SEEN in Publishing report on children's books

[SensibleStories]

NC for this.
I've just received this post from SEEN in publishing and they've said it's fine to share. There's a link to the report in the text.

Through the Looking Glass, a report by SEEN in Publishing, Transgender Trend and Biology in Medicine, will be formally presented in a House of Lords committee room at the invitation of Baroness Jenkins at 4:30pm today.
This report describes how editors and authors in children’s publishing have, for over a decade, promoted both the idea that children can be born in the wrong body and surgical interventions to fix this. A flood of books aimed at children, some of them in the 0-5 range, flout statutory safeguarding guidance. Some of them contain illustrations of trans-identifying women with mastectomy scars, or gay men in leather fetish gear. The report suggests that publishers’ rush to create these kinds of books, which often substitute trite moralizing for good storytelling, may explain the sharp drop in children reading for pleasure.

In 2024, the Cass Review found no evidence in favour of gender affirming ‘care’ for gender dysphoric young people. As Through the Looking Glass argues, publishers continue to ignore Cass’s warning that even social transition is not a neutral act and pushes children toward a medical pathway. They have contributed to the dizzying 4,000% increase in girls experiencing Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria that Hannah Barnes and Lisa Littman have previously reported on.
As Dr Clea Thompson, D.Clin. Psych, M.A., states in the report:
Adults who present inaccurate information about children’s development through literature cause confusion, anxiety and doubt about how children understand themselves and their relationships in the world…. Children’s literature has been co-opted by lobbyists to serve an activist agenda, and is now a contributing factor in the social transitioning of children.

Carnegie Medalist and acclaimed children’s author Anne Fine OBE FRSL says of this report:
Would it be possible to put together a more damning indictment of the world of children’s publishing than we have here? I doubt it. It is shameful. Shameful. Publishers will rush to climb on any bandwagon. But this one? Really?
This dismal betrayal of young readers. This unthinking capitulation to a biologically unfounded ideology whose false and troubling messages have damaged so many families. Over the last decade, publishers, booksellers, librarians and a bevy of joyless would-be authors became a major conduit for trans-activist propaganda and harmful lies, while others (whose books sold a good deal better) were bullied into silence, or out of their careers, by positively terrifying campaigns of cancellation and spite.
…[J]ust as the children’s publishing industry appears to have been the first captured, it is still almost the last redoubt of this dangerous idiocy. Everyone should read this report.
For far too long, children’s publishers and authors have ignored the safeguarding dangers of promoting trans ideology to young children and teens. A course correction is long overdue. We hope that this report will give readers pause for thought.

Key points from the report

• Ignoring basic biology and established and robust theories of child psychological development, a large number of recently published children’s books promote social transition, double mastectomies, and the concept of children being born in the wrong bodies.
• By publishing, promoting, and purchasing age-inappropriate and scientifically inaccurate books written by trans activists, children’s publishers and children’s librarians are failing to adhere to statutory KCSIE and RHSE guidelines and eroding child safeguarding boundaries.
• Books that promote acceptance, comfort, and care for the body a child is born in are rare if not entirely absent from catalogs and shelves. Their authors are subject to mobbing and denunciation by trans activists.
• Children’s reading for pleasure is in sharp decline.

You can read the report now at Transgender Trend. SEEN in Publishing thanks report authors Dr Alice Hodkinson, Stephanie Davies-Arai, Shelley Charlesworth, Gillian Philip, Sibyl Ruth, Dr. Clea Thompson, an anonymous GP, an anonymous children’s author, the artist who contributed the illustration, the anonymous organizer of this project, and Julia Williams and Lily for editing and graphics. Thanks for reading! This post is public so feel free to share it.

Hopefully the "stunning and brave" cult nonsense that worshipped talentless misogynist men when they popped on a vinyl mini skirt and fake breasts to take selfies in the Ladies loos before getting their nonsense published and clapped by the hard of thinking in the publishing world is slowly fading, maybe reality and commonsense - that men cannot be women - is returning.

I wrote the bit about asexuality. My reason for doing this is that an idea that adults may have about themselves once mature and having gone through all the necessary stages of development of physical and mental maturity. It's not something that children need to be taught, or asked to be ally to. In fact it is confusing. For teens, especially girls, it may something else, abuse or an undiagnosed physical condition, or simply fear of sex after being exposed to porn. The book Loveless by Alice Oseman introduces this idea to young/mid teens - her readership. The 18 yr old main character goes to university and at the end of the first year decides she is asexual. The message is that this is an identity she will have for the rest of her life. The back of the book lists lots of organisations to contact to get involved in campaigning, run by much older adults. This is the merging of fiction and activism. Teens should be told that they will change on many ways throughout there life - not that they need to adopt a label at 18. As for teaching pre-pubertal children that A is for Asexuality, it is beyond their developmental ability to understand. It is conceptually unavailable to them, so pointless.

Anne Fine wrote Bill's New Frock, published in 1989, back when there were intelligent, funny and thought-provoking children's books about important issues.

Looks to be still in print happily.

Great post.

Isn't it great. Of course primary children shouldn't be bothered about sex and sexuality. The worry is that there are so many disordered adults who've been allowed to promote this to children, smashing all safeguarding boundaries along the way.

I do think that Dawson's books have the potential to be very damaging to children, especially vulnerable girls.

That they are promoted by schools, libraries, etc, is just ... well, I'd say it was unbelievable, but it's not, is it.

Publishing has collapsed in recent years into the 'big four' and a bunch of tiny grassroots houses.

The death of the mid-sized publishing house is good for nobody, but it's especially troubling when it comes to political capture. Less diversity and less plurality mean fewer independent centres of decision-making, which inevitably affects messaging across the industry.

D'you think he'll find a publisher?

Sorry!

fairly certain that No Outsiders promote Dawsons books.

in Newcastle upon Tyne the local council decided to attempt to tackle extremism and racism via a few initiatives one of which was to bring NO into 6 schools across the city, paid for by the council.

So 6 schools were given training by the Andrew thingy and use his curriculum for the school. He also visits the one I know of annually.

This is how deeply embedded this stuff has been.

I’ve just let all my Anne fine books go. Earlier this year. Kids firmly voting with their eyes on other things. A set from the book people from over 20 years ago. I’m quite upset as I think I’ll be able to use them at work next year.
(curveball I didn’t see coming!)

Think I held on to bills new frock as I did so much work with it in the past.

Thankyou, it’s such an important point.