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Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters

Author	Abigail Shrier
Language	English
Genre	Non-fiction
Publisher	Regnery Publishing
Publication date	30 June 2020
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print & Digital
ISBN	978-1-68451-031-3

Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters is a 2020 book by Abigail Shrier and published by Regnery Publishing. Abigail Shrier is a journalist for The Wall Street Journal. In the book Shrier expresses support for the hypothesis of rapid onset gender dysphoria. She advocates for withholding gender-affirming medical care from transgender youth, a position which has been 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.

Summary

Shrier states that she began to investigate adolescent-onset gender dysphoria after having been contacted by the mother of a young adult with no apparent history of childhood gender dysphoria who had begun to identify as transgender while in college. She describes what she sees as difficulties facing teenaged girls—isolation, bad online social dynamics, restrictive gender and sexuality labels, unwelcome physical changes and sexual attention—and profiles several teenagers who questioned their gender identities or came out as transgender while experiencing mental health or personal issues. She discusses Lisa Littman's 2018 journal article on rapid onset gender dysphoria and the ensuing controversy. 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.

Shrier criticises transgender-related curricula and policies in government-run schools. She describes parents distressed by their children's transgender identification or transition. She critiques the gender-affirming model of care and profiles its critics: Kenneth Zucker, Ray Blanchard, J. Michael Bailey, Lisa Marchiano, and Paul McHugh. 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 and radical feminists; transfeminine/male-to-female athletes competing in girls' and women's sport; the use of trans-inclusive language; and intersectionality and identity politics. She states that medical interventions such as puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries carry risks, and describes a transgender person who became disabled after a failed surgery. She also profiles detransitioned young women.

Background and publication history

Shrier is the daughter of Peter B. Krauser and Sherrie L. Krauser, both judges in the state of Maryland, United States. She has degrees from Columbia College New York (A.B. Philosophy and Kellett Fellowship), the University of Oxford (B.Phil. Philosophy), and Yale Law School where she was a Coker Fellow. Shrier works as a journalist and columnist for the Wall Street Journal, and has published multiple opinion pieces on trans issues. She has previously criticised government enforced use of gender pronouns and other vocabulary, and criticised trans women's participation in women's athletics.

In a July 2020 interview on the Joe Rogan Experience to promote her book, Shrier called wanting to transition a "contagion" and compared it with eating disorders and self-harm. She also associated transgender youth with autism. Men's Health described Shrier's comments as "invalidat the lived experience of trans and nonbinary kids and teens". Her remarks sparked calls by Spotify employees for the Rogan podcast episode to be removed from the platform, but the company denied the request.

Irreversible Damage was published in 2020 by Regnery Publishing.

Reception

The book has proven controversial for its views about transgender issues. It received negative reviews from Jack Turban, a psychiatrist with specialization in transgender mental health, in a Psychology Today blogpost, and from Sarah Fonseca in the Los Angeles Review of Books. It was positively reviewed by the 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, and by Emily Hourican in the Irish Independent. The book was named an Economist Book of the Year, and a Times Best Book of 2021 for its UK publication.

Turban wrote that Shrier had misinterpreted and omitted scientific evidence to support her book's claims. He criticised Shrier for basing her portrayals of transgender youth on interviews with their parents, and for using "crass and offensive language". Riley wrote that Shrier was correct to ask "What's ailing these girls?" who appeared to have suddenly begun identifying as transgender. She endorsed Shrier's criticisms of transgender healthcare and online trans activism. 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 of girls in trouble". The Economist called the book the "first book-length study of a fascinating phenomenon" but stated that "it has been widely ignored". The Times named it a book of the week in December 2020. Turner remarked that "the girls she describes show no discomfort in their female bodies until puberty." She stated: "This fearless book shows how girls' bodies have become collateral damage in adult culture wars", adding that the book "has caused a storm. A Berkeley English professor wants it burnt, civil rights and LGBT activists want it banned... In fact does something simple yet devastating: she rigorously lays out the facts."

Writing in Gay City News, the journalist Matt Tracy criticised the book for misgendering subjects of discussion. The Daily Dot columnist Ana Valens wrote that the book contained obvious transphobia and encouraged conversion therapy. In Them, the writer James Factora stated that almost every claim in the publisher's description of the book was a "blatant lie". Some of the social media influencers discussed in the book responded to their depiction. Chase Ross, who was interviewed for the book and featured prominently, apologised for his involvement, describing the book as "transphobic". Ty Turner, a trans YouTuber who also appeared in the book, further condemned the book as "fearmongering" and "hateful". Following public criticism, Target pulled the book from their stores but reinstated it the next day.

