A gender-critical book featuring contributions from JK Rowling has been excluded from a major exhibition at Scotland's National Library, despite receiving enough public nominations to secure its place.

The institution removed "The Women Who Wouldn't Wheesht" from its centenary display following internal protests from staff who characterised the work as "hate speech".

The essay collection, which documents feminist opposition to Nicola Sturgeon's gender self-identification legislation, garnered twice the required number of public votes for automatic inclusion.

A gender-critical book featuring contributions from JK Rowling has been excluded from a major exhibition at Scotland's National Library, despite receiving enough public nominations to secure its place

Nevertheless, library management withdrew the title after employee complaints and warnings from an internal LGBT network about potential "severe harm".

The book, edited by policy analyst Lucy Hunter Blackburn and columnist Susan Dalgety, contains more than thirty essays from women who campaigned against the self-ID legislation.

Contributors include former SNP MP Joanna Cherry KC and ex-SNP minister Ash Regan, who left her ministerial post to oppose the bill.

Rowling's contribution explores her choice to publicly express gender-critical perspectives.

The work achieved Sunday Times bestseller status and chronicles what its editors describe as a crucial period in Scottish political history.

The National Library had invited public submissions for its "Dear Library" exhibition, requesting nominations for books that had influenced readers' lives.

The ten-month display was conceived as a celebration of literature's impact, with 523 titles nominated overall and 200 selected for exhibition.

Staff members mounted sustained opposition to the book's inclusion, with the library's LGBT network claiming it would inflict "severe harm" and threatening to alert external LGBT+ organisations about the institution's "endorsement" of the work.

Internal communications reveal employees questioned whether texts promoting "racist, homophobic or other discriminatory and exclusionary viewpoints" would receive similar treatment.

One staff member explicitly branded the book as material that "essentially promotes hate speech to a particular group".

The controversy erupted in May when the LGBT network challenged the book's selection, despite it having cleared an initial "sensitivity check".

Library documents acknowledge that while pro-trans rights materials were featured in the exhibition, the excluded book would have been the sole example of "gender-critical ideology" in the display.

National Library chief executive Amina Shah ultimately overruled initial decisions to display the book, citing concerns about "the potential impact on key stakeholders" who might "withdraw support for the exhibition and the centenary".

Her recommendation received backing from Sir Drummond Bone, the library board's chair.

Shah insisted her decision stemmed not from "the content of the book itself or the views expressed" but from anxieties regarding institutional relationships and reputation.

An internal equality assessment had cautioned that excluding the book might constitute "a form of censorship which undermines our public duty as a national library".

The same assessment warned that featuring the work could prove "harmful" to employees and erode confidence among "transgender people and allies".

Despite acknowledging the library's "core organisational function and our statutory duties", leadership prioritised stakeholder concerns.

Hunter Blackburn and Dalgety described discovering their book's exclusion as "devastating", condemning the library's "cowardly and anti-democratic" censorship.

They've demanded a reversal of the decision and requested a personal meeting with Shah to understand why their work was treated as a "dangerous object".

The institution removed 'The Women Who Wouldn't Wheesht' from its centenary display following internal protests from staff who characterised the work as 'hate speech'

"But this is about more than the book," they stated.

"This is the legacy of a decade of political leadership which has demonised and delegitimised people who refused to conform to the approved narrative on sex and gender identity."

They accused Scottish public institutions of operating "a network of discrimination and censorship" through activist groups, facilitated by "weak leadership".

The authors noted the exhibition's inclusion of anti-censorship imagery compounds the insult.

A library spokesperson maintained that all 523 nominated titles, including theirs, remain accessible in reading rooms.