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?'

Yep TOtally we've had "women with hysterectomies are women therefore men are women", "you're all obsessed with genitals", "feminism is for ALL women (especially the male ones)", "sex and gender are different but I shall now use them interchangeably and demonstrate no understanding of either", "lesbians who don't give penis a chance are bigots", "fake suicide stats", and of course "gender roles are somehow both biologically innate and social constructed, oppressive and yet liberating, immutable and yet fluid". I'm just waiting on a bit of casual racism, a finger wagging to be nicer (especially from mothers of all people - we do "teach our children to be kind" after all), something about science (i.e someone's un-referenced medium article) "proving" that's men can be born with female brains, and a reference to resisting an idiology that disproportionately harms disabled, poor, abused, incarcerated, and religious women as "white feminism", whilst an ideology that exclusively benefits rich men and a few middle class white women is somehow "intersectional". Must be lush to be so naive.

Oh, and "intersex" - did we have intersex yet? It's not bingo until somebody accuses us of only having "high-school level biology" (better hand back that medical science degree then I guess...)

Totally

I think you are right about them making an issue out of it and I don't agree with that personally as it can minimise the impact on both sides. That said I can understand the shop owner being little surprised about the initial question asked by a stranger given the circumstances.

I suspect in reality the customer was looking for a row or at least some form of debate and the owner then tried to turn it to their advantage and get some publicity via Twitter. As we have seen by recent court cases in this debate no publicity is bad publicity and this incident has rightly or wrongly put that book store on the map.

This is a bookshop that has trans activism/allyship as part of its brand. It's business is to attract customers.

By concidence, this really happened: twitter.com/secondshelfbks/status/1228336805638000642. Yes, it definitely did. Maybe. Or something like it anyway.

Yeah right. And in other ‘things that never happened...’ gerbil runs for mayor...

From that Twitter thread.

Some [books] by women who probably would have been men if they could have in the 19th century. Some by men who might have been women if they could have in the 18th.

This is so offensively ahistorical it makes me want to weep.

Is she saying that all those 19th century women who fought for their rights and challenged gendered norms were actually men? Because real 'cis' women were happy being considered the property of their fathers or husbands, and so on?

And 18th century men who look feminine by 21st century standards must actually have been women, so for that reason their books should be sold in this bookshop ?

Is she saying that all those 19th century women who fought for their rights and challenged gendered norms were actually men? Because real 'cis' women were happy being considered the property of their fathers or husbands, and so on?

She seems to be, and I think this is part of the total misinterpretation of what we stand for. They think that we're saying that everyone should have to conform to gender norms, when in fact we're saying that people can be as gender non-conforming as they want, but it doesn't change their sex.

Our view is much more tolerant and accepting than theirs, since we'll accept everyone as they are, whereas they want everyone to label themselves (as well as change their bodies if they happen to be children) so that they can fit in the narrow gender boxes.

They'll never understand that until they take their fingers out of their ears and stop blocking us. They also need to learn the difference between sex and gender.

They're just making shit up for attention aren't they? Weird marketing strategy. Probably best if we just ignore them.

They sound very keen on reinforcing gender stereotypes.

Genderists love gender stereotypes. There would be no transgenderism if there were no gender stereotypes.

We have some incredible feminist history texts that appear to include trans women as women, like for decades!

Centuries even

A couple of gems. Please show me where the TRAs were spouting TWAW in Victorian times.

Also the sheer hypocrisy of making a small donation to Mermaids every time they sell a JK Rowling book. The real beneficiary will be the bookshop and their profits. Take a stand, if you believe JK is a terf then simply don't sell her books.

Yeah they won’t serve a woman who disagrees with TWAW but stop selling the massively successful and guaranteed sale JK Rowling. So supporting “Trans sisters” until it looks like profits take a hit. Of course. They’re not actually that stupid. All the lols.

Also the sheer hypocrisy of making a small donation to Mermaids every time they sell a JK Rowling book. The real beneficiary will be the bookshop and their profits. Take a stand, if you believe JK is a terf then simply don't sell her books

J K Rowling signed first editions will be amongst their best sellers. She could donate everything above what it cost her to buy the book or not stock JK at all; or she could have her cake and eat it- which is what she has done. It makes no difference to JKR-she has already been paid for her book.

The whole gender critical thing isn't particularly something I care about but the owner of this book comes across as absolutely insufferable- so smug, so puffed with her own virtue signalling.

