As a lot of sewing and costube nerds know, Bernadette Banner just released her book on sewing, a basic guide for sewing and mending based on historical techniques. She has a successful YouTube channel where she teaches these techniques and occasionally features other costubers, experts, etc. Naturally, in writing her book, she’s transferred some of the personal aspects that are part of any YouTube channel’s branding, such as illustrating her work with narratives and introducing the people who are featured in the book.
Because she has used people’s correct pronouns and approached this book in an inclusive way, it seems a group of TERF activists have organized and bombarded the book’s Amazon page with bad reviews, claiming the book has an “agenda” and is “political” by using the preferred pronouns of the people featured. Of course, this is this absurd – YouTube personalities, even those with substantive content who aren’t just influencers, are exactly that? Personalities? So of course there will be personal narratives, and why should someone’s identity be left out of their narrative, especially if the reason they need to tailor a garment is a gender reassignment surgery? I also imagine it may be triggering and difficult, as Banner has an openly non-binary sibling who has also been featured in her videos.
All this to say, you can go to Amazon and report these bigoted reviews or mark them as unhelpful, and if you have a copy of the book and like it, this is a good time to leave a nice review. The book was published less than a month ago, and bad Amazon reviews can tank new publications or push Amazon to force the author to make changes in some cases (though I think only with digital books, but as there’s a kindle edition and we all know that Amazon takes money from authors whose books are returned, I’m hoping these TERFs aren’t buying and returning Kindle editions just to leave shitty reviews). Anyway, it’s important to authors not to get dragged down by a TERF swarm, especially so early after publication. And it’s even more important to keep pushing back and showing TERFs that they can’t keep pulling this shit.
I’m honestly just so tired of their bullshit. Please find a non-destructive outlet for your trauma.
