Statement on pronouns
I saw this the other day but didn’t get around to it.
A revised statement from Little, Brown and Company. pic.twitter.com/zSQp1Q132C
— Little, Brown and Co (@littlebrown) February 26, 2019
We will work with E. J. Levy to publish her novel with sensitivity to the issues that have been raised, including the use of the proper pronouns to describe Dr. Barry’s embodiment.
The “proper pronouns” forsooth – they might as well be obeying a demand for submission from the god-emperor. Use the proper pronouns or it’s ten years in the slammer for lèse-majesté.
It’s interesting to think about how many novels there have been in which women are portrayed as evil schemers, bloodsucking sex fiends, stupid empty dependents, silly vain dolls, barely perceptible nonentities…yet have women ever once been able to pressure a publisher into telling an author to do a better job with the female characters? Maybe some female editors have, but groups of women outsiders forming pressure groups? Not that I’ve ever heard of; do let me know if I’m wrong.
Evidently the transborg are not appeased. They still insist that Little, Brown is enabling thoughtcrime and criminally hurting the feelings of “a vulnerable minority” by allowing the fiendish Levy to possibly misgender Dr. Barry.
So LB&C’s weaselling did them no good. They may as well have taken a stand for freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and freedom of thought. Not to mention a stand for the historical reality of female people.
I posted several tweets along these lines:
Dr. Barry’s embodiment? Seems that most basic facet of her embodiment is that she had a female body and is thus a female. This woman has been DEAD a long time, nobody in this discussion ever spoke to her in her lifetime. Yet the trans activists think THEY know better? Guess anything that draws attention away from the latest TIM committing a horrid murder only to have the docile press say a “woman” did all this https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/Second-arrest-made-after-man-s-body-found-in-13656300.php
1) We support the freedom of writers [to write what their imagination comes up with].
2) We will work with E.J. Levy to publish her novel [as long as she is prepared to accept the changes ordered by the trans bullies].
One of these things is not like the other. Also, why is it always ‘the trans community and their allies? Is it intended to appear that the trans community has more support than it actually has?
Finally, for publishers of literature, one would think that a representative of Little, Brown and Company (note: no Oxford comma!) would be able to properly construct a sentence (emph. mine).