[user104658]

Originally Posted by bitontheslide

this strikes me as a calculated offering to create confrontation and publicity. A bookstore is free to stock or not stock any books they want to and that's always been the case

Indeed, a cynical publicity grab, they can stock whatever they want of course but choosing to do it loudly isn't about making an ethical stand... is it... it's about drawing attention. These days it seems like people are generally OK with people hijacking their cause for self-publicity, though, so long as the message fits the tribal zeitgeist.

On a personal level I wouldn't be interested in a bookshop that is anything other than politically neutral. Half the point of GOING to a physical book shop would be to see if something outside your usual sphere of influence catches your eye ... if you know what you're looking for you buy online for a fraction of the price like everyone else .

Quite seriously though this trend towards some variant of revisionism and book-burning is a bit concerning. If we started burning the books of every author we disagree with or even those who have a blatantly murky personal history we'd be going round the shelves with a supermarket trolley FULL of books for the pyre. Imagine thinking you can only consume content made by squeaky-clean people who are on your personal and political page . What does a generation of people living in that sort of intellectual closed-system look like? Not a world I'm ever going to advocate, really. And no I'm not saying the Harry Potter series is top tier intellectualism - but once you start stripping one set of books from the shelves (and dousing them in lighter fluid along the way)... that's a pandoras box that it would be very naive to assume you can close.

What happens if other book stores or chains start stripping LGBT literature from their shelves because of their personal beliefs? Is that difficult to imagine? How will anyone who champions this action be able to say one word about it? If you say "taking books off the shelves is fine... burning books is fine..." it becomes very, very difficult to then say "hold on, I didn't mean THOSE books!!"

[Oliver_W]

Originally Posted by Ammi

...this is from Pink News also as well as the Australian bookstore one...Jedward and Piers Morgan in ‘furious clash’ on Twitter...

...the Tweets aren’t loading for me for some reason so I’ll just link the whole article...

https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/09/1...ights-twitter/

Morgan, whose own track record on trans rights isn’t, er, great

That's where I stopped reading. He's great when it comes to LGBT stuff tbh. The linked "article" is just stupid jokes and stuff about "nonbinary", which is nonsense anyway

[Swan]

The X Factor stars turned Twitter icons

Book burning though? Didn't they do something like that in the 1950's

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Swan

Book burning though? Didn't they do something like that in the 1950's

Yes and back then they liked to tell women to shut up and sit down as well...backwards in time we're going

[Swan]

Originally Posted by Niamh.

Yes and back then they liked to tell women to shut up and sit down as well...backwards in time we're going

Yep...

[Josy]

Originally Posted by Niamh.

Yes and back then they liked to tell women to shut up and sit down as well...backwards in time we're going

Under his eye

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Josy

Under his eye

Mmhhmm

[Oliver_W]

JKR doesn't seem anti anything, but her brand of feminism is female-centric ... as revolutionary a concept that apparently is

Originally Posted by Niamh.

backwards in time we're going

[Ammi]

...going back to the original story of the bookshop ‘banning‘ in Australia...?....it’s obviously felt very strongly by the shop that the book is representative of something very negative ...and it’s completely their prerogative to not stock it on the shelves, of course...but in doing that it’s just adding another layer of negative, which will surely only serve to give more publicity to the book JK and any publicity can be good, as they say...so it seems very counter productive in supporting their trans community...

...the profits for any sales the store has of Harry Potter are already donated to the trans and gender diverse support service, TransFolk of WA, the article states...so any profits from sales of her new book...(...which could be quite substantial..)..could also be donated by the shop, which to me would be a possibly better alternative in countering with a positive, rather than adding another negative on top of etc...because their support would have a more directly beneficial and positive value...

[Liam-]

Originally Posted by Swan

Book burning though? Didn't they do something like that in the 1950's

Do we really think Jedward are aware of anything but themselves and hairspray?

[Swan]

Originally Posted by Liam-

Do we really think Jedward are aware of anything but themselves and hairspray?

