As a writer, feminist and literary events organiser in Scotland, I’m regularly sent links to information someone thinks might be of interest to me. This week it was a document commissioned by one of Scotland’s leading and most powerful publicly-funded literary organisations, Literature Alliance Scotland (LAS).
Nobody, of course, objects to transgender writers being included or supported, but the content of the guidance raises several extremely serious and concerning issues.
As a registered charity funded by Creative Scotland and the Lottery Fund, Literature Alliance Scotland is supposed to, according to its constitution, “encourage awareness of contemporary literature and oral literary traditions in all the languages of Scotland and in all sectors of society“. (Emphasis mine.)
As Scotland’s largest literary network it wields a massive amount of industry power. Its Board of Trustees include some who hold very important and responsible positions in the Scottish arts and literary world, eg: Sarah Mason, until recently director of The Saltire Society (creators of the Scotland’s National Book Awards); Marc Lambert, CEO of Scottish Book Trust (who have a large budget to fund writers, writing projects, events and more); Rosemary Ward, Director of Programming at the Scottish Book Trust; Sophie Moxon, Executive Director of the Edinburgh International Book Festival; and Vikki Reilly, Events, Marketing and Sales Support Manager at Publishing Scotland.
So it’s alarming, to say the least, to see a taxpayer-funded body openly promote not only intolerance but also blatantly unlawful discrimination.
(Here’s an unedited screenshot from the “large print” version.)
How can an organisation purportedly committed to inclusion and diversity endorse a call which not only uses a derogatory term about women, but is also a call to illegally blacklist certain books from bookshops and no-platform certain authors on the grounds of their beliefs?
To be clear, “TERF” is a slur. It’s a term used to bully, intimidate and silence women who hold perfectly lawful views on the reality and importance of biological sex in life and law, beliefs not only permitted but expressly protected by the Equality Act 2010.
So who is it that LAS (being officially represented here in the shape of an American “queer, transgender writer of speculative fiction” and “freelance sensitivity reader” called Eris Young) want to ban and cancel? Scottish poet Jenny Lindsay has identified three core beliefs, namely that:
To express these or similar beliefs, to insist that rape victims be allowed to request female support, or that male-bodied rapists should not be housed in a women’s prison with vulnerable females, is all it takes for a woman to be labelled “TERF”.
I would like to hear Literature Alliance Scotland explain why, in a democratic society, they have approved guidance that claims that holding such beliefs should lead to an author having their books blacklisted and removed from bookshops, and to the authors themselves being cancelled from events.
What set of beliefs, in what is supposed to be a very diverse and inclusive nation, do they think they might single out next for blacklisting?
What message does the organisation intend to send to those, from authors and poets to bookshops and publishers, to festivals and event organisers, who are keen not to offend – and therefore will not challenge – guidance from not only the powerful LAS, but by extension the Scottish Book Trust, the Saltire Society, Edinburgh International Book Festival and Publishing Scotland?
Do they really, seriously think that they are upholding their own aims by sanctioning a call for blacklisting and cancellation of authors?
For the last few years, as an increasing number of feminist titles have been published, many readers looking to buy these books have complained on social media that they had visited bookshops to buy a copy, only to not only not find them on display, but to be told they weren’t in stock. Yet, when the customers insisted, and eventually, in some cases, took it to manager level, the titles requested were found to be wrongly shelved or brought out from the store room.
(Among the critically-acclaimed titles affected have been Professor Kathleen Stock’s “Material Girls”, Helen Joyce’s “Trans”, Olympic swimmer Sharon Davies’ “Unfair Play”, Victoria Smith’s “Hags”, Karen Ingala Smith’s “Defending Women’s Spaces”, and Hannah Barnes’ “Time To Think”.)
Scottish poets like myself and Jenny Lindsay have already faced no-platforming and ostracisation. But for this behaviour to be sanctioned by Literature Alliance Scotland, for it to be part of their guidance, is a very ugly new departure.
Where might this kind of partisan and discriminatory behaviour, this censuring and censoring of women authors for holding feminist views end?
Are LAS really advocating, for example, that the books of women of colour like literary giant Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie or successful children’s author Onjali Rauf MBE – founder of Making Herstory, a woman’s rights organisation tackling the abuse and trafficking of women and girls in the UK – be blacklisted by Scottish bookshops and banned from Scottish literary festivals for no reason other than they share the modest, reasonable beliefs outlined by Jenny Lindsay?
