GC books in Waterstones

[Norma27]

My eldest wanted to go in Waterstones yesterday so thought I would look again for GC books. Last time I was looking for a feminist section but couldn’t find it.

This time, my daughter was looking in the history section, and next to it was the smart thinking section. I found Julie bindel’s recent feminist book, Helen Joyce’s trans (2 copies) Kathleen Stock’s Material Girls and the Invisible Women book(sorry will get the authors’s long name wrong if I try but this one had several copies included on a display table). I put all these books in prominent positions.
No copies of Irreversible Damage there unfortunately.

There was one copy of a book i think was called gender euphoria I put in a less prominent position as it was front cover facing, and replaced it with trans.
I couldn’t find any other TRA books by eg Shon Faye which pleased me.

I was pleased to see my local Waterstones did supply GC books as I know some have been awful on this issue.

I emailed my local Waterstones about why its Politics section had disappeared, and, in a separate paragraph, asked in which section I would be able to find Material Girls. Its response was to ignore the first query altogether, and to say that they could order Material Girls but would keep it under the counter for collection.

I'm glad you have a branch near you that is devoted to selling books as opposed to wrapping paper and what look like game sets for hen parties.

@AutumnCrow i must admit I wouldn’t have thought to look there and only found them by chance.
I will have to go to the main city centre branch when I get a chance and check there.

Forgot to say - I am liking your book display skills!

I think it depends where the store is and the staff. The one bear my old office looks like a unicorn had vomited in the window. all rainbows, flags, and books with the Q word. They also cancelled their feminist reading group and replaced it (yes you guessed).

One near my new office is not like this at all.

Thank you! 😊

Why hide books?

Books were not hidden. One was put in a less prominent position but not hidden.

Why do they hide the books? Why have they got rid of the ‘womens studies’ books and replaces it with ‘gender studies’ which is purely lgbT ones?

Exactly!

I check this in most bookshops I visit. My local Waterstones (west end of Glasgow) has no GC books, but lots of gender ideology ones. On the east coast, Portobello bookshop is the same. Another independent bookshop in Stockbridge, Edinburgh, had only gender ideology ones when I visited but calls itself "female centric" (I just checked online again and no Kathleen Stock or Helen Joyce).

So I shop on Hive or Topping & Company in Edinburgh, which has GC books. One day, when the rage is just right, I will ask my local Waterstones if they have a copy of Material Girls in the back and see how they respond.

I was so pleased and astonished to find both material girls and trans there! And trans being forward facing not just spine on view.
a very middle class area, which I do not belong to but is my nearest store. I do know many local schools to thereare captured, but the much lowerclass schools my daughters go to aren’t!

Good for you!

last time I went to our local library I noticed the shelf where the feminist/GC books is has shrunk to make space for books on gender ideology/non binary stuff. I mean. Why that shelf?! Grrr.

Under the counter? Risible. I would respond to say that if they're ashamed to sell it they won't be getting an order out of me.

I keep an eye on the selection on display in my local Blackwells, and they used to be quite good about having the Stock and Joyce books on the shelves. However I went in recently to buy a book and (a) no GC books on the shelves any more and (b) I was served by an obvious female wearing a badge that said ‘pronouns: he/they’ on it. These two things may or may not be connected.

I think all books ordered are kept under the counter, if you ordered a book and went to collect it only to find it had been sold to someone else you probably wouldn’t be too happy.

On a separate note, my local Waterstones seems to get reorganised once a month which makes it impossible to find anything, and they just seem to be selling more and more games and jigsaws. I prefer to shop at our local independent bookstore which happily sells the titles mentioned, in the non fiction section

It is very much dependent on the branch unfortunately. Where I work we have Joyce, Bindel, Stock, Shrier and others, and I make sure they’re out. Some TRAs aren’t above destroying books in a shop, such is their hatred of Joyce and Co, so don’t assume a book not being out is about wanting to restrict its sale, that isn’t always the case.

@Norma27 I was really glad too! Some bookshops you think "please, pleaaase" don't be like that as you approach the feminism/genderology section (Porty) when you know they will. Topping is a lovely shop, a proper browsing bookshop

Worth mentioning that with Hive you can allocate a shop to benefit from your purchase, so can "reward" shops you want even when you can't shop there for whatever reason