Author’s latest book shoehorns trans identified male into women’s friendship group.

[mylittlekomododragon]

I have the latest audio book by an author whose books I usually enjoy, but am struggling because a trans identified male has been shoe horned into a women’s friendship group, a menopause group no less, and is welcomed with open arms by simpering handmaidens, apart from one big bad terf who is painted as an out of touch bigot. The character goes on to discuss menopause symptoms, saying they understand, but it felt so jarring. So disappointing, as in a previous book this author had made a comment that made me think she was gender critical, but the pandering to this trans character is staggering. The whole character arc felt contrived, and coming from a 60 year old woman, was almost as disappointing as Margaret Atwood!

I’m don’t agree - you’ve missed off the end if that quote where Janet says something like “and now I’m a woman” and Ruth just accepts that. So I disagree that there’s an acceptance that both accept Janet as male. Ruth doesn’t have to say anything to Janet but equally we are privy to Ruth’s thoughts, which are strangely absent here.

The trans character in The Silkworm is clearly mentally ill.

But Ruth is a character in her own right. She's not supposed to be the literary manifestation of you or me or any other person.

If I met a trans woman in a professional context, the way Ruth meets Janet, then as long as they did not behave in an inappropriate way, I would react exactly as Ruth does. If I were to meet either of the people I know who have transitioned since the last time I saw them, I would be perfectly polite about it. Yes, I would be thinking, "You're not really a woman though, are you?" but unless it was actually relevant to our interaction, there would be no need to mention it.

I don't think we necessarily need to "hear" Ruth thinking TERFy thoughts in order for it to be OK that there is a trans character in the book. We hear about Ruth's other beliefs a lot, for example, we know that she is anti Tory and opposed to private education, and we know that she is a staunch atheist. We also know that there are other characters in the book who are perfectly likeable, sympathetic characters and hold diametrically opposing beliefs, such as Michelle wanting her kids to go to private school and Cathbad's spiritual beliefs. I think it's clear to me that there is room in the books for diversity of opinion and belief, and also that if Ruth particularly cared one way or the other that TWAW or TWAM, we would hear about it. Personally I'm fine with the idea that Ruth doesn't care as strongly about trans issues as she does about other things.

I listened again to the contrived menopause group scene, and it’s actually worse than I thought. After the nasty bigoted terf has left, much to everyone’s relief, (after stating biological fact) the 6 foot tall TIM is welcomed to the “guest of honour chair”. Dick pandering at its finest.

Yeah, that's just ridiculous and insulting.

The thing is though, I'm pretty sure Milly Johnson's readership mainly consists of older women. Surely quite a lot of them will be turned off by this?

It really isn't. I know both of these women, and they are very separate individuals.

If you look at Milly Johnson's and Sue Moorcroft's websites they are different people.

@MissScarletInTheBallroom Yes, I’m older myself, and seeing the events that Milly Johnson posts about on social media I would say her readership is not that young!

She's pro-trans, yeah. Though presumably this doesn't matter to you if it doesn't come up in her books?

Some cis women are six foot tall, you know? I'm one of them. Not sure why you made a point of mentioning that.,

Just women - no need for the cis. There are women, and men who present their idea of womanhood to the world.

OP, thanks for this heads-up, I'll make sure and give Milly and her man-pandering a wide berth.

I couldn't care less what her views are as long as she doesn't use her books to shoehorn in a lecture about how trans women are women and we should all be kind. That's the point at which I'd stop buying her books.

What does "pro trans" even mean, anyway?

What do you think a cis woman is, out of interest? I don't usually see women referring to themselves this way.

I was going to guess Joanne Harris - her latest book has a beautiful passing fragile TIM character who joins a women's running club. I don't know what happened next as I stopped bothering with it. It was extra jarring as the theme of the book is a woman finding she has magical powers connected to her menopause. I did think even though she blocked me on X I might be able to still enjoy her books but apparently not.

@YouHaveAnArse Don’t be so disingenuous, it’s not clever. The height was mentioned in the book, and let’s face it, anyone with eyes can spot the difference.

@FortyElephants Joanne Harris has a trans daughter and is totally captured. Very unpopular around here - lives in a huge mansion and constantly has the begging bowl out on social media. Yet when it came to support for local libraries she’s nowhere to be seen.

I did, and they looked the same to me. 🤷‍♀️ But sorry Sue, you might want to work on your SEO though.

I just find it really unpleasant that if you're a woman who's tall, or has big hands or feet, that you're in some way not womanning properly, that only trans women have those things.

A woman that was born with a fanny, rather than a woman who wasn't.

And I see women referring to themselves that way a lot. If you choose not to, that's fine, I find with discussions like this (where it seems only trans women are allowed to be 'six foot') it helps clarify.

The word is woman. Just woman. We’re not a subset.

I agree that women come in all shapes and sizes, and that shouldn’t be a marker for being female. However, referring to cis women does exactly that. Women can be 6 foot. Again, that’s all you need to say.

I have to say as a fanny bearer who is 6ft and struggles daily with my PCOS beard I also prickle a bit when people throw put the '6 ft woman with a beard' line to emphasise the ridiculousness of accepting TIMs as women. Not that I think that was what OP was doing here but I think the repeated irritation of that kind or rhetoric is probably what annoyed Youhaveanarse.

Interesting.

So essentially you think a cis woman is a female woman and a trans woman is a male woman?

I hate this. I read a book recently which I thought would be safe, The Land Of Lost Things by John Connolly. Sequel to one of my favourite ever books, The Book Of Lost Things. Set in a fantasy world.

It features a non-binary dryad who goes by they/them pronouns. So we are left with sentences such as - ‘The dryad watched the hunter and the girl walk out their cottage. They slipped into the forest.’

Who did? The dryad, or the hunter and the girl? And it goes on like this throughout.

ps shameless self plug, my novel, Spiked, that came out in January, features some TERF content. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by some people who have quietly whispered to me that I was brave and that they really enjoyed it. Others, mostly expected, have told me they were going to read it and not said another word, presumably offended by the points made about men not belonging in women’s spaces! I was ready for it though and quite happy to be on the wrong side of history in their eyes, if supporting men in women’s spaces is the right side!

Sadly I have quite a long list of authors I just can’t read any more as they’ve shown themselves to be such disappointments on this issue. Jodi Picoult was always one of my favourite writers, and I did like Joanne Harris too. I actually picked up a Milly J Xmas book from our phone box library yesterday that I was saving for December but might not read it now if that’s the kind of nonsense I can expect.

No, a cis woman, though I reject this term, is a woman, with no need for any qualifiers. Just a woman.

A woman that was born with a fanny, rather than a woman who wasn't.

okay. So you're saying that a human born with a penis can be a woman?

In that case, what is the difference between a woman born with a penis, and a man born with a penis?

I was commenting that this seems to be the distinction @YouHaveAnArse is making.

A lot of the time if you ask for a definition of "cis woman" you get something along the lines of "a cis woman is a woman whose gender identity aligns with her sex assigned at birth". According to that definition I wouldn't be considered a woman, because I don't have a gender identity or believe there is any such thing as a female gender identity or that anything is assigned at birth.

Defining a cis woman as a woman who was "born with a fanny" seems to be a slightly crude way of saying "female woman", the implication being that there are also male women.

The only issue with that is that that "cis" as a prefix to "man" means "male", and "cis" as a prefix to "woman" means "female", which means that the definition of "cis" is context dependent and we are still none the wiser as to what the words "man" or "woman" mean.

If a woman is something that exists in both female and male varieties, I have literally no idea what one is.