HISTORIC BOOKSTORE IN WASHINGTON STATE WILL NOT CARRY HELEN JOYCE’S “TRANS”.
Dee Robinson, Co-owner of Village Books in Bellingham, Washington has refused to stock Joyce’s widely-acclaimed “Trans: When Identity Meets Reality” in a telephone conversation last month. Despite my assertion that, as a member of the LGB community, I had been buying from their store since I was a teenager who found it provided exciting critical perspectives absent from the mainstream, and despite sharing the book’s positive review in The New York Times, I was told that the store’s buyers already knew what the community wanted and it was not this text. When I asked if I could be put in contact with the buying team, since I was a community member of long standing, she declared that she would not, nor would she speak to me any further or provide reasons for censoring her inventory in this manner. I can only conclude that it is due to an apparent unspoken political policy that the store carries zero gender critical books on its shelves.
I would like to ask anyone, wherever you are, to please contact Village Books in Bellingham, Washington, USA if you share my concerns and frustration on this matter. Additionally, please share this story on any blog, website, or newsletter if you find it of interest to do so. I hope the store owners will learn quickly that censorship of intellectual viewpoint diversity does not look good as a business model for an independent bookstore. Thank you very much!
Contact information is below.
Village Books
1200 11th Street, Bellingham Washington, 98225
1(360)671-2626 biblioinfo@villagebooks.com
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