Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters

Author	Abigail Shrier
Language	English
Publisher	Regnery Publishing
Publication date	June 30, 2020 (2020-06-30)
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print and digital
ISBN	978-1-68451-031-3

Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters is a 2020 book by Abigail Shrier, by Regnery Publishing. The book endorses the contentious concept of rapid onset gender dysphoria,^[1][2][3] which is not recognized as a medical diagnosis by any major professional institution.^[4][5] Shrier states that during the 2010s, there began a social contagion creating a "sudden, severe spike in transgender identification" among "high-anxiety, depressive (mostly white) girls who, in previous decades, fell prey to anorexia and bulimia or multiple personality disorder".^[6][7] Shrier also criticizes gender-affirming psychiatric support, hormone replacement therapy and sex reassignment surgery (together often referred to as gender-affirming care) as treatment for gender dysphoria in young people.^[8]

Summary

Shrier states that she began to investigate adolescent-onset gender dysphoria after being contacted by the mother of a young adult with no apparent history of childhood gender dysphoria, who identified as transgender in college.^{[9]: ch Intro} She describes what she sees as difficulties facing teenagers who were assigned female at birth:^{[note 1]} isolation, online social dynamics, restrictive gender and sexuality labels, unwelcome physical changes and sexual attention. She profiles several teenagers who questioned their gender identities or came out as transgender while experiencing mental health or personal issues.^{[9]: ch 1} She discusses Lisa Littman's 2018 journal article on rapid onset gender dysphoria and the ensuing controversy and endorses its findings.^{[9]: ch 2} She states that online trans influencers encourage questioning youth to identify as trans, experiment with breast binding and testosterone, and disown or lie to unsupportive family members.^{[9]: ch 3}

Shrier criticizes transgender-related curricula and policies in schools.^{[9]: ch 4} She describes parents distressed by their children's transgender identification or transition^{[9]: ch 5} and critiques the gender-affirming model of care^{[9]: ch 6} and profiles its critics: Kenneth Zucker, Ray Blanchard, J. Michael Bailey, Lisa Marchiano, and Paul McHugh.^{[9]: ch 7} Shrier discusses trans activism and related controversies, including sex-specific privacy concerns; passing versus trans visibility; the role of celebrities in increasing trans acceptance; conflict between transgender people, and lesbians or radical feminists; transfeminine/male-to-female athletes competing in girls' and women's sports; the use of trans-inclusive language; intersectionality; and identity politics.^{[9]: ch 8} She argues that medical interventions such as puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries include risks, and describes a transgender person who became disabled after a failed surgery.^{[9]: ch 9} She also profiles detransitioned young women.^{[9]: ch 10}

Background and publication history

Shrier holds degrees from Columbia College New York, the University of Oxford, and Yale Law School.^[13] She is a freelance journalist^[14] who writes for The Wall Street Journal^[15][1] and The Federalist,^[13] and has published multiple opinion pieces on trans issues,^[16] including gender pronouns^[17] and trans women's participation in women's athletics.^[18]

In a July 2020 interview on the Joe Rogan Experience, Shrier called the desire to transition a "contagion", and compared it with eating disorders and "cutting".^[19] She associated transgender youth with autism.^[20] Her remarks sparked calls by Spotify employees for the Rogan podcast episode to be removed from the platform,^[21][20] but the company denied the request.^[22]

Reception

The book has been controversial.^[15] It was positively reviewed by journalist Naomi Schaefer Riley in Commentary, by the journalist Madeleine Kearns in the National Review, by The Economist, by Janice Turner in The Times of London, by Christina Patterson in The Sunday Times, by Emily Hourican in the Irish Independent, and by Nick Cater in The Spectator Australia.^{[23][24][25][26][27][28][29]} Naomi Schaefer Riley wrote that Shrier was correct to ask "what's ailing" adolescents who appeared to suddenly begin identifying as transgender. She endorsed Shrier's criticisms of transgender healthcare and online transgender activism.^[23] Madeleine Kearns reviewed Irreversible Damage alongside Debra W. Soh's The End of Gender. She stated that Shrier's book provided "a personal, inquisitive, and often moving narrative".^[24]

The book was named an Economist Book of the Year,^[30] and a Times Best Book of 2021 for its UK publication.^[31] The Economist called the book "one of the first accessible treatments of a subject that has generated much fascinated coverage" but remarked it had not received many reviews in mainstream papers. It credited Shrier with "[telling] the stories of those she interviews with great care", but suggested that she might have overstated the extent to which teenagers were receiving medical interventions.^[25] Writing for the Times Janice Turner called the book "fearless", remarking on the controversy surrounding the book and endorsing its conclusions.^[26]

