ffs, amanda craig novellist dropped from mslexia

[Helmetbymidnight]

according to nick cohen on twitter, amanda craig novellist has been dropped as a judge from mslexia because she signed the jkr letter - a womens writing magazine! - absolutely shocking. and frightening.

Dr Jane Harris has tweeted asking people to send evidence in screenshots of JK Rowling being abused, because it looks like someone else may have had a complaint made against them. 😑

twitter.com/blablafishcakes/status/1311312553029623809

Loads of people have responded with screenshots, but all the threats together like that is fucking.. People seriously think that level of abuse is deserved and shouldn't be condemned?

One good thing, looking at Jane Harris's feed - the science writer Simon Singh has signed the pro-JKR letter. I really like him. Thank God he has the decency to sign it.

Also just bought Lie of the Land. It’s so scary to me that women can lose their incomes and reputation on the say so of any old TRA, and I understand why people are scared to speak up. But I really hope that things are starting to change a bit with the support from more well known people, sunlight is helping.

@Gibbonsgibbonsgibbons

And this batshittery is the ultimate conclusion - can’t organise or protect women once they are no longer a definable group mobile.twitter.com/hm_leach/status/1311290557549948935

Delighted to have found a new (to me!) author though...

"Women can't be oppressed on the basis of sex, because there is no one category... that is transphobic."

Well, helpful of the individual to spell it out so clearly. When we say this, we're told it is paranoid. Yet here it is in clear form.

Again: you cannot defend what you cannot define. Women can't work together as a group to defend our rights if we aren't allowed to define as a sex class at all.

JK Rowling is a heroine, and the virulently woman-hating attacks on her, and statements like the above, show precisely what this is really about. Some very brave and decent trans women have also said this, in fact - only to be turned on, too.

Is Dr Hannah Leach a transwoman? Just out of interest.

But I think the desperation is going rampant now.

I don't really understand what Jane Harris means. Who has complained against whom?

But those RIP screenshots

Is there one particular one we should buy on Kindle to drive her up the rankings?

'Inclusivity' again. I now feel sick whenever I see the word as I know it means 'erasing the female sex.'

Is there one particular one we should buy on Kindle to drive her up the rankings?

The Golden Rule is the most recent one so it's probably already selling reasonably well, so I'd go for that.

I've just seen this.

I AM ENRAGED.

I subbed to Mslexia for ten years or more. I actually cancelled it last month due to finances, but I'm on the verge of emailing their subs department (I had said I'll resub as soon as I can) to say I'll never resubscribe again. Is that okay, or does that make me a bully too?

She's been sacked for a thoughtcrime, hasn't she? Because all she's actually visibly done is support an anti-bullying letter?

I'm so annoyed and disappointed.

One of the beautifully freeing side effects of being a GC rad fem is that I no longer have to pretend that I like books by Jeanette Winterson and Margaret Attwood like I did when I was young and stupid

I wish I had known that before I waded through Surfacing but at least I was shielded from Oryx and Crake.

Aw, I loved Oryx and Crake! And OANTOF was brilliant, though I've found Winterson increasingly hard work ever since, sadly. Surfacing really was awful, though.

I just feel like Attwood's nearly there in her writing. I think maybe it's her characters? They aren't real enough. And I sort of liked OANTOF but...nah, again, not quite.

Dr Leach has sort of let the cat out of the bag with that tweet hasn't they? Like, isn't that the evil end game we all knew they had in mind but they kept laughing through their beards and clutch bags and saying 'That'll never happen!' And now Hannah has tweeted it. Possibly by accident while trying to type the thorn phoneme. Oops...

I can't see the Hannah Leach tweet, I think she's locked her account. What did she/they say?

Hopefully you can read the attached Vargas

Read and enjoyed The Golden Rule last night. Strike is more my speed but this one kept me reading into the wee hours too!

I have cancelled my subscription. I'm not supporting Mslexia again. They can honestly get to fuck.

@Gibbonsgibbonsgibbons

Hopefully you can read the attached Vargas

What type of doctor?

@Gibbonsgibbonsgibbons

Hopefully you can read the attached Vargas

If women don't all share the same sex characteristics, what is it that all women do share?

I'm a bit gutted by this, as I had submitted a story to the short story competition that Craig was to judge. I wrote to Mslexia yesterday and requested that my entry be withdrawn. And I tried to explain my reasons. But there is a horrible, awful sadness in trying to make that explanation, because no matter how respectfully and gently you write, there is always this horrible fear that your words will just somehow be filtered out or magicked into some sort of alleged bigotry. If they couldn't hear that letter signed by Craig on its own terms, if they couldn't see how far it was from any shred of transhobia, how can they hear my words? How can they hear any words at all on the terms on which the words are uttered?
How completely devastating that an organisation like Mslexia, dedicated to words, is deafening itself. How completely devasating that an organisation like Mslexia, dedicated to women, is silencing them.
I really feel the loss of the competition, not becasue I had a reaslistic chance of winning but because it is just such a nice, cheering thing to participate in competitions of this sort. Or at least it should be.

But I'm glad I withdrew. At first it felt like withdrawing was simply to avoid endorsing and financing something that has gone so badly astray. But the more I think of it, the more I feel that the competition, and the judging process, is actually completely flawed by the attitudes of the remaining judge and the senior staff at Mslexia who supported her. I absolutely don't want to join in or support any kind of piling in on her, but how can someone who so determinedly misreads people's motivations and the significance, the meaning, of their words be entrusted with assessing anyone's stories? It's a nonsense. And such a sad, sad, state of affairs.

Well done Random. It's a difficult thing to do something like that - competitions seem like they are crucial to new writers and it was lovely to think there were competitions which were exclusively for women. Female writers need supporting. You did the right thing, though. Can you imagine how gut-wrenching it would feel to be picked as the winner by an organisation like this? If your story is strong it will place elsewhere but that's not really even the point is it?

Sorry, Random. We have to draw our own lines, our own boundaries, though. And standing up for JKR, who has been subject to the most horrendous pile ons (pages and pages of death threats, and whole fucking hashtag) doesn't mean one is piling on anyone else. I think respectful withdrawal is perfectly reasonable.

To refuse to stand up against threats and bullying is therefore to condone it. No ifs and buts - it’s just what is right and wrong - and these people can’t see beyond their own noses.

I've just reread their statement again. Did they really use "sexual preference"? Do they think that orientation is a lifestyle choice? Maybe they'd like to clarify their stance on bepenised "lesbians"? So very disappointed with them.

Oh, you spotted that too?

Red flag.