Does the ACLU Want to Ban My Book?
By: by Abigail Shrier
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
I never thought book banning would be respectable in America, much less that I’d be the target, but here we are. Last Thursday Target stopped selling my book, “Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters,” in response to two Twitter complaints.
One read: “In 2016, @Target, you released a statement affirming your support for transgender customers. @AskTarget why you’re selling a book notorious for its harmful rhetoric against us. Historically, harmful products have been pulled from this shelf, and this should be, too.”
The other: “I think the transcommunity deserves a response from @AskTarget @Target as to why they’re selling this book about ‘the transgender epidemic sweeping the country.’ ”
That’s a caricature of my view. I think mature adults should have the freedom to undergo medical transition. But teenagers are another matter. Social contagions exist, and teen girls are particularly susceptible to them. The book takes a hard look at whether the sudden spike in transgender identification among teen girls is yet another social contagion to befall girls who, in another era, might have fallen prey to anorexia or bulimia.
Many transgender adults, including some I interviewed for the book, agree that teen girls are undergoing medical transition too fast with too little oversight. Others disagree and have written books. Amid a sea of material unskeptically promoting medical transition for teenage girls, there’s one book that investigates this phenomenon and urges caution. That is the book the activists seek to suppress.
Abigail Shrier’s book is a dangerous polemic with a goal of making people not trans,” Chase Strangio, the American Civil Liberties Union’s deputy director for transgender justice, tweeted Friday. “I think of all the times & ways I was told my transness wasn’t real & the daily toll it takes. We have to fight these ideas which are leading to the criminalization of trans life again.” Then: “Stopping the circulation of this book and these ideas is 100% a hill I will die on.”
You read that right: Some in today’s ACLU favor book banning. Grace Lavery, a professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley, went further, tweeting: “I DO encourage followers to steal Abigail Shrier’s book and burn it on a pyre.”
This is where leftist extremism, encouraged by cowardly corporations, leads. The market—that is, readers—should determine what booksellers carry. My book was consistently No. 1 in several categories on Amazon based on sales. But the online giant, under pressure from extremists, refused to allow my publisher to advertise “Irreversible Damage” on the site.
At a time when independent bookstores are nearly extinct, chain bookstores are endangered, and Americans’ movement outside their homes is constrained by a pandemic, a handful of online retailers have outsize influence over the ideas to which we have access. And those ideas are being winnowed in one direction.
Robin DiAngelo’s book, “White Fragility,” which falsely accuses millions of Americans of being inalterably racist, is for sale at Target.com, no matter how many Americans it might offend. It should be. The notion that civil society required a marketplace of ideas was something liberals once believed—especially those who worked at the ACLU, or taught at Berkeley.
In response to media attention and customer complaints, Target reversed itself; my book is again for sale. But other books will be quietly suppressed. In an America where the left has achieved dominance of cultural institutions and adopted a tyrannical opposition to other ideas, where social media extends its reach, and where books are distributed by a handful of retailers—a book burning doesn’t even require a populist uprising. It takes only one online extremist or two to make a book disappear. And when that happens, don’t look to the ACLU to defend you.
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"Where one burns books, one eventually burns people."
No book should be banned period. If someone does not like the content, then they are free not to buy it.
I agree. I also believe that commercial retailers have every right to choose what they sell.
In this case, the book was never banned or even threatened with a ban. The commercial retailer in questions also reversed their decision to carry the book.
Then the author says:
So this isn't about banning books at all, it's about commercial interests that want to make money choosing which books to advertise and sell.
It's obvious that this author hates those they label "leftists" and equates online retailers deciding which books to market and sell to "book burning" which is beyond ridiculous. Should those who were offended by the book and spoke up to the online retailers be silenced? Should they have their free speech or right to boycott retailers stripped? It seems to me that this author is just pissed that her sales went down, not that people can't access her book or any others.
Is it really? The book is a best seller on Amazon. I think it's about ideology.
Yup. The author has a persecution complex, and confuses corporations with government.
