Hadley Freeman thinks the tide has turned:
The history of publishing is littered with books that were rejected by dozens of editors but went on to sell like gangbusters, and now another has joined the ranks: Time to Think, Hannah Barnes’s astonishing investigation into what went wrong at England and Wales’s only NHS gender clinic for children and young people, is a bestseller, debuting at No 8 in The Sunday Times non-fiction chart. And yet it nearly wasn’t published. As Barnes wrote last week, it was rejected by 22 publishers. None objected to her proposal but they implied their junior staff would protest that a book suggesting maybe clinicians shouldn’t dole out puberty blockers to children was transphobic. Fear the book might be committing “wrongthink” stopped them doing their job, which is to put out books the public want to read. Fortunately, a small publisher, Swift, stepped in where the bigger guns failed, and the public have shown their appreciation with their money.
As they have with other books. According to Private Eye, books by women that question gender ideology, such as Material Girls by Kathleen Stock and Trans by Helen Joyce, were similarly rejected by every publisher but one — and then went on to sell by the truckload. By contrast, the trans activist Munroe Bergdorf had 11 publishers fighting to publish her memoir, Transitional, and got a six-figure deal. A week after it was published last month, it was at No 2,838 in the Amazon charts.
Perhaps you have felt some tremors underfoot, or noticed the trees shaking a little. Fear not, Britain is not experiencing a wave of earthquakes: you are living through a vibe shift. New York Magazine defined a vibe shift as when “a once-dominant social wavelength starts to feel dated”, and the hyper-vigilant, hyper-right-on social wavelength that has dominated progressive culture spheres for the past six or so years is feeling tapped out. Where once suppressing views considered by some to be objectionable — censorship, in other words — was accepted as a moral obligation, now it looks infantile, absurd and deranged.
There's still some way to go, though.
Apparently the Gower Street branch of @Waterstones, which is effectively the UCL bookshop, refuses to stock @hannahsbee Time to Think. Given the UCLH connection, I think people around here are likely to be particularly interested in the story. What is your policy @Waterstones ? https://t.co/lSSPJPY4AE
— Professor Alice Sullivan (@ProfAliceS) March 5, 2023
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Another reason to use Amazon.
And if the tide is turning, you can bet Canada will be the last place to notice:
@OxfamCanada stands in solidarity with @FaeJohnstone and all trans folks, who are fighting for their rights everyday.
We recognize and celebrate the diversity of all identities, and will not tolerate any hate and bigotry.
Read our statement: https://t.co/udy5ND3IxK pic.twitter.com/PWiKwc2OtX— Oxfam Canada (@OxfamCanada) March 3, 2023
Mick Hartley 
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