Chimamanda herself has spoken eloquently on the climate of censure and the threat to Freedom of Speech for writers in her BBC Radio 4 Reith Lecture on this very subject. Perhaps LAS should take time to listen and absorb its wisdom and insights.
‘TERF” is widely accepted as being derogatory, and associated with threats of violence against women. It’s a female-specific insult weaponised online against women who speak up for women’s sex-based – and entirely legitimate – rights.
(Women such as Roz Adams, the rape crisis centre worker who resoundingly won her recent employment tribunal against Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre, or Professor Jo Phoenix who won an equally important ruling against the Open University, or Rachel Meade, the social worker suspended by her local authority and discriminated against by Social Work England, and of course Maya Forstater, whose case first established that gender-critical beliefs are worthy of respect in a democratic society.)
How on earth did a prestigious charity like LAS – who claim in their constitution to be “trusted” – approve advice to booksellers and events organiser where such language is used? And where does this advice to the Scottish book industry leave those in Scotland who believe that there are two sexes, that sex is a material reality, meaningful and important in policy and law?
The guidance continues by linking “TERFs” – that is, women who hold gender-critical beliefs – with “transphobia”.
This is a dangerous and inaccurate conflation, as the Russell Group of prestigious UK universities found out to its cost yesterday when in an official document – ironically about the importance of free speech – it incorrectly referred to such beliefs as being unlawful and lumped them in with Islamophobia and anti-Semitism, before hastily apologising and amending their statement after a public outcry.
But even the Russell Group hadn’t gone so far as to link gender-critical women to “fascists”. One would have hoped LAS would have rigorously questioned both these allegations, or at least requested robust back-up evidence to substantiate.
(All we get is a reference to an American children’s book publisher no one in Scotland or the UK is likely to have even heard of, never mind be teaming up with.)
Speaking as an atheist Scottish woman with deep working-class roots and lifelong left-wing credentials, such a clumsy attempt to link feminists with the far right is as utterly reprehensible as it is without foundation.
It’s also unfortunate that LAS saw fit to publish this spurious, malicious allegation just before the Liberal leader in Victoria, Australia, John Pesutto, was forced to issue an apology for making a very similar claim against Australian and English women’s rights campaigners after they brought a defamation claim against him.
LAS claims to be “a trusted, strong collective voice for Scotland’s literature and languages, which are celebrated locally, nationally and internationally”.
Their publication of this guide for the book industry has seriously damaged that trust. To have uncritically published an unevidenced claim that feminists in Scotland are aligned with American fascists comes very close to incitement in what is an already needlessly over-inflamed debate.
Scottish women like JK Rowling, Joanna Cherry and many others who hold perfectly legitimate political views are already being subjected to threats of extreme violence, including rape and murder. LAS should be ashamed of – and censured for – spreading further inflammatory disinformation. It certainly should never have been published by one of the most powerful bodies in the Scottish cultural sector.
The Saltire Society, the Scottish Book Trust and Publishing Scotland all have the power to supercharge or more worryingly, destroy a writer’s career. That they should be members of an organisation that would approve of and release such deeply flawed, unpleasant, divisive and blatantly unlawful “guidance” smacks of ideological rather than cultural motivations.
Yet it is sadly symptomatic of the toxic anti-women’s-rights climate currently prevalent in Scotland, most recently demonstrated by the Scottish Green Party’s expulsion of 13 members, including long-term activists, for believing that biological sex is a reality.
Literature Alliance Scotland has a basic duty to the people of Scotland – their ultimate funders – to behave responsibly and treat writers and readers from ALL sectors of society with fairness and respect, regardless of race, religion, sex, gender or belief.
LAS, Creative Scotland and the Scottish Government must immediately ensure that this unlawful guidance is removed from its website, issue an apology, and conduct an investigation into how it was allowed to be published. All Scots, but particularly Scottish women, deserve nothing less.
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Magi Gibson is a Scottish poet, playwright and novelist. A version of this article first appeared on her site.
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[EDIT 4.16pm: Within less than an hour of this article’s publication, LAS removed the document from their “Resources” page. They have not as yet issued any comment explaining either the publication or the removal. The document can be downloaded here, in normal and large print versions.]
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[EDIT 5.40pm: LAS have now issued a statement.]