You mean she confuses the ACLU, the University and business with government. Again, it's about censorship & ideology.
I said what I meant. Don't put words in my mouth. She thinks not being provided with shelf space is the same as banning. YOU may choose to reiterate her hyperbole, but do not attempt to twist my words into such support.
Yes, it is.
And? That is a commercial interest wanting to make money, if they want to sell it they can.
It's funny how the religious conservatives who were burning rap albums back in the 1980's and 90's are now so concerned with stopping any censorship. So perhaps you're right, it is about ideology, that of hypocritical pieces of shit whining and complaining when their conservative views aren't being accepted and validated.
She evidently got that idea from Grace Lavery who said the book should be burned and the ACLU which wants to fight against the idea that a young girl should be able to destroy her own life on a whim.
I wouldn't know about religious Conservatives, but I do know about far left progressives who are censoring people & intimidating everyone in our society.
So, one lawyer at the ACLU and one professor represent the whole of the left? Would you want the same standard applied to those on the right - that the views of the most extreme are extrapolated to the whole? Proud Boys? Or is that unfair and hyperbolic?
C'mon, it's everywhere and it's blatant. In Michigan, two Wayne County Board of Canvassers involved in a brief deadlock in the county's election results were called "racists" and bullied into certifying election results.
Thank you.
Who buys books at Target? I mean, really?
I don't think I'll be buying anything there anymore. I just added it to my list of corporations that are easily intimidated by the radical left.
Jeez, how will they ever recover from your crippling personal sanction?
Remember when the ACLU fought for the Bill of Rights?
I remember when the ACLU defended the Westboro Baptists, the KKK, the confederate flag, and Rush Limbaugh. l
I also remember.
They would never do it today. Know why?
Because the ACLU is now worse than all they once opposed.
As mega-corporations arbitrate acceptable speech, for authors now
If you're not woke, you're broke.
Imagine telling liberals from the 70s they'd end up joining forces with billion dollars corporations to suppress dissent. What a world.
As someone that has a teenage daughter CURRENTLY, I understand where this author is coming from and have witnessed issues that arise with teens that make the change / transition. I've had lengthy conversations with ADULT transgenders and even they said that if they'd done the transition as a teen, it would've been a mistake. I'm not sure why the parents of these teens allow the transition and until the child is 18, parents would be required to sign for the approval for surgery and hormone therapy. Teens can't just do these things without parental approval. Hell... who can afford this anyhow?
While I don't think that books should be banned, this is about retailers not selling a book as they choose; that really is up to the retailer. When I have questions regarding medical procedures, I don't look for books sold at Target or Amazon; I look for medical journals or talk to doctors. Published medical journals have facts only, based on research and professionals performing studies. Maybe the parents of teens that claim they're transgender should perform research via medical journals and speak with doctors. When my daughter has talked about her "transgender" friends, I ask her, "So, their parents allowed them to go through surgery and hormone therapy"? The answer is usually no. The medical definition of transgender USED to mean someone that took the plunge and followed through with a transition in some way. Now, it appears that simply identifying with the opposite sex and feeling like they shouldn't be the sex they were born as, is the definition. Hell... if that's the case, then I guess I was "transgender" all the way up to about the age of 13-14 years old. The latter definition suggests that a "tomboy" is transgender. That's asinine. Sorry for the rant. Identifying yourself differently doesn't mean diddly.
Again with the labels. Labels are stupid. Examples of what I mean: republican / rightwing, democrat / leftwing, libertarian, green party, dem-lib, liberal, gay / lesbian, straight, bisexual, pan-sexual, [the several types of] curious, asexual, transgender, girl, boy, other, African-American, Asian-American... how about simply American no matter the color or origin of the individual family... this list goes on forever! It's all stupid.
We're humans / homosapians that live on planet earth and require food and water to survive. Homosapians require a sperm, an egg and a womb to grow said newly formed homosapian for reproduction by whatever means that may be achieved.
Standing O !!!
Well done! You said it all.
You knew what everyone was thinking!
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