Second Shelf London

[lionheart]

Anyone been watching this drama played out on the Twitter?

jaded millennial
@MillennialJaded

'A women’s bookshop I was interested in visiting is now openly ‘anti terf’ & they publically shamed someone they were following for tweeting an article on sport & trans. FFS this climate is chilling',

A little snippet from the shop itself (one of many on the issue):

'The Second Shelf
@secondshelfbks
·
19h

'We want to be clear, we are uninterested in the transexclusionary feminist position! We understand there is discomfort w/ the acronym TERF. But this seems to be because the negative connotations don’t sit well with the position holder? Maybe it’s evidence of a terrible stance?'

this climate is chilling

Total understatement.

Yes.

The Second Shelf
@secondshelfbks
·
15h

'We are not compelled to respond to people who ask us to do their biology homework for them.'

The Second Shelf
@secondshelfbks
·
22h

'The trans-exclusionary radical feminist (or TERF) position is the slur. We do not call people names in our shop. We do not support name calling. We are offended by the idea. We sell books by women! That is what we do.'

From the photos looks like a one man and his dog outfit. Not worth bothering with.

The Second Shelf
@secondshelfbks
·
11 Oct

'We are about to return money for our magazine from a customer who believes that trans women are not women. This is our pleasure.'

And there we have it, anyone who looks a bit terf-ish getting banned from shops.

They’ll be burning books next.

Is this bookshop specifically for books written by women? Insisting that customers subscribe to the belief that twaw?
Just alienated a huge part of their customer base, then.

It’s a bit like lemmings, isn’t it? This rush to self sabotage their own businesses... Fascinating, really.

Have had a quick scan of the twitter feed and it looks like they want to make it clear that trans women are "safe" in their shop. Implying that some how vengeful terfs have been loitering and creating an unsafe atmosphere.

I wonder how many women authors who they aproach for readings will suppor them. Quite a few I suspect.

Twitter feed: twitter.com/secondshelfbks

About the shop: thesecondshelf.com/about-the-shop although reading about the owner probably explains a bit more!

More recently on that thread, they've done the classic 'misquoting De Beauvoir' thing.

Ironic, given that their shop name is in reference to her book...

I expect they'll opine next, in a discussion of mixed-sex toilets, that we all use mixed-sex toilets at home.

Who?

The shop owner has.

We are not compelled to respond to people who ask us to do their biology homework

She blocked me months ago when I asked her to consider the rights of women in prisons and rape and domestic violence refuges. Apparently none of those women are as important as men.

Nitwits. Next I expect to hear they've gone bust. Returning money to customers who've taken a problematic position is not very good business sense.

They are hilarious.
mobile.twitter.com/IdaLupinos/status/118281692095897600
'The science behind what happens to men who trans to women is that they become women'

Really there is no point attempting to reason with people so far detached from reality.

The Second Shelf
@secondshelfbks
·
54m

'We are a bookshop! And we block followers who tell us what kind of bookshop we should be. We suggest if you want a bookshop to be a certain way you take your own money and open one for yourself.'

She sounds bonkers. It's a shame - looking at the website it sounds like very much the sort of project I'd support if it was actually about supporting female authors.

It does sound good.

So what we can just go and buy books off them and return because we are terfs

Excellent 😂😂😂🤦‍♀️

Makes sense
Run back into shop shouting I am terf. Ok the books have coffee stains and cat sick on them but fuck that I am beastly terf. Give back my filthy terf money

Is this bookshop in Canada?

^you know what it took 2 seconds for me to search them and they're in Soho!
Nevermind.
Look like a bunch of twats wherever they are !

I hope those who bought books from them do that littlebrowndog

They're in Soho so it doesn't surprise me.

I assume that they have banned all male-sexed people from the shop then, if it is a "safe space" - although they'd need to also ban tw to be sure that tw are safe. Hmmm, puzzler.