Edinburgh International Book Festival is beyond ‘repair’

There's no room for writers who believe that biological sex is real and who support women's rights, says Susan Smith of For Women Scotland. PLUS: watch the debate from the Battle of Ideas festival.

Not the Edinburgh International Book Festival - it’s the Battle of Ideas festival 2024

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It’s one thing to suspect that you are a pariah as far as the chattering classes in the cosy Edinburgh literary scene are concerned. But seeing it set out in black and white can, nevertheless, be a shock.

On Sunday, a supporter of For Women Scotland forwarded a reply she had received from Jenny Niven, the director of Edinburgh International Book Festival (EIBF). Our correspondent had asked about the decision to exclude so-called ‘gender critical’ writers and texts from the festival. The books mentioned included Jenny Lindsay’s Hounded – an account of the treatment meted out to women ostracised, sacked or threatened for the heretical belief that sex is real – and the Sunday Times bestseller, The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht (WWWW), edited by Susan Dalgety and Lucy Hunter Blackburn, to which I contributed two chapters.

WWWW is a first draft of history written by the women who were there on the front line of the gender wars. It captures a tumultuous five years of social and political history in Scotland that saw a law to permit self-identification of sex, the Gender Recognition Reform Bill (GRR), passed by the Scottish Parliament – and the establishment of grassroots campaigns and groups like For Women Scotland (FWS). The book covers the first part of our battle through the courts, which culminated earlier this year in the landmark Supreme Court ruling on the definition of sex in the Equality Act – a verdict that was splashed across front pages around the globe. Contributors include politicians from the SNP, Labour, Conservatives and Alba. Other contributors include respected journalists, as well as ordinary women, like the anonymous survivors of sexual violence whose voices went unheard by the committee tasked with scrutiny of the GRR.

WWWW is thought to be one of only two books primarily concerned with Scottish politics to reach the bestseller lists in the 26 years since devolution. It is admirably diverse, too: a quarter of the contributors are lesbians and it features one of only two women of colour ever elected to Holyrood. None of that, however, was good enough for EIBF.

In a tone-deaf, patronising letter, Ms Niven said ‘we work very hard to ensure that the conversations that happen on our stages are rigorous, informed and fair’, which seems to suggest that the esteemed authors and editors of the book are incapable of rational thought and would be unwilling to face challenge or engage with those who disagree. In fact, over the years, it was groups like Stonewall who refused to entertain discussion, with the hashtag #NoDebate bandied on social media. As Ms Dalgety and Ms Hunter Blackburn set out in a letter to Niven, they would have been very happy to participate in conversation with opponents.

Niven went on to say, ‘at present the tenor of the discussion in the media and online on this particular subject feels extremely divisive. We do not want to be in a position that we are creating events for spectacle or sport or raising specific people’s identity as a subject of debate.’ Which might lead one to believe that the editors of WWWW are feral creatures, liable to launch into rants about men in skirts or use their session to display a giant cut-out of the convicted sex offender Adam ‘Isla’ Bryson and play pin the tail on the rapist – probably before letting off stink bombs and setting off all the sprinklers in the McEwan Hall.

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Ironically, of course, that is very much of a piece with the sort of tactics employed not by the women featured in the book, but against them. Several of the writers were speakers or present at the Edinburgh University event in 2019 which is described in the book by Claire Heuchan - an award-winning black feminist writer - at which students did indeed let off stink bombs. Claire describes how the heightened security arrangements necessary to stage the event made her physically ill with worry.

Perhaps Ms Niven is really worried that such demonstrations might hit EIBF were they to platform any of the authors. If that is so, it’s cowardly, but it would not be the first time EIBF bowed to bullies: last year, the festival lost its main sponsor, Baillie Gifford, after absurd, confected outrage about the company’s investment portfolio. The festival is now reliant on handouts from the Scottish Government, which might also be a reason not to rock the gender boat.

It isn’t as though Niven is worried about staging events with trans activist authors, for all that she claims there has been an inflammatory tone ‘on all “sides” of this discussion’. Cravenly, she argues that these writers are not there to talk about this topic. Yet, are we really to think that speakers at events like ‘Queerly Beloved’, which features one of Jenny Lindsay’s most nasty and persistent bullies, will refrain from bad-mouthing ‘terfs’ given half a chance? This author appears at several events despite his limited appeal, while the (more talented) woman he persecuted is overlooked: vicious misogyny is clearly of no concern to EIBF.

And what of one of the headline acts of the festival, the former first minister, Nicola Sturgeon? If asked about the Supreme Court or the role of groups like FWS in her political demise, we would not be surprised if she characterised us, as she did in May this year, as ‘deeply misogynist, often homophobic, possibly some of them racist as well’. By refusing to platform those who take a different view, Ms Niven appears to lend weight to such smears.

The cream of it all, however, is that the theme for this year’s festival is ‘Repair’. The erosion of women’s rights in Scotland has provoked a fierce, often unpleasant debate. If ever repair were needed, it is here. Refusing to address the elephant in the room while tackling such hot-button subjects as granting rivers personhood and addressing misunderstandings about mushrooms (both listed under the ‘repair’ topic) seems feeble.

Ms Niven signed off by saying, ‘if there are books in the future published which themselves help move the conversation towards a more reparatory perspective we’d certainly consider them for the programme’. In other words, this might be one of the few occasions when the last people the trendy literary world wish to hear from are those with ‘lived experience’: the mother of a disabled child worried about her daughter’s care; the politicians who sat on the committee hearing evidence on GRR; the women who fought the government all the way to the apex court. All the women who made and shaped this history are just not kind enough for Ms Niven.

How many other authors have been told that they and their books must conform to Niven’s dinner-party standards before darkening the door of EIBF? Did she ask trans-identified author Juno Dawson – who once said that ‘a lot of gay men are gay men as a consolation prize, because they couldn't be women’ – to moderate his homophobia before he appeared? EIBF has platformed many controversial authors in the past, yet, sadly, it appears to have drawn the line when it comes to women writing respectfully and honestly about their political and social journeys: their trauma, their struggles and their deeply held – lawful – belief that sex is real and that women should be afforded human rights and equality under law.

In the polite world of the Scottish arts scene, this, it seems, is the ultimate taboo.

Susan Smith is a director of For Women Scotland.

WATCH THE DEBATE ON THE WOMEN WHO WOULDN'T WHEESHT
This session from the Battle of Ideas festival 2024 features contributors Joanna Cherry, Gillian Philip and Susan Smith, and is chaired by Marion Calder.