N. Devers

@andevers

Oh god. I made a mistake. I read the mumsnet boards about the bookshop

If you are still reading this Ms Devers I care very little about trans issues. I won't however shop at your shop because of :-

(a) your hypocrisy over stocking JK Rowling books and virtue signalling that you will make a donation to Mermaids. Unless of course you are donating every penny above what the books cost you.

(b) The utterly, inane sexist comment on your Twitter feed about Shirley Jackson. What a silly thing to say. Jackson has never been considered a "women's writer" or a writer who only appeals to women.

Also first ever sighting of man reading Shirley Jackson in public

Funny thing is this board was for the most part ignoring the bookshop a as the last posts were months old until 'flxertwerp' or whatever their name was decided to revive the thread and bombard everyone with obnoxious emoji's rather than talk any sense. The more cynical side of me suspects one of two things.

1. They are connected to said stupid bookshop and came here to stir things up for attention. Or

2. They came to troll and take screenshots of the 'mumsnet meanies' replies to share with their friends. (if they have any).

And finally as Lesbian whose family is originally from a country where gays are still executed or forced to transitition a 'Lesbian' is a Female homosexual, simple as that. Lesbian is not something dependant on gender identity or gender feels, that is the same mindset used by creepy men and organisations to push corrective rape on the gay community.

I don't expect a silly little twenty-something, straight, TRA brat to understand that however, that would be giving them too much credit. I'd much rather let them scream into the void until the majority of society gets so sick of their self righteous bollocks and completely turns their back on their 'woke' fake progressive waffle. It's already happening as evidenced by our recent election so they can keep on keeping on in the trajectory they are going, the backlash is just beginning, the only sad thing is that LGB and decent transgender people will be caught in the crossfire but that is where we have reached in society.

If knowing the difference between men and women means having a genial Ferris’s then do be it. What would you stonewall and mermaids overlords do if they knew you were kink shaming? Tut tut. Do better

*fetish even. Lol

The revival of this thread can be used to help the bookshop's brand as it relates to being a trans activist/ally. That's handy.

'Do they have to have physically passed the child to be a mother?? '

Passed the child?

Erm... Interesting language.

Sorry to derail- did the bookseller that about men reading Shirley Jackson?

I only heard of her when I was a teenager (ie years ago) because of Stephen King singing her praise all the time.

No idea what the bookseller meant about Shirley Jackson. It was a comment on a photograph ( This cute couple tho Also first ever sighting of man reading Shirley Jackson in public ) on her Twitter feed. The comment does not make much sense.

mobile.twitter.com/andevers?lang=en

Jackson is best known for The Haunting which was turned into a very scary film by Robert Wise in 1963 (ignore the Catherine Zeta-Jones remake which is dire). I don't know why the bookseller has got the idea men don't read Shirley Jackson- clearly Robert Wise and Stephen King do. Jackson certainly isn't a "women's writer"

Anyway, the link below is to a short story by A. N. Devers, which to be fair I quite enjoyed.

electricliterature.com/the-unraveling/#.dgdmplc34

Oh my god. I made a mistake. I read the twitter thread.

The Second Shelff*

@secondshelfbks
·
Feb 14

We sell books and don't have much expertise beyond that but it seems quite simple to us.

Stick to the day job then or stock more books on science and feminism.

Stick to comic books and fantasy more like.

Still LOL at the idea of "passing" a child, like a particularly stubborn poo.

You’ve almost accepted that gender is a social construct!

Hahahaha! All the lols at someone actually coming onto the feminism section of a website and not only thinking those words, but actually typing and then sending them. Imagine the arrogance of thinking you can come and 'educate' feminists without having the basic grasp of the argument of those feminists.

And we're the ones told we need to be educated!

It’s Marsha who the trans lobby like to wheel out - even though he (for he called himself he) said he wasn’t there at the start of the stonewall riots.
Fred Sargeant - who WAS there - says that Marsha was out cold on a park bench at the time. He also points out that not only were there almost no trans people at the time, but it was common for gay men to call drag queens (like Marsha) 'she' and that the drag queens were happy with that; they referred to each other 'she' as well. Which probably accounts for at least some of the modern-day transing of Marsha and others ("But they wanted to be called by female pronouns!!")

Fred's on Twitter BTW - go give him a follow!