No of course not, but they are in the public eye being 'twitter icons' n'all. They have over 600k followers (yes i googled 'jedward twitter' for the first, and last time). It's dangerous to encourage people to revert back to the 50's and 'burn books' just because they don't like the author. It's progression doing a 180.

[Oliver_W]

Originally Posted by Swan

No of course not, but they are in the public eye being 'twitter icons' n'all. They have over 600k followers (yes i googled 'jedward twitter' for the first, and last time). It's dangerous to encourage people to revert back to the 50's and 'burn books' just because they don't like the author. It's progression doing a 180.

Especially when said author is openly feminist and has been a major progressive voice for god knows how long..

[Crimson Dynamo]

The German National Socialists loved a good book banning (and burning)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_book_burnings

[Shaun]

The choice of Robert Galbraith is an odd and perhaps unfortunate one in hindsight. I doubt she heard about him before choosing a pen name and thought "YES. THAT'S THE ONE." Even if she were a massive bigot, it'd be a bit on the nose and easy for detractors to point out

[user104658]

Originally Posted by Shaun

The choice of Robert Galbraith is an odd and perhaps unfortunate one in hindsight.

That part did stand out to me to be fair, but it's something I'd have to dig around before jumping to "social media conclusions". I agree that it would be a pretty clear piece of political banner waving if it was a deliberate choice, and therefore it seems quite unlikely. But also a bit of an unusual name. Hm.

[Liam-]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

That part did stand out to me to be fair, but it's something I'd have to dig around before jumping to "social media conclusions". I agree that it would be a pretty clear piece of political banner waving if it was a deliberate choice, and therefore it seems quite unlikely. But also a bit of an unusual name. Hm.

I can’t imagine that she fell into the name by accident and it’s all just one big coincidence, it’s a very specific name and she’s admitted to apparently doing a lot of research, I don’t see it as anything but a very deliberate choice

[bots]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

That part did stand out to me to be fair, but it's something I'd have to dig around before jumping to "social media conclusions". I agree that it would be a pretty clear piece of political banner waving if it was a deliberate choice, and therefore it seems quite unlikely. But also a bit of an unusual name. Hm.

what's the issue with the pseudonym, she has used them in the past

[Liam-]

Originally Posted by bitontheslide

what's the issue with the pseudonym, she has used them in the past

Robert Galbraith was the person who invented gay conversion therapy

[bots]

Originally Posted by Liam-

Robert Galbraith was the person who invented gay conversion therapy

oops

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Liam-

Robert Galbraith was the person who invented gay conversion therapy

Why do you think JK Rowling is anti gay though?

[user104658]

Originally Posted by Liam-

Robert Galbraith was the person who invented gay conversion therapy

I mean... With a brief half hour having a look into this earlier I can already tell you that this is a massive exaggeration. He definitely didn't invent it, he want even a prominent figure in it, nor was it his main area of focus.

He was a (pretty brutal) "psychiatrist" who engaged in DBS (deep brain stimulation) experiments, seeking to prove that it was possible to psychologically alter people by physically altering their brain (with electrodes). In one experiment seeking to prove that, he claimed that he had successfully "turned a gay man straight".

His goals weren't even anything to do with wanting to convert gay people, he wanted to prove his DBS hypothesis and did a whole load of unethical **** in the process.

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

That part did stand out to me to be fair, but it's something I'd have to dig around before jumping to "social media conclusions". I agree that it would be a pretty clear piece of political banner waving if it was a deliberate choice, and therefore it seems quite unlikely. But also a bit of an unusual name. Hm.

Her explanation for the name choice is Robert after her political here Robert Kennedy and Ella Galbraith was her fantasy name as a child. Who is Robert Galbraith?

[Crimson Dynamo]

Im sure what ever name she came up with someone would have found some link to diss her

[Crimson Dynamo]

[Marsh.]

A pathetic move tbh.