Accidental TERF library moment!

[RazzleDazzleDay]

I don't know whether this was a deliberate or accidental move on the part of my local library staff, but either way it's really made me laugh!

😂😂😂

Ha! My guess is accidental. I imagine they will be "reeducated" shortly.

I'm thinking deliberate. Librarians know books. It'll have been ordered deliberately, have had people requesting it.
Good on whoever put their head above the parapet

Maybe they are egalitarian and open minded and think readers may like to consider views from across the board.

def an accident, they'll be burning it in the storecupboard by tea time and re-educated by the end of the week

Ooh, maybe it's stealth egalitarianism!

Whatever it's about it means nothing to me. I'd have passed by without giving any of it a thought.

TERF???

That. Is. Hilarious.

I do hope nobody gets in trouble for it though 🫤

Ha! I reckon this is deliberate too. My mum is a librarian. They are a canny bunch :)

The thing is, that is how it should be - various viewpoints on a subject being presented for those interested to read. It shows how far "no debate" has gone that we think think this must have been done out of ignorance or as a subversive act.

Why did you rush onto the thread to tell us this?!

What am I looking at?

I believe the "trans" first book is not pro-trans?

I don't get this, maybe I'm being slow.... Can someone please explain?

The book on the left is a book by a sex realist journalist, which analyses the trans activist claim that it doesn't harm women if institutions classify male people as women. It is on a table decorated by Progress Pride flag bunting. The progress pride flag is a recent variation of the pride flag. One major difference between the pride flag and the progress pride flag is the addition of a segment from the trans flag. So this bunting expressly indicates support for the belief that women may be male or female, and that men may be male or female.

So that bunting is heavily at odds with the book on the table!

For more information, check out this thread. https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4875600-sex-gender-in-2023

Can you keep an eye on it @RazzleDazzleDay and let us know how the display survives?

I think that is deliberate, either by a librarian or a customer who chose to rearrange the books on display.

Oh lovely. Librarians are not stupid, and are, often, middle-aged women. Unless a customer did it, this is very much on purpose.

(My mum was a librarian and her ex-colleagues are some of the smartest women I've ever met.)

Couldn't you just have explained it like @NeighbourhoodWatchPotholeDivision 🙄

Ha! My guess is accidental. I imagine they will be "reeducated" shortly.
I worked as a library assistant last year and we did all receive an email from one of the librarians attempting to reeducate us when some evil TERF put 'Trans' on the display for Pride month.
It was so bloody pompous and narrow minded that it just incited me to worse acts of book display non- compliance.

I would not be at all surprised if a large percentage of librarians are GC. (A similar thing happened at my library)

This thread is also very helpful if you are staring at the OP, scratching your head at what could possibly be surprising about a book display in a library.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3145470-Break-it-down-for-me

In my experience the library world is extremely woke. Especially at the librarian level, as opposed to the people who tend to work on the floor. It's been a problem for some time, more in the US than the UK, but it's very common for library related publications, conferences, etc, the kind that library workers read and attend, to almost unthinkingly push progressive political stances and people.

In reality, not all displays, maybe not most, are set up by people who have read the books. Especially with something that they probably feel they are supposed to put up to reflect some kind of social justice topic, someone probably just searched for books related to the topic available at the time they were making up the display.

Some might find this interesting, it'a a US based article, but to some extent it applies in the UK too:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/24/opinion/battle-library-neutrality.html

Ex university library person here who used to set up the displays.
That's deliberate, I'd have done it too
There's no way they didn't know what the book was about 😉

There's also a book on gay relationships and lesbian relationship featuring same sex coupleson the covers no less - isn't that terribly transphobic these days?

@NeighbourhoodWatchPotholeDivision ah! Thank you for the explanation!