Bestselling children’s author Gillian Philip is sacked, after she added hashtag #IStandWithJKRowling to her Twitter handle amid bitter transgender row
A bestselling children’s author has been sacked after expressing support for fellow writer JK Rowling in the bitter row over transgender rights.
In the latest example of Cancel Culture, novelist Gillian Philip was last week jettisoned from her role writing titles for a major publishing company. It came after the writer, who has penned a popular series of books for eight to twelve-year-olds, added the hashtag #IStandWithJKRowling to her Twitter handle.
Her move sparked a torrent of online abuse and emails to her employer, Working Partners, a ‘fiction packaging’ firm which devises series for publishing houses and commissions authors to write them. Philip, 56, had expressed her support for the Harry Potter creator after she retweeted an article referring to ‘people who menstruate’ and questioned why the story did not use the word ‘women’. Rowling was subjected to trolling and accused of being transphobic.
And Philip – one of several authors who wrote under the name ‘Erin Hunter’ on popular animal fantasy series including Warrior Cats, Survivors and Bravelands – found herself sacked for her support of Rowling.
Gillian Philip is the bestselling author of such books as the ‘Rebel Angels’ series (‘Firebrand’, ‘Bloodstone’, ‘Wolfsbane’ and ‘Icefall’)
After Philip received sexualized abuse and death threats from the trans lobby, she tweeted, “Bring it on, homophobes and lesbian-haters.” And this inflamed the situation.
Within twenty-four hours, James Noble, managing editor of Working Partners, replied to the barrage of complaints, saying: “The worlds created by Erin Hunter are meant to be inclusive for all readers and we want to let you know that Gillian Philip will no longer be writing any Erin Hunter novels.”
The decision was condemned by Toby Young, founder of the Free Speech Union, who said: “Every day, people’s livelihoods are being destroyed and their names dragged through the mud because they’ve said something others disagree with. Anyone who challenges the view of these activists is immediately targeted for cancellation.”
Erin Hunter books are published by Harper Collins, which was also targeted by online protesters. Gillian Philip has also written as Gabriella Poole for the Darke Academy series and Adam Blade for the Beast Quest books.
In a statement released after the announcement of her sack, she said: “I am disappointed that the hard work and professional attitude I have brought to my work for Harper Collins and for Working Partners counted for nothing in the face of an abusive mob of anonymous Twitter trolls.”
Meanwhile, two of the biggest Harry Potter fan sites have distanced themselves from Rowling. Websites The Leaky Cauldron and MuggleNet released a joint statement saying that the best-selling author’s views on “marginalized people” are ”out of step with the message of acceptance and empowerment we find in her books and celebrated by the Harry Potter community.”
Both websites announced they would no longer be providing links to Rowling’s personal website, using photographs of her, or writing about her achievements that are unrelated to the world of Harry Potter. The statement also said that Rowling had voiced “harmful and disproven beliefs about what it means to be a transgender person.”
However, MuggleNet founder Emerson Spartz tweeted in support of Rowling, writing: “After hours of stomach churning & frantic pacing, I decided that, as founder of MuggleNet, I have to say something. I can’t believe I have to say this, but @jk_rowling is NOT transphobic.”
Rowling replied to Spartz, writing: “Thank you, Emerson, for being who I always thought you were.”
.@EmersonSpartz Thank you, Emerson, for being who I always thought you were. ⚡️ https://t.co/9BAF1Jdnox
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) July 4, 2020
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11 Comments
Mitch
July 08, 07:45If people don’t yet see this neo-Nazi trans movement for what it is, I don’t think there’s anything one can say or do to make them see the light.
You don’t see gay people PR irreligious people screaming for churches to close down or for homophobic and anti-irreligious speakers to lose their jobs or things like that.
But, just speak about the idiocy and absolute distortion of what is both logical and sensible that is the trans community and watch the same people who keep screaming that they’re marginalised turn into a pack of wolves baying for your blood, for your means of livelihood and whatever else they can.
Insidious is starting to take on a new meaning with this trans movement and activism.
Tueh!!!!
