Posted on October 5, 2020 at 9:46 AM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek
Author Akwaeke Emezi is speaking out against and boycotting the Women's Prize for Fiction.
Last year, Emezi became the first nonbinary and transgender author nominated for the prize, after which the organizers said they would develop a policy in regards to gender-fluid, transgender, and transgender nonbinary writers.
This year, though, when their publisher inquired about submitting their new novel, The Death of Vivek Oji, the prize administrators responded that information about the author’s “sex as defined by law” would be required.
Emezi expressed their frustrations about the prize organizers’ behavior on Twitter, including this tweet:
It’s fine for me not to be eligible because I’m not a woman! But you not about to be out here on some ‘sex as defined by law’ like that’s not a weapon used against trans women.
— akwaeke emezi (@azemezi) October 5, 2020
In response, prize organizers said that terms and conditions of the award “equated the word ‘woman’ with ‘a cis woman, a transgender woman or anyone who is legally defined as a woman or of the female sex,’” according to the Guardian.
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Categories: Today in Books