TW nominated for the womens prize for fiction

[Kit19]

for fucks fucking sake!

"Peters’ longlisting comes after organisers clarified in 2020 that it was open to any “cis woman, a transgender woman or anyone who is legally defined as a woman or of the female sex”. “It’s a prize for women, and trans women are women, so …” said chair of judges and author Bernardine Evaristo."

Described as 'a dark new Novella about online sissy culture, forced-femme erotica, female-masking, internalized transmisogyny, and crossdressing

I'd love everyone to read this book, then they might understand why we have trouble accepting TW in women-only spaces.

And WTF is 'female-masking'?

Never mind I'm sure I don't want to know.

@Conniethesensible

Question 🙋

How do we know that trans women haven’t won it before? They might not have been “out”

Do we check their birth certificates before entering them?

Oh, Connie I don't think we'll need to be checking birth certificates. I find they're kind of like vegans.

I'd love everyone to read this book, then they might understand why we have trouble accepting TW in women-only spaces.*

Indeed!

“Reese nearly had it all: a loving relationship with Amy, an apartment in New York, a job she didn't hate. She'd scraped together a life previous generations of trans women could only dream of; the only thing missing was a child. Then everything fell apart and three years on Reese is still in self-destruct mode, avoiding her loneliness by sleeping with married men.

When her ex calls to ask if she wants to be a mother, Reese finds herself intrigued. After being attacked in the street, Amy de-transitioned to become Ames, changed jobs and, thinking he was infertile, started an affair with his boss Katrina. Now Katrina's pregnant. Could the three of them form an unconventional family - and raise the baby together?“

Sounds absolutely rubbish. Most people won’t want to read it, prize or no prize.

I came here knowing that you would be discussing this. I was so upset when I read that a TW had been nominated.

I genuinely think that women are being wiped out: sport, Art, politics, academia.....

PotholeParadies

I don't know whether to thank you for posting that or not. I think I just threw up a bit. It's clearly just fetish fan fic stuff that you could read on some niche internet site. Gross.

@PotholeParadies

This is the page that was going around twitter.

Is this not deeply offensive to people with HIV?

CovoidOfAllHumanity that is exactly what I thought it was when I saw that screenshot, and I just shrugged. As I said before, you can buy a lot of ebooks that are less than cerebral in nature.

But this new development puts a different gloss on it.

I've got some more screenshots, womanittee.

That's so horribly sexist

Tbf the prize can’t be restricted to biological women because legally there will be some trans women who are women. So organisations like this are stuck.

That book sounds absolutely dire though and makes me wonder if they are making a point.

After many, many years of being sexually active and wanting truly SAFE sex that did not put my life in danger and/or render me pregnant when I didn't want to be, after having had partners whinge about using condoms and in one case remove it, leaving me, as a student, sweating and sleepless until my period came, I feel truly violated by that. How dare this person speak for women in such a generalising way? Also, surely those gay men and others who lived through the AIDS epidemic and watched loved ones die must feel truly upset by this?

How many legal TW are there in the UK - 5000?
That means they make up 0.015% of the female population.
You’d expect a book to have to be something really special to overcome those odds of making it onto the longlist.
I feel so sorry for the other judges who have to read and discuss this. I wonder if they were bullied into including it?
Would love to be a fly on the wall!
Are there any judges who are likely to rebel, or have they all drunk the Kool Aid?

When that screenshot first went round GC twitter, that opinion was voiced, yes.

But this is a matter of hierarchy, isn't it? A trans author writing about trans issues is not going to be cancelled because they upset some gay men who lost loved ones and friends to AIDS. It's not how it works.

How many legal TW are there in the UK - 5000?

Less, I think there are about 6k of both sexes who hold a GRC.

There are prizes specifically for trans writers that women can't win. Hmmm...

No one will dare say anything.

I'm having to chose my words very carefully too. [one strike]

The publishing industry is very ...I'm going to use the word woke - and those who are not woke are silent.

Any yet seemingly over-represented in womans lists and articles about women (Boots IWD ‘article’ kicked off with a trans woman for their representation of 5 or 6 women). Or am I wrong?

For those questioning the books literary merit, this is in that Guardian article:
"The women’s prize is for women’s fiction. It doesn’t say it’s for literary fiction. People sometimes assume that’s what the prize is about, but actually, it’s not, and there are brilliant writers out there who wouldn’t necessarily be classed as literary writers, but they’re really good storytellers,” said Evaristo.

Makes it all the worse!

• book's

I can’t get too upset about this but I can about transgender women’s fighting which I saw someone post the other day ( tw and biologically born woman fight) That’s just wrong

Physical fights or like boxing?

Boxing. Can’t remember the type of boxing. Two females had their skulls fractured. There were some gruesome pics I wished I could unsee. It was on here month or so ago

That will be MMA and the notorious Fallon Fox. Launched a career in the women's division.

And the follow up quotes about enjoying it...