“She abused her power, publishing personal essays from her former students without consent because we had the nerve to call her out on her bigotry toward trans women,” Emezi wrote. In a post on Instagram, Emezi called out the publishing industry for enabling Adichie’s behavior. One has to be speaking from a position of power or relative privilege.”Īs they have such comparatively limited power and privilege to begin with, trans people are therefore both less likely to be “canceled” and, yet, closer to being “canceled” simply for being who they are.

“In order to be afraid of being canceled, you have to have something to lose. “Many of the people who are afraid of being canceled hold offices that have literally never been held by trans people,” Lavery continues. That power manifests itself in different ways across organizations and people in the publishing industry, for example, it is often held by those with commercial and critical success.

Lavery says many people who are afraid of being “canceled” are those who have access to various forms of institutional power. In this context, narratives and essays such as Adichie’s often fit into a larger pattern of people critiquing cancel culture while obscuring transphobia or other discriminatory rhetoric. Emezi responded to the piece on a post to their Instagram story on June 16, saying that emails between the two were used without their consent, and that Adichie “wrote an incendiary post that she knew would send hundreds of transphobic and homophobic people to social media.” In particular, Adichie referred to backlash she has faced in recent years from many who found public comments she has made transphobic, including a 2017 interview in which she said that “trans women are trans women,” rather than affirm their status as women without caveat.Īdichie, the award-winning author of books including Americanah and Half of a Yellow Sun, is believed to have referenced interactions between herself and the also award-winning author and activist Akwaeke Emezi, who identifies as nonbinary, throughout the essay-though Emezi is never explicitly named. The piece, titled “It Is Obscene: A True Reflection in Three Parts,” addressed social media discourse, literary culture, freedom of speech and trans rights. Last month, the novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie self-published a personal essay that went so viral it briefly crashed her website.

Akwaeke emezi bitter