My Brother's Name is Jessica

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Boyne said he found sentiments such as “stay in your lane” troubling. “It’s arrogant. A lot of the time it’s about people trying to tell you they are morally superior to you; they know how these things should be written.” The fact that transgender ideology is hurting and erasing women is completely disregarded. Is ‘Jessica’ going to someday crush some young woman’s dreams of sporting success by displacing her in a women’s football team? He said the abuse on social media was a drain. “If it ruins your day you’re not going to get any writing done.” Boyne is the author of 17 novels for adults and children with Striped Pyjamas, adapted in to a film, being his most famous.

John Boyne deletes Twitter account after trans article backlash

But Boyne told Hay festival that was the point. “I’ve always said the worst advice you can give to young writers is write about what you know,” he said. “Write about what you don’t know. If we only write about what we know, it’s all biography. In Australia as of late, there has been an increase in articles against trans youth. I was both excited and a bit scared to see how this book would go. It’s so important to have great representation for minorities, and with the growing acceptance of transgender people, but also the vocal transphobia, it’s certainly important for young people to see positive representation.The only time I refer to people as being cis is when discussing trans issues,” Martin has written in The Irish Times. “This is to distinguish them from transgender and non-binary people. I had concerns, prompted by the title, as it seemed to be misgendering. How this would translate in the rest of the book was a bit of a mystery. I was worried about the protagonist deadnaming his sibling and how this would be done. In writing My Brother’s Name is Jessicamy hope is that children and young adults—particularly ones who are perhaps not already familiar with transgender issues—will come to this book and start to understand that anyone struggling with these issues needs support and compassion, not judgment.I have tried to write the best novel that I can. I might have succeeded or I might have failed, but I stand by it. I welcome debate and am interested in people’s views on this subject. I do not believe that the trans community bears any relationship to, or any responsibility for the abuse I have received online. I stand 100% behind all trans people, I respect them as brave pioneers, I applaud their determination to live authentic lives despite the abuse they also receive, and I will always do so.”

My Brother’s Name is Jessica – Book Review – Spoilers My Brother’s Name is Jessica – Book Review – Spoilers

I mean, trans people in general have the highest suicide, murder, and rape statistics. It’s horrifying, and throughout the book I was worried for her.

I contend that for young people today, questioning one’s gender (whatever that means) is a fashion. It is a fact that the number of young people seeking to “transition” is higher than it’s ever been before. This should be sounding alarm bells but it seems that schools and youth groups, instead of trying to get to the truth of why this is happening are, on the advice of the transgender lobby, promoting the idea that positive affirmation is the only way to help them.

John Boyne: ‘People were criticising my book when they hadn’t John Boyne: ‘People were criticising my book when they hadn’t

I found the book very well done. Not only was the writing excellent, as to be expected, but the choice of protagonist, point of view, and characters were well executed. The story felt strong, and the message, and effectiveness could have been defeated if not for these choices. Aoife Martin, a trans woman and director of TENI, has interpreted Boyne’s unwillingness to use the term as a dangerous means of ignoring his cis privilege.One of several glaring omissions in this book, by the way, is any mention of social media pressure, which figures very strongly in every story of teenage “transition” I’ve heard over the past few years. Unannounced, the soccer coach arrives to discuss rumours regarding Jason to his parents. Everyone is on edge to hear what the coach will say. In response, Aoife Martin, a director of Transgender Equality Network Ireland, wrote that "cis" is merely a descriptor, like "straight" or "white". "Boyne, whether he likes it or not, is a cis man speaking from a position of cis privilege," she wrote. I had no problem teaching my children to read pre-school or in nurturing their love of reading fiction. I was immensely proud of them, though I admit there was a large element of self-interest in encouraging them to early literacy. With a library at the end of our street, it was to prove a low cost and effective way of giving me a break from them, annoying little beasts that they were.

Author John Boyne Faces Backlash From Trans - GCN Irish Author John Boyne Faces Backlash From Trans - GCN

Note, Jason doesn’t merely wish he is a girl. He is “pretty sure” he is one. How, for crying out loud? The exploration of why this particular young man might believe he’s a young woman, if it takes place at all, does so during sessions with a therapist that readers aren’t privy to. He also touched on the wider trans debate as it has played out on social media and wrote that he rejected the term “cis”, which refers to when a person’s gender identity matches the sex they were assigned at birth.I quite liked reading the books written for their age groups before passing them on to one or other of them, as long as it was a good story that was well-written with believable characters and I didn’t have to constantly remind myself that whatever I was reading was written for youngsters, as I did with John Boyne’s latest offering . Although according to this interview, he claims not to write with a particular audience in mind, that just doesn’t ring true with this book which, of course, I only bought because people were calling for it to be boycotted. If there hadn’t been a fuss made about it, it wouldn’t have been on my radar and how depressing it is that the would-be censors of today have learned nothing from the past. Boyne, author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, wrote a 2019 children’s story about a trans teenager, My Brother’s Name is Jessica. MyHome.ie (Opens in new window) • Top 1000 • The Gloss (Opens in new window) • Recruit Ireland (Opens in new window) • Irish Times Training (Opens in new window) I work with Inclusive Minds, the group he claimed in his article to have consulted for his transphobic book. Having read this I immediately demanded to know what on was going on. But another cis person’s take is being lauded as brilliant trans representation, when we can tell, by the title of the book, that it’s not. I’d almost prefer no rep at all.”