India Willoughby slams Waterstones for promoting 'gender-critical' book featuring JK Rowling essay

India Willoughby has blasted Waterstones for promoting a book comprised of 'gender-critical' essays, including one by author JK Rowling, one day after celebrating Pride month.

Like many large companies, book-seller Waterstones published a post on social media celebrating Pride and the LGBTQ+ community, on Saturday (1 June).

"From trailblazing memoirs, novels from key queer authors and the latest TikTok romantic comedies to definitive works on activism and allyship and introductions on inclusivity and LGBTQ+ issues, find our favourite books to celebrate Pride," the British bookstore wrote on its website, with a link to a collection of queer-themed works .

The collection includes titles such as Elliot Page's Pageboy , Transitional, by Munroe Bergdorf and Who's Afraid of Gender? by Judith Butler.

However, just a day later, Waterstones included a 'gender-critical' book in its round-up of best new releases.

The book of 30 essays, entitled The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht, was published on Thursday (30 May) and contains writings by JK Rowling, 'gender-critical' MP Joanna Cherry , and a former prison guard opposing trans women being held in  women’s prisons . 

India Willoughby, who has previously clashed with Rowling on social media over the author's trans views , shared the post, calling it "dreadful" and "really disappointing", adding that Waterstones is "famously trans-supportive" and that its staff are "great allies".

Willoughby argued that that promoting the book was "terrible" and that it “doesn’t belong in a family bookstore."

Other social media users were quick to call out the bookseller, labelling the posts "hollow virtue signalling", "lip service" and "hypocrisy up the wazoo".

A spokesperson for Waterstones told PinkNews: "This post is one of our regular weekly round-ups of new books. Waterstones caters to a wide variety of readers, and these round-ups are not themed selections but aim to give a broad overview reflective of new publishing across genres and subjects that week."