EUAN McCOLM: Book festival is doomed thanks to the cowardice of its chief...but women still won't wheesht

Daily Mail​

05-08-2025

"The Women Who Wouldn't Wheesht" is the smash hit the literary establishment would rather not talk about.
The book, published last May, collects essays by some of those involved in the campaign to protect women's rights against the demands of trans activists. The stories within are moving, inspiring, and - all too often - infuriating.
The book's three separate appearances in the top 10 best sellers list show there's real interest in the issues it explores.
It deserves its success. The editors of "TWWWW' - Susan Dalgety and Lucy Hunter Blackburn - gathered an impressive roster of contributors, including novelist JK Rowling, to tell the story of how Scottish feminists fought back against the SNP 's plan to reform the Gender Recognition Act to allow anyone to self-identify into the legally-recognised sex of their choosing. The stories contained within are gripping.
Yet, despite the book's best-seller status, there is no place for it at this year's Edinburgh International Book Festival. To have included it would have been to risk conversation, you see.
In an email to a customer, festival director Jenny Niven said discussion of the issues raised in the book 'feels extremely divisive'.
How weird that the director of a literary festival should feel the divisiveness of an issue to be a negative. Aren't literary festivals, done properly, places where conflicting ideas do battle?
While there's no place for a Scottish best-seller on one of the great controversies of our times at the festival, there is a slot - of course - for former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to promote her memoir, 'Frankly'.
If Jenny Niven is using divisiveness as a measure for exclusion from the book festival then Ms Sturgeon should be nowhere near the event.
It was the former First Minister, after all, who denounced feminists opposed to her self-ID plans as bigots. It was Ms Sturgeon who remained silent while trans activists hurled abuse and threats at nationalist politicians (and anyone else, for that matter) who dared dissent from the 'transwomen are women' orthodoxy.
Of course, a proper literary festival would find spaces for both the former First Minister and the women whose campaign against her crank plan to let men self-identify as women hastened her political demise.
Another writer conspicuous by her absence from this year's festival line-up is Jenny Lindsay, whose book 'Hounded - Women, Harms, and the Gender Wars' tells the shocking stories of women whose lives were torn apart by trans activists after they dared assert their sex-based rights.
Ms Lindsay was, until six years ago, a leading figure on the small but vibrant live poetry scene. An award-winning writer, she mentored young poets and staged regular events in Edinburgh before her life was turned upside down for condemning a trans activist's demand for violence against lesbians at a Pride march.
For speaking up, Ms Lindsay lost her livelihood and the majority of her friendships.
While there is no place for Ms Lindsay at the book festival, some of those who participated in her hounding have been welcomed by Jenny Niven. (You know the 'let's not be divisive' Jenny Niven? That one.)
The capture of the publishing industry by gender ideologues was swift and devastating.
In recent years, we've seen numerous writers cancelled for their perfectly reasonable expressions of concern about the impact of the demands of trans activists on the rights of women.
From children's authors such as Gillian Philip and Rachel Rooney to Father Ted creator Graham Linehan, writers with 'gender critical'views have seen work dry up.
Showing that, if nothing else, she retains her sense of humour, Ms Niven claims the book festival programme shows 'we don't shy away from difficult conversation'.
Yes, from the greatness of Nicola Sturgeon to the bravery of men in women's changing rooms, we can expect all the biggest issues of the day to be discussed at the festival.
The book festival is doomed under its current leadership. Ms Niven's cowardice (for what other explanation can there be for her refusal to invite the women behind one of the most controversial and successful Scottish books of the year to appear at the festival?) is balanced by the stupidity of her senior colleagues.
And if you think I'm being unnecessarily mean, consider this: one member of the festival board recently complained that charity Sex Matters had breached data protection law by emailing her only for it to be pointed out to her that her email address appears on her company's website. This is proper 'is-there-anybody-in-there?' stupidity.
The success of books by writers such as Jenny Lindsay, Susan Dalgety and Lucy Hunter Blackburn is a standing reproach to literary establishment tastemakers drunk on a cocktail of mixed pronouns and furious self-righteousness.
Jenny Niven's book festival is as difficult and edgy as an Ocado delivery. Its hand-wringing theme of 'repair' studiously ignores the damage wrought on the literary world by the activist views and behaviour of many of those booked to participate.
Just as perplexing as the decision of Ms Niven exclude hugely successful gender critical feminist writers from this year's book festival is the absence of Orwell Prize-winning author, Darren McGarvey from the line-up.
Mr McGarvey's third book - 'Trauma Industrial Complex: How Oversharing Became a Product in a Digital World' - is published next week, slap bang in the middle of the festival.
Of course, nobody is entitled to a booking at the book festival but it seems strange that there is no space for Mr McGarvey, a relentless pain in the establishment backside, while there is room for a trans identifying male 'poet' whose most recent performance was a topless protest during which he demanded 'give us wombs and give us t*****s'.
In common with Jenny Lindsay, Susan Dalgety and Lucy Hunter Blackburn, Darren McGarvey has no interest in rubbing along nicely with the charlatans currently dominating the Scottish cultural world.
His recent album, released under the name of his rapper alter-ego Loki, 'Not Funded by Creative Scotland' is a brutal and often hilarious critique of the cosy arts scene, where individuality of thought is treated with the greatest suspicion.
The Edinburgh International Book Festival has a long and illustrious history as an event at which great, provocative thinkers presented - and defended - controversial ideas.
Under the cowardly leadership of director Jenny Niven, those days are over.