Non-binary writer Akwaeke Emezi, longlisted for the women’s prize for fiction with her novel Freshwater, said they would no longer be submitting entries due to a lack of gender non-conforming inclusivity.
Emezi was told they would have to enter their new book according to “sex as defined by law”, so they tweeted saying “I don’t want this prize—but anyone who uses this kind of language does not f*ck with trans women either, so when they say it’s for women, they mean cis women.”Joanna Prior, the prize committee’s chair of trustees, tweeted confirming all female-identifying and/or female born authors were eligible to enter, adding: “As a prize which celebrates the voices of women and the experience of being a woman in all its varied forms, we.