/r/Books is pissed off that historical female authors who were forced to publish under male pen-names are having their work republished under their real names, because apparently it's evil to assume they weren't trans

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[–]Sittingonarainbow 80 insightful - 4 fun80 insightful - 3 fun81 insightful - 4 fun -  (11 children)

Of all the things these TRA idiots do, transing the dead and attempting to erase women's history just infuriate me.

[–]Eurowoman24 36 insightful - 2 fun36 insightful - 1 fun37 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

this. disrespectfull fuckers

[–]sallyseton 33 insightful - 2 fun33 insightful - 1 fun34 insightful - 2 fun -  (9 children)

It's like the LDS Church baptizing Anne Frank and other Jewish Holocaust victims and adding them to the Mormon genealogical database.

[–]lavender_menace 13 insightful - 1 fun13 insightful - 0 fun14 insightful - 1 fun -  (8 children)

they were doing what?!

[–]thrownawaycan 64 insightful - 9 fun64 insightful - 8 fun65 insightful - 9 fun -  (12 children)

In the comments people argue that wearing men's clothing and not behaving as proper women of the era were expected is point proof that these women were trans.

[–]MezozoicGay 68 insightful - 1 fun68 insightful - 0 fun69 insightful - 1 fun -  (11 children)

If those women were publishing under their women's name, they would not be published in the first place. And in many countries they would be put in prison for doing that.

Women just had no rights at all, there were no way for woman to do ANYTHING as woman, so the only way was is to pretend that they are a man. Those TRA are so blind in their midle class straight men privileges, that they can't even imagine what "not having rights" can possibly be, and they are thinking that women back then lived like men living right now.

Hey, even JK Rowling was publishing under men's name. Is she a trans now? All this anti-JKR movement is transphobic then!

George Eliot continued to publish as George Eliot even after her identity became known

I wonder, if that has something to do with publishers not allowing any women books to be published or not?

And "even after her identity became known" - are they thinking there was internet back then? Only few academics and aristocracy did know that. And even if with some miracle publisher decided to publish first book written by woman, I can imagine her loosing all customers if she publish under her real name.

By the way, I needed to google about George Eliot to know who it is, because in our schools, since USSR times we were studying her as Mary Ann Evans.

[–]lefterfield 46 insightful - 1 fun46 insightful - 0 fun47 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

I wonder if the historical ignorance is deliberate - it makes it easier to accept their narrative that women aren't oppressed because of our sex, but because of our "femininity." It's hard to imagine that anyone is stupid enough to think that women who published under men's names really thought they were men. Much easier to accept it as TRA propaganda or a deliberate attempt to undermine feminism.

[–]MezozoicGay 31 insightful - 4 fun31 insightful - 3 fun32 insightful - 4 fun -  (0 children)

It is just TRA propaganda and reclaiming history, but in reality it all looks more like "women could not do great things, they must've been men".

[–]Anandamide 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I think so, and not just in this regard. I was at a lecture discussing the excavation of ancient Viking graves in Scandinavia, and the primary topic was the discovery that one of the warrior-style graves contained a female body. The items buried with her indicated wealth, high-status and esteem. During Q&A, an audience member could barely contain her excitement that this woman MUST have been trans! The lecturer (Neil Price btw, excellent) politely made reference to beliefs at the time of shapeshifting into animals and all sorts of things, but this woman absolutely would not consider that perhaps, the buried woman had simply been a female warrior. The myopia was astonishing.

[–]lefterfield 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yeeeeah, I remember that story. Just incredible, the mental hoops people jump through to maintain a particular narrative.

[–]thrownawaycan 31 insightful - 8 fun31 insightful - 7 fun32 insightful - 8 fun -  (5 children)

Funny, I have seen them suggest that JKR is trans-in-denial as reason for her "sudden extreme transphobia".

Women in say, the Victorian era, did get published, but only in very specific genre (like romance) and they were considered little more than pulpy garbage. To be taken seriously by both publisher and audience, a male pen name was needed.

Their arguments of "but these people were trans!" is a long way about of saying "since they did not write pulpy garbage romance like other women, clearly they were men!"

[–]VioletRemi 26 insightful - 1 fun26 insightful - 0 fun27 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Reminded me about James Barry (Margaret Ann Bulkley), who I mentioned in other topic here. The only way to work as surgeon was to be a man. At first she just wanted to study as man (women could not study in universities), and then run to Latin America, where she could be surgeon under her real name. However, Latin America was conquered during that time, so she stayed as a man. And she did a lot of good stuff, like forcing hygiene in hospitals she was rulling. And she was either one of the first, or first person who repeatedly performed caesarean section without mother dying. Obviously she is claimed to be trans too, and main argument is "why she not said she is woman then and was playing a man?". I don't know - maybe she did not wanted tribunal and imprisonment?

