âItâs not necessarily a bucket of funâ ⦠Torrey Peters. Photograph: Natasha Gornik
The Womenâs prize for fiction has issued a strongly worded statement saying that it âdeplores any attempts to malign or bullyâ authors nominated for the prize, after trans novelist Torrey Peters was targeted in an open letter.
The US writer, who is nominated for the £30,000 award for her debut novel Detransition, Baby, was the subject of a letter published online on Tuesday by the Wild Women Writing Club. The letter, which is signed by several dead women writers including Emily Dickinson and Daphne du Maurier, claims that some signatories were using pseudonyms âbecause of the threat of harassment by trans extremists and/or cancellation by the book industryâ.
The American author has received hateful blowback since releasing her critically-acclaimed novel,
Detransition, Baby. April 07 2021 5:06 PM EDT
The day after a group of cisgender women authors released a transphobic open letter condemning the Women s Prize for Fiction for nominating trans female writer Torrey Peters for its annual award, the U.K. organization behind the Women s Prize responded and did not mince words.
“The prize is firmly opposed to any form of discrimination on the basis of race, age, sexuality, gender identity and all other protected characteristics, and deplores any attempts to malign or bully the judges or the authors,” they wrote in a statement on Twitter.
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