November 14, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – Target temporarily removed a book detailing the harm gender confusion poses to children from online sale this week in response to left-wing pressure on social media, only to reverse itself when conservatives pushed back.
Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters, by The Wall Street Journal’s Abigail Shrier, explores the phenomenon of rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD), a term coined in 2018 by Brown University behavioral scientist Lisa Littman. She found that a significant percentage of gender dysphoria among minors came not from innate feelings of discontent with one’s true sex but from outside influence.
For her book, Shrier “dug deep into the trans epidemic, talking to the girls, their agonized parents, and the counselors and doctors who enable gender transitions, as well as to ‘detransitioners’ — young women who bitterly regret what they have done to themselves,” according to the product description. “Coming out as transgender immediately boosts these girls’ social status, Shrier found, but once they take the first steps of transition, it is not easy to walk back.”
Target announced on Twitter Thursday that it “removed this book from our assortment” following a viral tweet asking why the store was carrying such alleged ‘transphobia”:
I think the trans community deserves a response from @AskTarget @Target as to why they are selling this book about the “transgender epidemic sweeping the country”
Trigger Warning : Transphobia https://t.co/N1MvMKpqfp pic.twitter.com/68H1xLnjDH— Ten �� ACAB (@BlueIris04) November 11, 2020
The next day, following objections and inquiries from conservatives including Shrier herself, the company reversed itself:
https://t.co/NRY9T9nAfA just made my book disappear.
Does it bother anyone that Woke activists and spineless corporations now determine what Americans are allowed to read? https://t.co/dbIbjm96Ll
— Abigail Shrier (@AbigailShrier) November 13, 2020
Yesterday, we removed a book from https://t.co/Gla4QrFOmf based on feedback we received. We want to offer a broad assortment for our guests and are adding this book back to https://t.co/Gla4QrFOmf. We apologize for any confusion.
— AskTarget (@AskTarget) November 13, 2020
The book’s publisher, Regnery Publishing, was thankful for the victory but objected to Target’s framing of the story.
Glad @Target is doing the right thing & bringing @AbigailShrier’s book back, but to be clear: there is no “confusion” about what happened. They caved to the woke mob & then relented. Don’t let them fool you into thinking *you’re* the one who is crazy/confused in this scenario. https://t.co/DADs9IvySB
— Regnery Publishing (@Regnery) November 13, 2020
This is neither the first time a major retailer attempted to quash Irreversible Damage, nor the first time Target has catered to the social-justice Left. In June, Amazon suspended advertising for the book on the grounds that it “contains elements that may not be appropriate for all audiences,” while Target has drawn conservative ire for years for its transgender bathroom policy and line of LGBT “pride” products.