[–]worried19 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Activists have claimed Barry as trans and attacked and tried to get a book cancelled because it acknowledged her as female.

https://nypost.com/2019/03/15/the-pc-censor-target-a-lesbian-author

[–]VioletRemi 8 insightful - 4 fun8 insightful - 3 fun9 insightful - 4 fun -  (0 children)

Because of course they did. I was not even doubthing they will :D

[–]terfy_delight 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Funny, I have seen them suggest that JKR is trans-in-denial as reason for her "sudden extreme transphobia".

They say this about us also bc we don't act like women. I'm not joking.

[–]thrownawaycan 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Oh I know. I'm very GNC, I get mistaken for a man by non-TRAs. This means that when I was in university, there were a lot of people trying to recruit me to be trans. If I had been younger, when I was 18 when I was mistaking my hatred for the gendered expectations of women for a hatred of women, I may have listened and decided I didn't want to be a woman. Even now, I get messages from random trans persons and groups about how I look, and I've seen things I've said or posted on egg_irl. I guess I'm a prime mark.

[–]brink 21 insightful - 7 fun21 insightful - 6 fun22 insightful - 7 fun -  (0 children)

Hey, even JK Rowling was publishing under men's name. Is she a trans now? All this anti-JKR movement is transphobic then!

I've actually seen people claiming that JKR is trans because of this. Complete lunacy.

[–][deleted] 29 insightful - 3 fun29 insightful - 2 fun30 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

First assuming people's gender is bad, now assuming you don't know a dead person's gender is bad? What on earth?

[–][deleted] 29 insightful - 2 fun29 insightful - 1 fun30 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

And this is why the trans movement is so pernicious in their female erasure.

[–]MarkTwainiac 23 insightful - 5 fun23 insightful - 4 fun24 insightful - 5 fun -  (0 children)

I can't wait until these idiots twig to the 1980s TV detective series with Stephanie Zimbilast and Pierce Brosnan, "Remington Steele."

It's about a very sharp, tough female private eye who opens her own detective agency under own name, but can't get any work coz sexism. So as a front, she invents a fictitious private eye with the name "Remington Steele," renames her shop the Remington Steele agency, and hires a pretty boy con man and former thief (Brosnan) to pretend to be Steele.

Wonder how the TRAs will try to explain that one?

[–]Beth-BR 23 insightful - 1 fun23 insightful - 0 fun24 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

A woman: publishes a book under a man's name bcs sexism is a thing.

TRAs: WhAt iF sHe waS TrAnS

I mean come on. All the fights women of the past had to put up and you're trying to claim them for yourselfs. This is unbelievable. "She wore mens clothes so she couldn't have been a woman". Next thing you're gonna tell be is that Colette was trans. Don't you even!

[–][deleted] 21 insightful - 3 fun21 insightful - 2 fun22 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

This is like when the TRAs said JK Rowling was hypocritical for criticizing trans dogma since she wrote under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.

[–]PassionateIntensity 17 insightful - 1 fun17 insightful - 0 fun18 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Multiple people arguing George Elliot was trans. She must be on some TRA hitlist because there are hundreds or thousands of upvotes. WTF.

[–]MezozoicGay 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

At least here, in post-USSR we were always studying authors by their real names, not pseudonyms.

[–]feministunderyrbed 16 insightful - 1 fun16 insightful - 0 fun17 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The historical ignorance in that thread—maybe they were eXpReSsInG themselves by presenting as men!! lots of women were published romance authors which means no sexism ever!—is the past tense of their willful ignorance of sexism now.

[–]MonstrousRegiment 13 insightful - 3 fun13 insightful - 2 fun14 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

ahaha -- Ellis, Acton, and Currer Bell were all non-binary, get used to it!

/s

[–]Binah17 14 insightful - 1 fun14 insightful - 0 fun15 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

TRA's always trying to insert themselves into the narrative

[–]eddyelric 14 insightful - 1 fun14 insightful - 0 fun15 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The absolute brain rot...

[–]limeindecoconut 14 insightful - 1 fun14 insightful - 0 fun15 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

This is so insulting.

[–]Cass 14 insightful - 1 fun14 insightful - 0 fun15 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

How much do you want to bet none of those people actually read any of those books or heard about any of those women before reading that thread?

[–]terfy_delight 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

This is the exact women erasure TRAs want.

ETA: Reading through those comments make me so angry. TRAs are such sexist POS. This is exactly what they want women to go back to.

[–]aquaticity 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

This got deleted off metafilter too

[–]ShieldMaiden 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The people who claim these women were really "men" clearly are not familiar with coverture laws.

[–]LucasAlolu 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

In Brazil, back then, black politicians white washed themselves on media(newspaper, basically) to become vote-worthy. Those include four presidents. Shouldn't we say that they were black?

[–]ShieldMaiden 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

No, they were obviously trans white!!! /SSSSSSSSSSS