Mick Hartley

An apology at last. From the Times:

Scotland’s national library has apologised to two authors whose gender-critical book was banned from an exhibition due to demands from activist staff.

Sir Drummond Bone, chair of the National Library of Scotland, admitted the institution had been wrong to refuse to include The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht, an account of the grassroots feminist campaign against Nicola Sturgeon’s self-ID law.

Drummond Bone – there’s a fine Scottish name. A John Buchan hero, perhaps…

He also apologised for the library’s “reaction” to an article in The Times breaking the news of the book’s exclusion.

Correspondence released after a freedom of information request shows taxpayer-funded library spin doctors stating they were “briefing everyone” that aspects of the story were “highly misleading”. However, the report was accurate and the book was readmitted to the Dear Library exhibition in September after the library admitted it had made the wrong decision.

An independent review into the saga also vindicated the authors, ruling that the decision to not display the book had been based on “inadequate evidence and consultation”.

That’s one way of putting it. More accurately, trans activist staff made the complaint, and Amina Shah, Scotland’s chief librarian, caved in.

Not everyone’s happy:

Despite the library reinstating the book and attempting to move on from the damaging censorship row, LGBT campaigners and academics have criticised it for reversing its initial decision. It emerged this week that dozens of academics, writers and cultural figures signed an open letter claiming that displaying the book made the national library “materially less safe” for visitors and staff and expressing “outrage” at the capitulation.

The letter states: “That book, whose contributors include several high-profile figures in Scottish politics and culture, advocates against the civil and human rights of trans people, a small and vulnerable minority who experience systemic disadvantage. This decision has led directly to a hostile environment for queer and trans people working at and visiting the library.”

Such snowflakes. A book on display stops them visiting the library?