National Library of Scotland censors The Women Who Wouldn't Wheesht

[OhBuggerandArse]

Took it out of their centenary exhibition because the staff LGBT+ network kicked up a fuss. Craven. This really needs massive public challenge and push back - if the National Library isn't able to fend off the censors we are utterly lost. https://x.com/EthelWrites/status/1955390550494023958

Times report here: https://www.thetimes.com/article/1ceff948-4114-428c-892c-0af305d80a33?shareToken=1970828b6130942a14f41a9762ef246c

That letter is brilliant. You'd be so ashamed to be the recipient wouldn't you. It's scary this is still happening.

Unbelievable. The LGBT group threatened to tell sponsors in a fit of spite, to potentially cause detriment to their own employer.

And instead of the employer starting disciplinary proceedings against these disloyal and insubordinate staff, they caved in and bowed to their demands.

What the fuck is going on? I can’t think of a single employer I have worked for who would have accepted that kind of behaviour from an employee. Said employee would have very likely been swiftly out on their ear.

Not sure I have grasped the story if full but seriously when is this madness going to end.

It is the National Library of Scotland. And I am sure many in Scotland have different ideas etc., about Scotland.

Are any of them throwing hissy fits because a book is included that has opinions they dont like?

Of all places you shouldn't be working is a library if you dont believe in the right to express opinions and ideas, let alone biological fact.

Their irrational ideas that they set the rules has got to be challenged and ignored.

That is a very clear letter that really must make the decision makers cringe. I wonder if it was only the National Librarian ultimately who took the decision or if it was a board.

Books are dangerous. They have mean words in them and challenge our version of reality. People might read them and decide we aren't virtuous angels. We can't have that. The authors are Nazis.

We must have a good ole fashioned book burning session to eliminate all that bad stuff.

However, it also claimed that giving the work a platform could be “harmful” to staff or lead to a loss of trust from “transgender people and allies”.

Yeah cos censoring it won't lead to harm to women and a loss of trust from women. Won't someone think of the men?

Excellent letter. I hope they do get a reply.

The title of the book is very apt; this is effectively the National Library telling the women of Scotland to wheesht.

First they try and censor books in libraries with some written by GC women hidden in storage. Then they go for bookshops trying to shame sellers who have them on their shelves

Ironic they are equating GC views as far right and akin to the Nazis when they are basically the ones trying to burn anything they don’t agree with

Surely the job of a National Library is to keep a copy of every book written by people who live in the country. It's an important book because it represents an important time in Scotland's political and social upheaval. Taking it out of an event designed to celebrate and commemorate the importance of Scottish books and the impact they might of had on the course of events in Scotland is a betrayal of what a National Library stands for. I hope the letter has an impact.

What a spineless attempt at censorship. I swear if I hear one more of these numpties banging on about a book making them feel unsafe I will scream! It just goes to show what a luxury belief this ideology is, they’ve clearly never been made afraid of anything in their lives if a book makes them ‘unsafe’, it’s pathetic.

This is shameful. Once upon a time, librarians used to be really against censorship and the banning of books.

I have come to despise words like ‘unsafe’ when uttered by groups of spoiled, bratty men who - as you say - don’t know the meaning of the word. Has everyone grown up reading different newspapers to us? Newspapers where women aren’t being assaulted and murdered by men every week (and those are just the cases that make the news). Men - even ones in lipstick and heels - make women women unsafe through their physique, aggression and violence. It barely ever works in reverse. The library are cowards to effectively champion male violence, rather than making a stand against it.

The article says that the decision was backed by the board but in the end it was Shah's decision as CEO. I am not going to blame men for this one. I blame the simpering woman who enabled them.

"She took the decision despite NLS acknowledging works that offered the opposite perspective on trans rights had been included, while “no other representation of gender-critical ideology” was to be included in the exhibition."

The book was women's "lived experience" of political history and not a diatribe against trans.There were lesbians writing in it, and women who'd been subject to male violence. It's been praised for the quality of the writing as well as the courage and honesty of many contributors.

I want to feel proud of my adopted country's cultural heritage. Some days it's not so easy. 😪

I would encourage letters (be careful to keep the tone such that they can't be accused of being abusive or aggressive) to the National Librarian, Amina Shah, to express our concerns. I won't post her email, but the NLS has a standard format for email addresses - [email protected]

If anyone can come up with an email address for the Chair of the National Library Board, Sir Drummond Bone, who is said to have signed off on the decision, I'd be really grateful.

I'm with you on "safety". "Safe" never to think difficult thoughts or question your own beliefs or listen to dissent. And the more I see the word "ally" misused to suppress dissent the more I think what a bad model for social freedom and equality "allyship" really is.

I'm also struck by this page listing the leadership team - the pronoun distribution is curious. All the women, only one of the men. https://www.nls.uk/about-us/who-and-what/leadership-and-governance/llt/

Thank you @OhBuggerandArse I shall relieve my feelings here so I can express them more diplomatically elsewhere.

Interesting about the pronouns. So that's "simpering women" not just "woman". In my workplace it's more the other way round. Senior management women and HR are more likely to do it. On the ground, we're engineers, so the women already know not to announce what sex we are.

This is bizarre.

someone did some work looking at how many MPs had trans ID close family members, from memory it was mid 50s. It would be interesting to see how many national library employees have close family members who are trans ID

Front page news in The Times.

Susan Dalgety

Libraries were a huge part of my life growing up, as they were my late mother’s. She was a clever woman, who grew up in chaotic poverty and was denied a chance to fulfil her potential. But libraries were her higher education. It is a deeply personal therefore that the National Library of Scotland chose to censor the book that @LucyHunterB
and I edited chronicling an important period in recent Scottish politics. I am, by turn, hurt and very, very angry that Amina Shah, National Librarian made this anti-democratic decision. That she treated our book as a harmful object, to be hidden from public view. That the prevailing culture in Scotland’s public life enabled her to feel it was appropriate for the National Library to censor a book written by women about their rights. Tomorrow Nicola Sturgeon will enjoy not one, but two, high profile events to launch her memoir - as she should. Meanwhile our book, which challenged her approach to a significant legal and cultural shift on women’s rights is censored by our national library. Who exactly weaponised this debate?

The rate went my brother came out was apparently 1 in 10000 in 2007. (The number always stuck with me because statistically it didn't make sense even then - cos we lived on the same street and one of his classmates was also trans)

I take it you are referring to Westminster here rather than Holyrood.

There are 650 MPs.

For 50 to have close family members who have come out as trans, raises some fairly big questions.

Thanks for the email details, I have sent one to AS to express my profound disappointment, see I was diplomatic, no swearing or shouting.

I thought I should sign it with my name and address but unfortunately I'm from Wales so it might not be even read.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14994377/Kate-Forbes-banned-arts-venue-views-trans-issues.html

5'2" women are so terrifying a safe room away from here is needed. Who knew?

Meanwhile, in Scotland, all women are not afforded the luxury of safe rooms away from males regardless of how scared they may be. Even if they are rape victims.