Mick Hartley

The state of publishing, pt 79.

Please support Ursula Doyle if you can.
She was the editor of Material Girls for Kathleen Stock and Hags for Victoria Smith.
Terf club, please do what you can and only of you can.#TerfClub https://t.co/aVFxDpmltZ

— Dr Karen Ingala Smith (@K_IngalaSmith) July 14, 2024

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Here's her Crowd Justice page:

I have worked in publishing for 30 years. I have left my job after four years of hounding and abuse from peers who think I should not express my GC opinions nor publish authors who share them….

In 2020 I published Kathleen Stock’s influential book on sex and gender, Material Girls. Since then, I have been a target for abuse by colleagues in the book industry, who have used social media to accuse me of – among other things – bigotry, prejudice, transphobia and hatred, often tagging in my employer, Hachette, and Hachette’s Pride network.

Hachette have done nothing to protect me, and have created a hostile working environment for me and anyone else who shares my views. When two of Fleet's authors complained that my views were transphobic, the company agreed to move paperback editions of the authors' books away from the imprint to another part of the business, damaging my reputation both inside and outside the company. I became ill with stress and associated conditions, and finally resigned. I am bringing a claim of discrimination on the grounds of my gender-critical belief (sometimes known as 'sex realism'), and of sex discrimination….

Hachette also discriminated against me (and all women working for them) by introducing a trans-inclusion policy which explicitly allows men who say they are women to use women’s toilets and shower facilities. I am challenging this policy and hope to show that this is not compliant with the law. 

This is the first case that takes on the culture of fear in publishing, an industry which has largely capitulated to activists who loudly proclaim a set of beliefs as fact.