Abigail Shrier has written an excellent book, Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters. Shrier’s book, which I reviewed in a recent edition of National Review, is tactful, thoroughly researched, and fearlessly committed to the principle that “most teenagers are not in a good position to approve irreversible alterations to their bodies, particularly if they are suffering from trauma, OCD, depression or any of the other mental-health problems that are comorbid with expressions of dysphoria.”
In a sane world, such a thesis would be considered a statement of the obvious. But the world of publishing and social media are not sane worlds. Shrier’s work has faced various forms of censorship from her original publishing house, which retracted its offer for her book; Amazon, which restricted how the book could be advertised; then Target, which removed her book from its shelves “based on feedback we received,” though later reversed this decision after criticism.
Shrier emphasizes an important point. “I don’t believe that I’ve been harmed by these suppression efforts.” The real victim, she says, is the public. “A network of activists and their journalistic enablers have largely succeeded in suppressing a real discussion of the over-diagnosis of gender dysphoria among vulnerable girls . . . This is what censorship looks like in 21st century America. It isn’t the government sending police to your home. It’s Silicon Valley oligopolists implementing blackouts and appeasing social-justice mobs, while sending disfavored ideas down memory holes.”