Haha! I posted this on the wrong thread!!!! here it is again. Please ket me know how I can improve it.
I’m an Audible author, with several contracts with you, and I write Women’s Fiction; most of my readers are women. I have been an active member of Mumsnet for many years, and have followed and participated in many of the passionate discussions on that site; it is there that I have learned that you are possibly, or maybe already have, withdrawn your ads from Mumsnet. As a result, many Mumsnet users have now declared that they have or will cancel their Audible subscription. I am very disappointed to hear this; it concerns me as a woman, and it hurts me financially as an author.
I would like to inveigle on you to give this a rethink. Do you really want to alienate half of your customer base? Almost certainly, you have been told by transactivists that Mumsnet users are transphobic and are trying to remove the rights of transpeople. This is not true. The discussions on transideology on Mumsnet are based on the fact that transactivists already have rights, but are trying to remove the rights of women: the right to have private spaces apart from men (toilets, changing rooms, dorms, wards, refuges etc).
The argument “Transwomen are women” does not hold, since it is not possible to actually change sex and most transwomen retain their male genitalia and male pattern behaviour. The vast majority of women or girls do not want to share a changing room etc with transwomen; it’s a matter of privacy, dignity as well as safety. Nor is it fair for transwomen, who have male physiology, to compete in sports with women. Nor is it in order for transwomen to be in women’s prisons; this should be obvious.
Furthermore, women are concerned at the huge increase of children declaring themselves to be the opposite sex. There are clear problems here that have not been adequality addressed. This is a safeguarding issue.
Transideology is blatantly misogynistic, so it’s a clear case of which group you choose to support: the tiny minority of transactivists who want to access our spaces, or 50% of the population? Do you really want to support the removal of women’s rights, rights they fought hard for, such as the right to have spaces separate from males?
I should also add that transactivists have managed to persuade many other businesses and even schools to break British law. Marks and Spencer, for instance, decided to open their female changing rooms to males, which is against the law since females are a protected group according to the Equality Act of 2010. Schools, too, have opened girls’ changing rooms to boys.
Luckily, though, at last the tide is turning. The Minister for Women and Equalities, Liz Truss, has declared her intention to protect single sex spaces for women, while Baroness Nicholson of the House of Lords is actively supporting women in the fight to protect female spaces such as changing rooms and wards – you can read her letters to Marks and Spencer and the NHS on Twitter. Girls have opened court cases against councils which have introduced trans toolkits in schools, and several councils have as a result removed these toolkits – which were stealthily lobbied for by trans organisations such as Stonewall and Mermaids. Women will not give up; we are determined that our rights will not be crushed underfoot by a trendy ideology. And we are winning.
All the more is it disappointing to see that you, Audible, have chosen the losing side in this battle. Transideologists and their supporters spend most of their life on Twitter and social media; they are not interested in reading or listening to books. Women, on the other hand, do read and I want to retain them as my readers and listeners.
Unfortunately, your decision to side with transactivists means that I will lose many potential customers. Please rethink this decision. As women spread the word, it will hurt you commercially, and me.