On the Silence of Children's Authors

"Children’s authors who have spoken out against gender ideology are characterised as outliers and contrarians. But I believe they are outliers only in their brave decision to speak out.”

This guest post is written by a children’s author so fearful of losing their career that their identity is hidden even from me. I ask everyone who reads it to share it far and wide, especially with the publishing houses who have the power to put this right.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

On the silence of children’s authors

I am a children’s author. Like other children’s authors without celebrity status or lead-title marketing, my profile and book publicity have relied greatly on building a network within the publishing industry – fellow creatives, agents, editors, book sellers, librarians, reviewers. Being part of the children’s books community has also provided me with opportunities to share constructive and respectful discussion on all sorts of topics relating to young people’s health and happiness. But there is one topic conspicuous in its absence from this seemingly supportive community.

Where in children’s publishing is the open dialogue challenging gender ideology? Gender ideology erroneously teaches children that sex, rather than gender, is socially constructed, and that people can be born into the ‘wrong’ body. This ideology needs to be challenged.

I believe trans people deserve compassion, love, and equal rights. I do not believe that gender ideology best serves the needs of trans people, or anyone else. The current demands of the trans lobby threaten the existing rights of women and girls and present real and mounting safeguarding issues for children across society. Many gender-questioning kids are pushed towards social, medical and ultimately surgical transition, even though they might not desire or require, now or later in life, any such intervention. Some will have gender dysphoria, but others might be gay, neurodivergent or gender-non-conforming; they may be depressed, anxious or have suffered sexual abuse. We know that children referred to the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) in the Tavistock trust were ten times more likely than the national averageto have a parent who was a registered sex offender. Although GIDS’ services are being decentralised and the charity Mermaids – responsible for directing many children its way – is currently under investigation, the culture shift towards acceptance of gender ideology continues and the trans lobby is doubling down.

Surely this culture shift is one that everyone in children’s publishing should be talking about? It’s a shift driven by dogma and fomented by the ‘new Stonewall’ trans lobby. It’s skewed by the shutting down of fair discourse, hyped by social media, and popular with big corporations. Despite all this, the trans lobby has co-opted the language of the liberal human-rights framework. It tells us – and young people – to ‘be kind’ and it claims to stand for ‘progressiveness’, ‘equality’, and ‘inclusion’. It is precisely this language of compassion that is, I believe, one of the reasons why so many in children’s publishing (including me) have let this activism go unchallenged: it masks the harm being done. But this can’t be the only reason. Why is there no significant corpus of children’s authors asking questions?

The answer is, we’re too scared.

And understandably so. Children’s authors who have asked questions or expressed concern with the direction, nature, or pace of the culture shift have been ostracised and verbally abused; they have lost representation, publishing deals, and publicity and marketing opportunities; they have been ‘cancelled’ or ‘ghosted’, characterised as transphobic and bigoted, and received serious threats to their livelihood and, in some cases, their lives. Thus a writer joining the world of children’s books swiftly learns that asking questions or expressing any critical views of the prevalence of gender ideology is a dangerous thing to do. We are not scared of trans people; we are scared of the trans lobby. Authors who don’t toe the Stonewall line are effectively gagged and disempowered to act, or even to ask. That I have to write this article anonymously is the impetus for me writing it at all.

Remarkably, many of the barriers to open dialogue in children’s publishing have been erected by individuals within it. And this isn’t limited to agents, commissioning editors, or other professional gatekeepers (many of whom, I suspect, find their voices similarly suppressed). Some of the most intimidating figures are fellow children’s authors, including signatories to the 2020 open letter, ‘We stand in support of trans and non-binary people and their rights’. If a person didn’t agree with everything in the letter, this somehow and illogically meant to its signatories that the person agreed with nothing in it. I didn’t sign it because, although I agreed with everything else, I couldn’t (on account of my understanding that biological sex is real) commit to just one phrase: ‘trans women are women, trans men are men’. Despite what trans activists assert, my position is not exceptional, radical, or contradictory. Further, by taking this position I am neither expressing hatred nor inflicting harm. Importantly, I want to discuss any differences and find shared values, to constructively move forward. But children’s authors who were signatories to the letter shut down – and continue to shut down – any chance of discussion.

On social media there are many ways such silencing is conducted. Notably, most people practicing it are not themselves trans identifying. Sometimes there is open ‘naming and shaming’ but more often there are celebrations of trans-activist triumphs or aggressions, use of ‘RIP’ hashtags, ‘terf’ finger-pointing, cryptic tweets, and talk of ‘whisper networks’. For these authors, the culture shift is seen only in positive terms without critical reflection. Signifiers of support for the shift include the labels these authors stitch to their sleeves: they seem to want to be identified and to identify others by a series of commodified tags. Some people reading this might want to know mine – at a minimum what my pronouns are, but perhaps also whether I am trans or not trans, NT or ND, white or POC, abled or disabled, what my sexual orientation is, if I’m left or right of centre, and if I’m Gen-X, Y or Z. My labels will be used to assess how worthy I am to speak on a given topic, and correspondingly how much to boost or block my books. At their best, such labels allow us to make positive connections, but at their worst, they are used to reduce, judge, and exclude people. Some authors block anyone not declaring their pronouns, seeing this as an act of transphobia in itself. And so it is that kind, often nonconfrontational children’s authors are coerced into adopting the language of the lobby, and coerced out of doing anything that goes against its terms.

