Rabble Books & Games, a bookstore in Perth Australia, has a death wish. It has said that it will not stock any new books by JK Rowling including those written under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. Folks desperate for a Harry Potter novel can get it as they will be stored under the counter like smuggled cigarettes from Vietnam in your local newsagent. Why would a bookstore take off its shelves one of the world’s best selling authors? This is an act of commercial suicide.
JK Rowling has had the temerity to question the radical transgender agenda. But these days, any idea that someone with a penis who identifies as a woman should not be encouraged to buy tampons, compete in sport against women who are weaker and slower as they were born women, demand a smear test or a Brazilian wax, or wander into a changing room with your 13 year old daughter, is deemed offensive.
The bookstore owner (pro tem) Nat Latter announced on facebook “We are always trying to make Rabble a safer space for our community, and part of that is trying not to put books by transphobes on the shelves, when we know about them”
Of course JK Rowling is not a transphobe and neither am I. We just dare to question some of the more ludicrous demands of transgender activists. I, certainly, also have grave misgivings about therapy and drugs given to young children who claim to be trans. I regard such treatment as tantamount to child abuse.
But I accept, and JK accepts, that others may disagree with us and they can make their points because we believe in free speech. Free speech can be hurtful and it may offend but the alternative to free speech is tyranny and since none of us know whether our views will chime with the oppressors or the oppressed, it is in ALL of our interests to support free speech.
Nat Latter does not get that. Will his store attract more traffic from woke young people? I doubt it as they read fewer and fewer books. Will it lose more custom from either fans of Harry Potter or from those folks who support free speech? You bet.
Go woke, go broke.