Mandy
July 08, 07:51We are fast becoming the monsters that we’re fighting.
Dee
July 08, 16:17Both of you above seem to have mental problems. Two wealthy, well-connected white women use their massive platforms to support encourage discrimination against a minority group (as a backdrop to this, in the US, nearly 10 black trans women have been killed THIS WEEK), and when they face consequences for their actions (consequences meted out mostly by allies) your response is to blame trans people and equate them to Nazis? Your hatred is making you stupid.
LemonSix
July 08, 20:15What sort of discrimination are you referring to?
I mean, these women are simply asking transsexuals to be a diversity within their biological sex, and not to invade women’s space.
And who, by the way, are killing these transsexuals? Women who don’t want them in their space or men who hate the idea that men can be female presenting that way?
LemonSix
July 08, 20:18If only you’d take a moment to actually read Joanne’s tweets for yourself, you’ll see she has nothing but respect for transsexuals and their rights to their lives and their own spaces.
She’s just asking for the same respect from transsexuals for women.
Pink Panther
July 08, 20:20Please do not compound the stigma surrounding mental health by using it as an insult against someone else over their opinion.
Do better.
Dimkpa
July 08, 20:18Gay people faced similar persecution in the 1970 when Anita Bryant used her influence to persecute gay people. Now it’s JK Rowling against trans people. She is an author not a scientist. She knows as much about transgender people as Donald Trump. She is merely using her influence for discrimination and she should be condemned for it. She has even used the classic narrative of sexual violence against sexual minorities to reinforce her bigotry as if Bobrisky will be interested in assaulting any women.
Just like we asked people to believe being gay is not a choice. We should listen to to transgender people who are living through worse adversity than gay people. Many of them commit suicide for goodness sake. I have listened to stories of transgender people and watched videos put up by enough people from the community to know that trans people are valid and #transwomenarewomen.
JK Rowling is a bigot!
LemonSix
July 08, 20:38I’ll never understand why people say JK knows nothing about being transsexual. But forget that she isn’t speaking for transsexuals. But for women.
And she probably knows more about being a woman than most of her detractors. You, inclusive.
Sigh.
LemonSix
July 08, 20:41Transwomen are a diversity in their own biological sex — male.
Trans women are biological men.
Dee
July 09, 15:28I said what I said. There are lots of “well-meaning” straight people that, while “respecting your right to live in your space”, will use actually very watertight scientific explanations to claim that your life is an abomination or at best an anomaly that they are magnanimous to accommodate. That is bullshit. That is still discrimination, and it’s even more insidious because it pretends to be fair-minded and charitable while still carrying the same venom. I’m baffled and disgusted when gay men try to jump on the natural law/moral rectitude bandwagon because you think you’ve finally arrived at the global respectability bus-stop. Respectability politics needs a “savage” to define itself, so you are deceiving yourself. After trans people have been driven underground by a hate campaign you helped along, the bored breeders will look around for a new target, and then they’ll remember that an asshole is not the right place for semen. As someone with insight mentioned above, Rowling invoked the trope of transgender people being “sexually dangerous” (fun fact: trans people are far more likely to be raped than any other demographic, and much less likely to commit rapes); how is that different from what gay people are STILL facing in Nigeria today? I don’t understand it; is it from some pathological desire to be accepted, this urge to dispense with the “freakier” elements of LGBTQ+? You will never be accepted that way, you’ll just lose the right to complain when the REAL “cancel culture” turns its talons on you.
LemonSix
July 09, 19:11I’m afraid you’re just building up a straw man so you can attack him and scream, “Look, an enemy!”
Until you recognise that my asking someone to live their best life in their own category is miles away from my denying them of their human rights, then there’s really no conversation here for me.
But just so you don’t go to bed with the wrong ideas, neither Joanne Rowling nor I have ever used “scientific explanations (or any other forms of explanations for that matter) to claim that transsexuals are abominations or at best anomalies we are magnanimous to accommodate”.
If you can find an instance where any of us did that, then feel free to distribute the receipts.
Until then, miss me with that straw man argument.