That this silencing behaviour takes place in the children’s book world is as fascinating as it is sad. These authors write stories espousing empathy and then almost categorically fail to demonstrate it to anyone not sharing their own opinions. Their fictional characters stand up to bullying, and yet they engage in bullying behaviour. But worse than their actions towards fellow authors is their proselytising to young people, because the gender ideology fiction they create and promote puts real children at risk. The known and unknown risks to the safety and wellbeing of children – bodily, psychologically, individually and collectively – of this indoctrination is not talked about in the kids' books world. It must look from the outside like there's general consensus within children’s publishing. But it only looks like there is because many authors have been duped (as I was) by the trans lobby’s language of compassion; it looks like there is because those who want (as I want) to challenge or ask questions of it are unable to do so.

The questions I have are neither transphobic (fearful or hating of trans people) nor bigoted (intolerant and unreasonably based on belief). Questions like:

What does a whole-person, or whole-society, approach to supporting gender-questioning young people look like? How can we listen and talk to children about their bodies without affirming a message that they have been born into the ‘wrong’ one? What are the wider implications for all young people of framing bodies as ‘right’ and ‘wrong’? How can we protect young people questioning their sexual orientation from being pushed (sometimes aggressively) towards questioning their sex? How can we protect vulnerable children from turning to unvetted sources online for advice? Why are such a disproportionately high number of autistic children and care-experienced children referred to gender services, and how are their needs best met? How can we help young trans-identifying people understand the trans lobby’s contradictory messages that (a) their condition should not be pathologized or medicalised, while (b) the solution to their individual experience of gender dysphoria is affirmative medical treatment, including antidepressants, puberty blockers, hormones, and surgery? How can we prevent the further entrenching of gender stereotypes? (For example, the use of gendered toys, clothing, haircuts, or behaviours to determine a child’s ‘persistent and consistent’ dysphoria.) What roles do social media and peer pressure play in a child’s insistence that their body is the ‘wrong’ one for them? What are the pressures – the push, pull and personal factors – that shape decisions children are making in this new social landscape? Do they include books, and if so, what evidence is there, beyond sources committed to ‘queering the curriculum’, that the publishing industry is getting this right? And how, as writers for young people, do we write about any of it?

The answer to the last question is easy: we don’t. Unless, that is, we are writing in support of the trans lobby. Such books are increasingly visible in the market. These books and their authors are celebrated on diversity lists, promoted through major industry awards, and recipients of significant new publishing and promotional deals. They also form part of training schemes targeting schools (such as the Rainbow Flag Award or Stonewall’s Champions programme). But, suffused as they are with gender ideology, these books obfuscate the truth. They create narratives of ‘authentic’ genders and ‘wrong’ bodies, and present to children (including pre-schoolers) a confusing set of beliefs as biological ‘facts’. Children’s authors who have been intimidated out of saying so have most certainly been deterred from writing anything that challenges this trend.

But children’s authors need to discuss how to write about sex and gender responsibly. We need to analyse the language, imagery, and messaging within ‘trans literature’ and be free to take a critical approach. And the publishing industry has to let us do this. It must put assurances in place that authors will not face discrimination for expressing perfectly legitimate and legal concerns about gender ideology. Currently, open dialogue is impossible. At present I am so genuinely terrified of being misrepresented as hateful that I am writing incognito. And if rational, educated adults within children’s publishing are this intimidated, what must it be like for young children and adolescents growing up in this environment?

Children’s authors who have spoken out against gender ideology are characterised as outliers and contrarians. But I believe they are outliers only in their brave decision to speak out. That other children’s authors haven't rallied behind them in solidarity, or simply in support of balanced debate, is because if we use our voice, we lose our careers, and therefore our way of engaging children and helping them to lead secure and successful lives.

The young people we write for deserve more. They need more. They need vocal, trustworthy adults in the public domain debating gender ideology from all sides, and helping them confront, analyse, and work through its complexities. Children questioning their bodies or gender need access to resources and stories that respect and represent them but which go beyond indoctrination. By not providing a balance, the children’s publishing industry is giving children a singular narrative supporting gender ideologues. In short, the children’s publishing industry is letting young people down. The silence of children’s authors signals danger, but our silence is also dangerous.

A.N.

Please note: I have chosen not to name any authors, including those who have spoken out in public and face ongoing consequences. This is for two reasons: (1) I am writing anonymously, so it would be unfair to name others, and (2) the issues here affect many authors, not only those who have been scapegoated as outliers by trans activists. Some names are included in the links.