The National Library of Scotland (NLS) is under fire after Amina Shah, Scotland’s national librarian and the NLS chief executive, opted not to include a pro-women’s rights book in a centenary display.
The NLS initially asked the public for nominations, calling the display a “love letter” to reading and literacy and suggesting that people submit titles that had inspired and encouraged their love of reading — and titles that received a certain number of nominations were to be included in the planned ten-month display.
One book that received more than double the requisite number of nominations was “The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht” — a series of essays that chronicled the fight between feminists like “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling who questioned radical gender ideology and former Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s gender self-identification law. The title comes from their refusal to remain silent — in the Gaelic “haud yer wheesht” — while radical trans activists effectively erased women.
Despite meeting the threshold for display, “The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht” was banned by the NLS after LGBT staffers complained that it was “hate speech.” Shah claimed that she’d made the decision in light of “the potential impact on key stakeholders” who could potentially “withdraw support for the exhibition and the centenary” altogether.
Susan Dalgety and Lucy Hunter Blackburn, who edited the book, sent a letter to Shah questioning the decision.
“We have written to the National Librarian about her decision to remove The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht from the centenary exhibition for the National Library of Scotland, Dear Library, in response to complaints from its LGBT staff network,” an X post including the letter explained.
We have written to the National Librarian about her decision to remove The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht from the centenary exhibition for the National Library of Scotland, Dear Library, in response to complaints from its LGBT staff network. 1/2 pic.twitter.com/lQlv2x0tsO
— The Frontline (@EthelWrites) August 12, 2025
The letter reads, in part:
This is about more than the book. This is the legacy of a decade of political leadership which has demonized and delegitimized people who refused to conform to the approved narrative on sex and gender identity.
The material released also lifts the lid on the network of discrimination and censorship which operates across Scotland’s public institutions with impunity through staff networks and other activist groups, enabled by weak leadership.
For Women Scotland also issued a statement criticizing the NLS, saying, “Just when we thought censorship in Scotland couldn’t get any worse, it emerges that @natlibscot decided to remove WWWW from an exhibition due to tantrums from the staff LGBT group. By caving to this, the library lends weight to their wholly untruthful objections to the book.”
Just when we thought censorship in Scotland couldn’t get any worse, it emerges that @natlibscot decided to remove WWWW from an exhibition due to tantrums from the staff LGBT group.
By caving to this, the library lends weight to their wholly untruthful objections to the book. https://t.co/3TJEGV8Hyp
— For Women Scotland (@ForWomenScot) August 12, 2025
“The Times reports that ‘An earlier decision to include the text was reversed after an internal LGBT staff network claimed including it would cause “severe harm” and threatened to “notify LGBT+ partners of the library’s endorsement” of it,'” the statement continued. “What ‘harm’? Is this book uniquely likely to cause bad paper cuts? ‘An internal equality assessment warned that refusing to include the book could be seen as “a form of censorship which undermines our public duty as a national library”’ Well, duh!”
