Julie Bindel and the rise of woke McCarthyism

An Australian bookshop has apologised for hosting an event with journalist and author Julie Bindel. The event took place almost three years ago.

Bindel went on a speaking tour in Australia in 2018, promoting her book, The Pimping of Prostitution: Abolishing the Sex Work Myth. She appeared at an event about the sex trade and women’s rights, hosted by Readings Books, where she read from her book and spoke with audience members.

Now, almost three years later, Readings has published a statement on Twitter apologising for the event.

Thread: During a book tour in Australia I was invited to do one of those 'an evening with' events during which I read from my book (on the horrors of the global sex trade) and conversed with the women and men in the audience. Almost three years later……https://t.co/QLpk9S52NJ

— Julie Bindel (@bindelj) February 9, 2021

The statement says: ‘We apologise for any hurt caused by highlighting the work of an author whose current stance is to divide our community… Readings regrets programming Julie Bindel in 2018.’

No doubt Readings was responding to Bindel’s well-publicised views on gender identity (although she has held these views for some time).

Those who question the trans movement regularly face cancellation and misogynistic abuse. Recently, for example, literary agent Sasha White lost her job for questioning the proliferation of gender pronouns. And Amazon recently blocked an ad for author Abigail Shrier’s book on trans kids.

But it seems that preventing people from speaking about trans issues today is not enough. As the Readings incident has shown, even past events are now being ‘cancelled’. How utterly pathetic.