are a subset of cis women etc.

I don't agree with this. I think that if it becomes accepted that women are "cis-women", then the argument will go that because TWAW, transwomen can be both transwomen and "cis-women". (Because it would be denying that TWAW to say otherwise.) The standard cunty type of women will be "cis-women" only.

Then some bright spark will come up with arguments based on transwomen being women right across the spectrum from trans all the way to cis unlike the more limited standard cunty type of women.

I'm loving this. Serves him 100% right

im feeling v conflicted by it all- but reading open-mouthed the fury that transpeople have that jb has 'appropriated' their stories and 'what does he know?'

re striped pyjamas- there is masses of criticism of it out there, really masses. i tend to think that its at the reception it has got rather than the book itself. and no one seriously demanded he retractit, change it, or whatever the demands are now.

I'm conflicted too.

Watching the TWAW crew being unable to contain their seething rage at not being able to dominate this particular narrative is deeply disturbing.

It's also worrying watching Boyne not realise that it is the Twitter TWAW who are overwhelmingly the problem. In real life.

John Boyne
@john_boyne
·
7h
Thank you. I appreciate that. If there's one thing I've realised in the remarks coming my way over the last 24 hours, there's simply no relationship between the civility and decency of trans people in real life, and the rude, ill-informed nameless people who shout on Twitter.

I mean, he thought he could reject an identity being forced on him against his will. He thought he could point out that one of the characters in his book was born a boy.

Poor, naive fool.

He needs to understand, that henceforth, when he is referred to as cis, it is in the context of 'not being a woman who identifies as a man'. He needs to understand, like women, that he will always be known as 'not' a (insert opposite sex here) who identifies as something.

He can never be a concept, an entity, or an example of material reality in his own right, ever again.

He can only ever, for the rest of his life, be referred to in the context of trans.

I saw some stuff on Twitter over the weekend about non-binary people getting angry over an author who isn't NB and decided to write about it. If people can only write about what they have experienced personally we can only have autobiographies. Men can't have female characters. Women can't write about men. You can only have characters of your race and religion. Effing idiots.

It's also worrying watching Boyne not realise that it is the Twitter TWAW who are overwhelmingly the problem. In real life.

He'll be doing a big hair shirt apology rather than peaking, betcha.

If people can only write about what they have experienced personally we can only have autobiographies. Men can't have female characters. Women can't write about men. You can only have characters of your race and religion. Effing idiots

Just like you can only have actors playing versions of themselves, in situations that mirror their own experiences.

And books must only have relentlessly positive portrayals of characters from certain minority groups or identities. Exploring the range of human emotion and examining how individual characters interact in a certain situation (kind of what writers do, and the whole point of fiction) is clearly inviting a new era of book burning.

He might LangCleg but he won't forget this.

My money is on hair shirt and thanking them for educating him by this time tomorrow. And deleting the apology to Glinner.

I recently wrote a book about a tap-dancing penguin.

How dare you! You’re not a penguin, so stay in your own lane! 😉

”I doubt it was particularly funny back then but, 25 years later, it seems even less so, harking back to a time when anyone who didn’t conform to rigid stereotypes of gender or sexuality were routinely mocked on television”

Vis-a-vis this comment about Alan Partridge, two things struck me.

1. The described plotline is much the same as Glinner’s IT Crowd plot.
2. Like the TRAs, John Boyne has missed the fact that the punchline is not anti-trans. It’s making fun of men who are so shallow they don’t see either women or transwomen as human beings, but as fuckable objects to be thrust aside as soon as the man in question concludes they aren’t fuckable after all.

I presume Glinner’s moment of horrible realisation came when he was attacked.

I was optimistic after the apology to Glinner, but now he says he’s not reading. I really hope he doesn’t go down the grovelling apology route.

I think I have to share this under the circumstances

Re actors only playing themselves!

The Glinner apology no longer exists, it didn't last long. I'm quite enjoying watching someone who thinks he is on the right side of history realise how he's trashed his own reputation with the woke. Hilarious 😂

What a larf.

Just read the original article. The trans friend said this to the author (see attached)

And therein is the crux of women's concern about men and the reason we are not going to accept having our protected status as women revoked.

I am sure trans people also suffer violence. But it's not because of their very biology. It's as different in nature to violence against women as violence against other races is.

Well done BettyDuMonde for having the foresight to grab it.

What a dick Boyne is.

The Glinner apology no longer exists

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Colour me shocked.

Langcleg and the Countess get today's Mystic Meg awards. Glad I followed Betty's link - the replies were sadly typical of the 'Not even the most grovelling apology will be good enough'.

The book is meant to be published on Thursday I think. I wonder what the publishers are thinking now.

anyold

Yes i felt that he had really missed the point of that alan partridge sketch

The joke and mocking is all aimed at alan