The psychologist Christopher Ferguson, in a mixed review, wrote that Shrier had "some valid ideas" and that he was "not willing to dismiss her thesis entirely", but also that she failed to "carefully hew" to science and that "high-quality, preregistered, open science, scientific efforts" were needed in the area.^[32] Tina Beattie called the book "a disturbing, infuriating and compelling study". She criticized Shrier's use of anecdotes from parents or professionals, apparently unbeknownst to the subjects themselves. She wrote that, while "many of Shrier's claims may be open to challenge", the reported increase in cases of adolescent-onset dysphoria "should be a cause for much greater caution and disquiet than is currently the case".^[33]

Criticisms

Jack Turban, a psychiatrist with specialization in transgender mental health, criticized the book in a Psychology Today blog post, as did Sarah Fonseca in the Los Angeles Review of Books.^[8][34] Jack Turban accused Shrier of promoting the denial of gender-affirming medical care from transgender youth, a fringe position rejected by the American Psychiatric Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Endocrine Society, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health.^[8] He wrote that Shrier misinterpreted and omitted scientific evidence to support her book's claims. He criticized Shrier for portrayals of transgender youth based on interviews with parents, and using "crass and offensive language".^[8] Fonseca condemned the book for its presentation, substance, and sourcing.^[34]

Skeptic and physician Harriet Hall published a positive review of the book on the website Science-Based Medicine in June 2021, stating that Shrier "brings up some alarming facts that desperately need to be looked into", that care centered on gender affirmation "is a mistake and a dereliction of duty", and that the current political climate has made scientific study of these matters nearly impossible.^[35][36] The site's two other editors, Steven Novella and David Gorski, took the unprecedented step of retracting this review, which was republished in Skeptic.^[36] Novella and Gorski later explained the retraction, concluding that both Hall's and Shrier's claims are "not supported by any evidence and [are] cobbled together with a gross misreading of the scientific evidence", and are based on "anecdotes, outliers, political discussions, and cherry-picked science". The site then published a series of articles about the book in the following weeks by guest authors Rose Lovell and AJ Eckert that also criticized the book for scientific errors, cherry-picked data, and misinformation.^{[35][37][38][39]} Journalist Jesse Singal criticized these articles and the site itself for misrepresentations and omissions,^[40] which was rebutted by Lovell and Eckert.^[41][42]

Writing in Gay City News, journalist Matt Tracy criticized the book for misgendering subjects. Shrier wrote in part, "I refer to biologically female teens caught up in this transgender craze as 'she' and 'her'", which Tracy wrote is "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."^[12] The Daily Dot columnist Ana Valens wrote that the book contained obvious transphobia and encouraged conversion therapy.^[10][11] In Them, the writer James Factora stated that almost every claim in the publisher's description of the book was a "blatant lie".^[43] Trans YouTuber Chase Ross, who was interviewed for the book^[44] apologized for his involvement, describing the book as "transphobic".^[45]

Reactions by organizations

Target briefly stopped selling the book following criticism online, but made it available for purchase again a day later.^[46][43]

Amazon suspended a paid advertising campaign for the book just as it was being published. Amazon claimed that this was because the book "infers or claims to diagnose, treat, or question sexual orientation."^[47]

Chase Strangio, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), tweeted that "stopping the circulation of this book and these ideas is 100% a hill I will die on." This surprised many supporters of the ACLU, who remembered the group's traditional opposition to censorship and book banning, and it has been presented as an example of a recent shift in the ACLU's political views. Strangio later deleted the tweet, saying he was not calling for a government ban but "to create the information climate for the market to be more supportive of trans self-determination".^[48][49]

In April 2021, a petition was launched to have the Halifax Public Library system remove their two copies of the book from circulation. The library refused, citing intellectual freedom and stating that removal would constitute censorship. Following this, Halifax Pride announced it would no longer hold events at any Halifax library locations.^[50]

On July 15, 2021, the American Booksellers Association, a non-profit trade association that promotes independent bookstores, issued an apology for including the book in a monthly mailing, calling the decision to do so a "serious, violent incident". This set off further controversy, with some arguing the association was now trying to censor the book, and others saying the apology was insufficient.^[51]

Notes

References