(no subject)
Aug. 10th, 2018 09:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_rckI got some writing done last night after Scott got home. I had a 2600 word story with beta comments (which were mostly 'hey, this needs more explanation and supporting detail') that I wanted to work on, but I didn't want to do that with Cordelia apt to read over my shoulder.
I got to bed later than I meant to because I started browsing the library's online catalogue and saw a new purchase (warning for transphobia) that I'm going to complain about and ask to have removed. Doing that goes against my normal philosophy of library collections, but the book is advocating parental, social, and legal response to trans people and other genderqueer people that I think might kill people.
Well, not even might. Those behaviors and policies actually already do kill people and subject them to harm in other ways.
The subject tags on the record indicate that it's going to be shelved as psychological science. There's nothing on the record to indicate that this is opinion/propaganda and no reviews linked to provide evaluations of the 'science' involved.
I'm seeing a vast number of reviews of the book from very conservative groups, many of which I'd consider hate groups, and one Washington Post article (which is not a review. As far as I can tell, the author of the article has seen lots of hype but hasn't seen the text). There's also an article at thinkprogress.org that lays out the things I found upsetting when I saw the blurb. Seriously, it ought not be this hard to find negative reviews of a book on a controversial topic.
It's almost as if the publisher only sent review copies to organizations that agree with the propaganda and none to places that just review books. Go figure.
Possibly someone asked for this book specifically (it's an Amazon bestseller on the LGBT list). Possibly, because of the subject tags, the vendor the library buys through considered it an autobuy (libraries set parameters for that when they want to be sure they're getting books on certain topics without library staff having to dig to find them).
I got to bed later than I meant to because I started browsing the library's online catalogue and saw a new purchase (warning for transphobia) that I'm going to complain about and ask to have removed. Doing that goes against my normal philosophy of library collections, but the book is advocating parental, social, and legal response to trans people and other genderqueer people that I think might kill people.
Well, not even might. Those behaviors and policies actually already do kill people and subject them to harm in other ways.
The subject tags on the record indicate that it's going to be shelved as psychological science. There's nothing on the record to indicate that this is opinion/propaganda and no reviews linked to provide evaluations of the 'science' involved.
I'm seeing a vast number of reviews of the book from very conservative groups, many of which I'd consider hate groups, and one Washington Post article (which is not a review. As far as I can tell, the author of the article has seen lots of hype but hasn't seen the text). There's also an article at thinkprogress.org that lays out the things I found upsetting when I saw the blurb. Seriously, it ought not be this hard to find negative reviews of a book on a controversial topic.
It's almost as if the publisher only sent review copies to organizations that agree with the propaganda and none to places that just review books. Go figure.
Possibly someone asked for this book specifically (it's an Amazon bestseller on the LGBT list). Possibly, because of the subject tags, the vendor the library buys through considered it an autobuy (libraries set parameters for that when they want to be sure they're getting books on certain topics without library staff having to dig to find them).
no subject
Date: 2018-08-10 06:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-08-10 07:27 pm (UTC)