ACLU wants to Ban Book on Transgenders

A book can be both praised and hated. But praised and banned? Former NY Times columnist writes:

You may have heard of Shrier. She is the author of Irreversible Damage, which the Economist named one of the best books of last year, and a dogged journalist who has taken on the difficult and thankless subject of the enormous rise of gender dysphoria among teenage girls.

I say thankless because it’s hard to capture the decibel of the vitriol that has met her work. To give you a taste: one of the ACLU’s most prominent lawyers said that “stopping the circulation of this book and these ideas is 100% a hill I will die on.” (The subject of how the ACLU came to favor book banning is taken up brilliantly here.)

Here is the top comment:

And I understand why so many people object. I recently learned that my niece is now my nephew. His parents are both conservative. They wrestled with the issue and only relented and affirmed his identity as male after a long period of adjustment and a lot of counseling. It's easy for me to understand why their family would be upset about a book that questions their decision. ...

And I think that's a positive step for America. We are becoming a less closed-minded, bigoted nation thanks to free speech and the activism of the lgbtq+ community and their supporters. Yay America!

Here is a positive review of Shrier's book, now retracted by the journal, and a negative review.

I am trying to understand both sides of this issue, but it is difficult. I read the retraction statement, and it is transparently dishonest. I read the negative review, and there is very little substance to it. Its best point was that the transgender medicos are following published recommendations. So what? Those recommendations could be written by sick perverts. There does not appear to be any serious science in support of what they say.

The review even has a paragraph attacking the publisher for publishing other books that are politically conservative books. I wonder if that is really the point here. Advocating transgenderism is just a way of taking sides in the culture war. After all, the percentage of the population with a direct interest in transgenderism is much less than 1%, and yet the issue dominates the leftist agenda.

The UK BBC reports:

The US government has announced it will offer gender confirmation surgery for transgender veterans through its health care coverage for the first time.

Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) secretary Denis McDonough announced the change at a Pride event in Florida.

This is what used to be called sex change surgery. I guess that they decided that the term was inaccurate because the surgery helps change gender, not sex.

Mr McDonough made the announcement in Orlando on Saturday. The city this month marked five years since a gunman opened fire at a gay nightclub, killing 49 people.

The gunman was a Moslem who did not know that the nightclub was gay. But I guess we can compensate for it by castrating some retired soldiers. Plus Disney is going to remake Snow White with a non-white actress.

Update: Here is a defense of killing the review. Seems lame to me, but decide for yourself.

Update: This might help you decide. The journal, Science-Based Medicine, that retracted the positive review of Shrier's book, has then published a review trashing the book, and that review is filled with fake quotes from the book!

I accused the journal of being "transparently dishonest", above. That was an understatement. Putting fake quotes into a very negative book review is about as transparently dishonest as it gets.

The journal denies that it fabricated quotes, and says that it will correct the false quotes.