BUSINESS
Twitter Storm; Target Flip-Flops on Anti-Trans Book
Retailer enrages fringey social media corners after pulling wacky book it quickly restores
BY MATT TRACY
A book that peddles false
narratives about transgender
children was removed
from the shelves
at Target, but was later restored after
the retail giant sparked outrage
from transphobes who took out
their frustrations on social media.
Abigail Shrier’s book, “Irreversible
Damage: The Transgender
Craze Seducing Our Daughters,”
is ranked number one on Amazon
under “LGBT Demographic Studies”
— and what a “demographic
study” it is, if you can call it that.
The book broadly invalidates
the lived experience of trans youth
and feeds misinformation to the
parents of trans children by falsely
suggesting that gender dysphoria
is a new phenomenon and that
youth only come out as trans because
it is popular to do so, among
plenty of other baseless claims.
The book’s wild description
warns of “a generation of girls at
risk” and purports to “help you
understand what the trans craze
is and how you can inoculate your
child against it — or how to retrieve
her from this dangerous path.”
Shrier’s perspective on trans issues
is deeply problematic in more
ways than one. Shrier admits in
her book that she misgenders
transgender youth, saying, “I refer
to biologically female teens caught
up in this transgender craze as
‘she’ and ‘her’” — a choice by the
author that disrespects transgender
teens’ gender identity and
falsely assumes that all trans boys
or non-binary individuals assigned
female at birth have the same biological
makeup.
On the contrary, many individuals
ultimately receive gender-affi
rming care to align their body’s
biology with the gender with which
they identify, and a study published
last year in the journal Pediatrics
found that adolescents who
receive access to puberty blockers
have lower rates of suicide.
Despite fi ndings like that, the
book is riding the wave of a conspiracy
laden Trump era during which
Target is drawing criticism from transphobes after its stores, like this one in Brooklyn, pulled an antitrans
book from its shelves.
transphobia has swept through
federal agencies, anti-trans bills
have fl ooded Republican-led statehouses
across the nation, and
right-wing circles on social media
platforms have given life to outright
false narratives about the LGBTQ
community.
Such narratives have been fueled
in large part by TERFs — so-called
trans-exclusionary radical feminists
who hide their transphobia
behind the guise of women’s rights
— and free speech advocates who
argue that holding bigoted voices
accountable amounts to suppression
of First Amendment rights,
even though that accountability is
demanded by the public and the
free marketplace, not by any government
coercion.
Out lesbian journalist Bari
Weiss, whose bitter resignation
from the New York Times earlier
this year — based on charges the
newspaper was in the throes of illiberal
orthodoxy that stigmatizes
“WrongThink” — drew praise from
the likes of Ben Shapiro and Donald
Trump, Jr., jumped to Shrier’s
defense after Target fi rst removed
the book.
“The efforts to smear my friend
@AbigailShrier and to disappear
her book (hi, @Target) is despicable
— and a sign of what’s to come,”
Weiss bemoaned on Twitter. “I regret
that I didn’t speak up earlier
REUTERS/ BRENDAN MCDERMID
on her behalf, that I also thought
to myself: is this the hill I want to
die on?”
It is indeed the hill Weiss — and
countless others — are dying on.
The issue rapidly blew up on social
media when an individual whose
since-deleted tweet brought the
book to Target’s attention. Target \
replied in a tweet, saying, “Thank
you so much for bringing this to
our attention. We have removed
this book from our assortment.”
In response to Target’s initial
tweet, Shrier wrote, “Target just
made my book disappear. Does it
bother anyone that Woke activists
and spineless corporations now
determine what Americans are allowed
to read?”
Others also ran to Shrier’s corner,
including Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a
Somali-born former Muslim who
founded the AHA Foundation, a
non-profi t that opposes female
genital mutilation, honor killings,
and forced marriages. She has a
massive Twitter following of more
than 400,000 people.
“I’ve read it,” Hirsi Ali wrote on
Twitter. “Every grown-up who is in
a position of looking after teenage
girls (parents, teachers, therapists,
religious leaders, coaches, etc.)
should read this book.”
Conservative podcast host Allie
Beth Stuckey, who boasts more
than 340,000 followers, responded
to Target by attacking those who
denounced the transphobic messages
embedded within the book.
“Here, @target cowers to a mob of
know-nothing randos in removing
@AbigailShrier ‘s well-researched,
perfectly reasonable book about
the dangers of the transgender
movement to teen girls,” Stuckey
wrote. “What a joke.”
But shortly before 5 p.m. on November
13, Target suddenly announced
a reversal of the decision
to pull the book.
“Yesterday, we removed a book
from Target.com based on feedback
we received,” Target noted.
“We want to offer a broad assortment
for our guests and are adding
this book back to Target.com. We
apologize for any confusion.”
While the infl uence of transphobes
on social media is undeniable,
others with high visibility managed
to push back fi rmly against
the book ahead of Target’s second
announcement. Chase Strangio,
an out trans attorney with the
American Civil Liberties Union,
described the book as “a dangerous
polemic with a goal of making
people not trans.”
“I think of all the times and ways
I was told my transness wasn’t real
and the daily toll that still takes,”
Strangio wrote in a tweet. “We have
to fi ght these ideas which are leading
to the criminalization of trans
life again.”
And in a clear response to Weiss’
tweet, Strangio added, “Also stopping
the circulation of this book
and these ideas is 100 percent a
hill I will die on.”
While there have been cries of
censorship, the book’s removal
from Target hardly seems to have
dampened its reach or circulation,
and the attention appears to have
even boosted sales.
One tweet, from user Johnathan
Perez, drew more than 400
likes after he reminded folks that
“Americans are still allowed to
read the book.”
“They just can’t buy it from a
vendor that reserves the right to
choose its stock,” Perez added. “But
thanks for inciting radicalism.”
November 19 - November 25, 2 14 020 | GayCityNews.com
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