BookTube and CIS

[LovelyLovelyMe]

I like to watch BookTube. It's YouTube but the book reading community who put up videos refer to themselves as this.

I was watching a fairly innocuous channel-the female host doesn't have many followers and very rarely deals with literary fiction when she suddenly announced that she would be holding up a book but felt the need to warn viewers about it.

She elaborated on how she would not list this book on Good Reads, would not mention it again ,would only hold it up fleetingly, because the author had said some awful things.

I kept eating my crisps, girding my loins, expecting at any moment to see a copy of the Black Mass or Hitler's Mein Kamp held up in front of me but it was John Boyne.

John Boyne is a great writer. He is gay. He is Irish. He accepts trans-sexuals but he objects to the term, 'CIS'.

This is enough to have to issue viewers with a warning before his book can be held up on Youtube.

I am quite annoyed.

Good grief. Boyne’s Heart’s Invisible Furies is one of the best books I’ve read this year. But I remember him really having a go at Glinner a while back and I didn’t think he came across particularly well then. But ridiculous of her to talk about his books in those tones.

Great that you're annoyed! Now do something about it. I presume you can leave comments for her? Tell her how you feel and why, politely, and depending on her response either engage and talk to her about it or walk away and leave her with one less viewer.

Was Boyne not a trans activist at one point, or have I got him mixed up with someone else?🤔

I did leave a comment for her and also replied to another viewer who had asked what was wrong with John Boyne.

Yes, I'll take your advice and, depending on her response, unsubscribe.

@GoodyWolf-totally agree about The Heart's Invisible Furies. I only discovered him last year and really do rate him as a writer.

@GirlOnTheEdgeOfThePark

I hope not! I know he 'accepts' them but refuses to use term 'Cis' and I think it is for this that he is now becoming a 'non-person'.

Oh, I was once piled on by Book Tube people on Twitter! Like being attacked by kittens.....

It's pathetic, it really is. Idiots trying to force people to accept the label stamped on us by other people to make THEM feel better. Fools. Fucking fools!

@GirlOnTheEdgeOfThePark

Was Boyne not a trans activist at one point, or have I got him mixed up with someone else?🤔

Yes he was. Joined the pile-on into Glinner.

Then he got cancelled for writing a book about a trans girl called "My Brother's Name Is Jessica":

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3559885-John-Boynes-new-book-My-brothers-name-is-Jessica

Yes he was. Joined the pile-on into Glinner.

Then he got cancelled for writing a book about a trans girl called "My Brother's Name Is Jessica"

Yeap. I have no respect for the man.

That's interesting. I'm finding it hard to keep up to be honest.

Boyne supports trans rights, despite being constantly vilified by the wokerati for daring to write a book from the POV of a trans teen's sibling which 'misgenders' the trans individual (how dare any 13-year-old not immediately know that their male-bodied sibling was their sister?!) and for writing an article discussing the term 'cis', the gist of which was, 'look, aren't we all in this together in terms of not wanting other people imposing labels on us?'

The book in question is incredibly sympathetic to the trans character and is exactly what any sane person would want kids to read in order to be understanding to people in that situation. The abuse Boyne received in the name of trans activists, which was re-ignited recently when his name was included as one of the authors in an Irish LGBT anthology, would make any sane person think that trans activism is an ugly deranged batshit movement the world needs protecting from.

BookTubers are highly influenced by children's and YA authors, who go out of their way to champion Mermaids and to condemn any fictional work that will 'cause harm' to vulnerable children (but some vulnerabilities matter more than others).

It's an interesting bubble.

He did, however, extract a grovelling and very public apology from Aidan Comerford, which definitely raised him a few rungs in my estimation

LovelyLovelyMe

Which Booktuber is this please? I've unfollowed a lot of Booktubers for their comments and attitudes towards J.K Rowling. I've no wish to support them, but neither will I harass or abuse them unlike many TRAs and their supporters, and I'd like to check that it isn't one that I'm currently following.

@notyourhandmaid-you've summed it up really well.

I try not to follow those who concentrate on YA, for example I'm very keen on Miranda Mills who very rarely looks at them and yes, @AllPlayedOut, like you I've unfollowed lots of them which is probably no bad thing.

The one I refer to in my OP is WomanVsBooks, although I doubt you follow her. I only happenchanced upon her-she isn't particularly exciting- and then stayed because she had so few subscribers. She may, of course, have one less now.

Thank you. I actually do follow her, or did as I've just unsubscribed from her channel.