At least two of Amazon‘s employees quit to protest the company’s decision allowing the sale of a book critics say depicts young people identifying as transgender as mentally ill.
A complaint reportedly posted on Amazon’s internal message board in April received support from 467 of the company’s corporate employees. The complaint cited a decision Amazon shared with Republican senators March 11, claiming the company had “chosen not to sell books that frame LGBTQ+ identity as a mental illness.”
The employee complaint post included a petition for the removal of the book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters, by Abigail Shrier, according to a copy obtained by NBC News.
AMAZON DECIDES NOT TO SELL BOOKS ‘THAT FRAME LGBTQ+ IDENTITY AS A MENTAL ILLNESS’
Watch: Irreversible Damage author @AbigailShrier supports the rights of adults to undergo gender-reassignment surgery. But she thinks teenage girls are making irrevocable changes to their bodies that in coming years they might wish they could reverse. https://t.co/NMpsFNNBw9
— Nick Gillespie (@nickgillespie) July 13, 2021
Shrier defends her writing in the introduction of the book, noting it is “not about transgender adults” but about what she describes as a growing number of girls identifying as transgender. The book “never disparages them, and never implies that the trans identity is a mental illness,” she said.
Employees at Amazon disputed Shrier’s statement, pointing to a passage in which she wrote, “Many of the adolescent girls suddenly identifying as transgender seemed to be caught in a ‘craze’ — a cultural enthusiasm that spreads like a virus,” describing the “craze” as a “crowd mental illness.”
“The book literally has [‘craze’] in the title and considers being transgender a mental illness in many senses throughout the book,” said Selene Xenia, a software engineer who identifies as transgender and left the company in June after learning Amazon would carry Shrier’s book.
Shrier’s book is listed in the top three spots on Amazon’s Best Sellers in LGBTQ+ Demographic Studies for its paper, hardcover, and digital edition copies.
The book had “once again” been removed from retail chain Target’s book catalog, the author tweeted Feb. 24, referring to a Nov. 13 incident in which the book was briefly removed and put back on Target’s online store.
Target’s online store, however, did not render search results to purchase Shrier’s book Wednesday.
Republican Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida, Mike Lee of Utah, Mike Braun of Indiana, and Josh Hawley of Missouri sent their letter to Amazon on Feb. 24 regarding Dr. Ryan Anderson’s book When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment, which is no longer available on Amazon or on its Kindle and Audible platforms.
Anderson told the Washington Examiner in February he did not know his book was no longer available on Amazon until someone who wanted to buy it informed him it was missing.
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The Washington Examiner contacted Target, Amazon, and Shrier but did not immediately receive a response.
