Munroe Bergdorf lands big book deal with Bloomsbury

[TornadoOfSouls]

Reported rather breathlessly in the Graun

www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jul/17/munroe-bergdorf-receives-landmark-book-deal-for-trans-manifesto

Among other things she’s going to tell us all that the experience being a ‘ciswoman’ has changed over the years.

‘my intelligence has been undermined, and I’ve been underestimated a lot in a lot of different instances.’

Sounds a bit Dunning-Kruger to me, to be honest.

It's quite hard to read about the historical and relentless oppression of women, Presumably only male women will be included?

I assume this is a loss leader to inject credibility into the Bloomsbury brand that they're giving a platform to a black transwoman of colour in these times of Black Lives Matter.

It's quite hard to read about the historical and relentless oppression of women, without developing some form of understanding of why and how it happens.

Will empathy be developed though?

"What it's like to be a cisgender woman today is not what it was in the middle ages, or the 1950s, or even the 1980s."

////

I am getting very cross with this individual claiming to know anything about what it's like to be a woman and drop the cis please, MB, I fond it offensive. What the F have they ever done to support women or our causes?

Can you imagine the uproar if I claimed to know what it's like to be trans, ever?

@NotBadConsidering

It's quite hard to read about the historical and relentless oppression of women, without developing some form of understanding of why and how it happens.

Will empathy be developed though?

Who knows.

Fortunately there are a never-ending list of women who understand only too well about women's oppression. So anything MB writes on the subject of women, will be able to be comprehensively analysed.

I'm quite looking forward to it.

"I've gone into the depths of my own navel."

@WeetabixBananaHipsterFFS

my intelligence has been undermined

Yeah, byyou, mate, every time you open your mouth.

🤣

Did I miss something in ‘Her first film, "What Makes a Woman" ‘? I watched it and it was a doco about the transition. Not about women including that they went to the Bristol meeting and contributed nothing of substance. I compared it to Olly Lambert and Stella O’Malley’s doco which I watched straight after and thought MB’s was just a fluff piece about them. And taking a teddy bear to hospital felt like an infantalising stereotype somewhat.

@nauticant

I assume this is a loss leader to inject credibility into the Bloomsbury brand that they're giving a platform to a black transwoman of colour in these times of Black Lives Matter.

Yup.

It’s just a box ticking exercise so they can say they support trans and BLM. They’ve basically got a two for one. I wonder if they would publish anything by a women that has publicly made sexist, racist and homophobic comments?

I think we already know the answer to that.

This kind of reminds me of when Shon Faye wrote their own gender- whatever book priced at £200 or something. This has a lot more marketing behind it I'm sure, but will it pull in readers outside the woke bubble?

Advances from a publisher can be great, and they help to create hype. But as others point out, they are rarely earned out (and the obligations they put you under can be problematic).

But the proud reference to Bergdorf's "first film" is curious. Even the Guardian reviewer only gave this three stars (out of five), noting a lack of deep and meaningful engagement with the topic.

The same topic that will undoubtedly be the focus of this book.

Given the unfortunate predilection for making spontaneous statements that later prove to have been unwise, I don't envy whoever has to oversee that publicity tour.

Janet Mock's books have sold well. I haven't read them but from the blurbs they seem to be very much about Janet Mock's personal experiences- which is fair enough - than lecturing to others.

Reading the Bookseller piece again, and the idea for the book sounds extraordinarily thin and vague.

The book will draw on Bergdorf’s own experience, as well as research from experts and activists, to "explore how deeply ingrained transitioning is" in human experience. Transitional will interrogate six topics, including adolescence, sexuality, gender, relationships, identity and race, and explore the act of transitioning as something "we all face in every phase of life"

Just guessing here, but I'd wager it hasn't been written yet, and might never be because it's based on a premise as flimsy as candy floss.

'The experience being a ‘ciswoman’ has changed over the years' by some random, unfathomable process that women have just passively observed. Probably from a reclining position on a chaise long.

Shon Faye's book has not appeared and I suspect never will.

I honestly think that MB feels themselves to be some sort of ‘gift’ to the world. They have stated that trans people of other cultures have always existed and served as ‘spiritual guides’ before colonialism tried to wipe them out and impose the evil ‘binary’ on us all. A massive amount of co-opting of indigenous cultures there that some have quite rightly objected to.

What ‘wisdom’ will they impart I wonder? I prefer to get my wisdom from people who’ve done more than modelled in underwear, DJ-ed in obscure London clubs and have undergone extensive plastic surgery in order to create a stereotypical, commodified version of ‘Woman-hood’. I don’t think being on This Morning or Good Morning Britain makes you a serious ‘campaigner’ or ‘commentator’. And they haven’t shown any talent for writing (although I know that’s no obstacle theses celebrity-ridden days). Pastel coloured aphorisms as posted on Insta won’t sustain a whole book surely?

I’m quite sure it will be as well researched and credible as Naomi Wolf’s last book.

It promises to be a book of rare wisdom about the difficulties and possibilities embodied in the choices of the 21st century identity

Was the copywriter who wrote this drunk?

"What it's like to be a cisgender woman today is not what it was in the middle ages, or the 1950s, or even the 1980s."

They do realize that there are women who were alive in the 50s and the 80s who will be able to comment on this, right?

Oh I must rush out and buy that.

Not.

"What it's like to be a cisgender woman today is not what it was in the middle ages, or the 1950s, or even the 1980s."

That's not a question MG could answer, being a biological male 'n' all that. Plenty of women could though.

*MB, not mg.

I’m quite sure it will be as well researched and credible as Naomi Wolf’s last book.

This is incredibly unfair to Naomi Wolf. Seriously. She's burned through her credibility very fast but she's an intelligent woman and a talented writer and even at her fruitloopiest has interesting thoughts to share. Bergdorf is none of the above.