Shrier rejects the labelling of her by activists as "anti-trans, which I’m not," she says. Shrier told The Sunday Times: "Transgender adults often write to me and say: 'I'm frankly embarrassed by the activists, they don’t speak for us'... A lot of transgender adults agree that there needs to be more oversight with these young girls who come out, out of nowhere".

References

1. "Amazon refuses to advertise renowned anti-trans journalist's book suggesting trans teens are a 'contagion'". PinkNews. June 23, 2020. Retrieved December 10, 2020.
2. "The Massive Effort to Censor "Irreversible Damage" Shows the Trans Debate is Not About Reducing Harm". 4W – A Feminist Publication. November 29, 2020. Retrieved December 27, 2020.
3. "PODCAST: Abigail Shrier on "Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters"". James Wilson Institute. Retrieved December 27, 2020.
4. ^ Shrier, Abigail (2020). Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters. Blackstone Publishing. ISBN 9781094175515.
5. "Position Statement on Treatment of Transgender (Trans) and Gender Diverse Youth" (PDF).
6. Rafferty, Jason; Health, Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family; Adolescence, Committee On; Section on Lesbian, Gay (October 1, 2018). "Ensuring Comprehensive Care and Support for Transgender and Gender-Diverse Children and Adolescents". Pediatrics. 142 (4). doi:10.1542/peds.2018-2162. ISSN 0031-4005. PMID 30224363.
7. Hembree, Wylie C.; Cohen-Kettenis, Peggy T.; Gooren, Louis; Hannema, Sabine E.; Meyer, Walter J.; Murad, M. Hassan; Rosenthal, Stephen M.; Safer, Joshua D.; Tangpricha, Vin; T'Sjoen, Guy G. (November 1, 2017). "Endocrine Treatment of Gender-Dysphoric/Gender-Incongruent Persons: An Endocrine Society Clinical Practice Guideline". The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. 102 (11): 3869–3903. doi:10.1210/jc.2017-01658. ISSN 0021-972X.
8. "AACAP Statement Responding to Efforts to ban Evidence-Based Care for Transgender and Gender Diverse". www.aacap.org. Retrieved December 29, 2020.
9. "Standards of Care – WPATH World Professional Association for Transgender Health". www.wpath.org. Retrieved December 29, 2020.
10. "Abigail Shrier". www.writersreps.com. Retrieved November 26, 2020.
11. "Abigail Shrier". Regnery Publishing. Retrieved November 26, 2020.
12. ^ Pavia, Will (November 21, 2020). "Author Abigail Shrier faces threats after warning of trans epidemic". The Sunday Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Archived from the original on November 21, 2020.
13. Shrier, Abigail (January 6, 2019). "When Your Daughter Defies Biology". Wall Street Journal (Opinion). ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved December 23, 2020.
14. Shrier, Abigail (August 29, 2018). "The Transgender Language War". Wall Street Journal (Opinion). ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved December 23, 2020.
15. Shrier, Abigail (May 15, 2020). "Who has the right to be called a girl?". Newsweek (Opinion). Retrieved December 23, 2020.
16. ^ Ellis, Philip. "Joe Rogan Is Spreading Transphobic Hate Speech and It's Putting Lives in Danger". Men's Health. Retrieved December 19, 2020. Shrier invalidated the lived experience of trans and nonbinary kids and teens, and made numerous dangerous, entirely unsound false equivalencies. She compared transitioning among teenagers to historic adolescent phenomena such as eating disorders, self-harm, and (bafflingly) the occult, calling this age group "the same population that gets involved in cutting, demonic possession, witchcraft, anorexia, bulimia." She even described wanting to transition as a "contagion" with the potential to infect other children with the same ideas, drawing yet more scientifically baseless parallels with eating disorders.
17. ^ "Spotify CEO Defends Keeping Transphobic Joe Rogan Podcasts Online". Vice News. September 16, 2020. Retrieved December 19, 2020.
18. Quah, Nicholas (November 3, 2020). "Should Spotify Be Responsible for What Joe Rogan Does?". Vulture. Retrieved December 27, 2020.
19. Steele, Anne (October 31, 2020). "Joe Rogan's Podcast Sparks Tensions Inside Spotify". The Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Archived from the original on October 31, 2020.
20. "Jack Turban MD MHS". Psychology Today Australia. Retrieved December 27, 2020.
21. ^ Turban, Jack (June 12, 2020). "New Book "Irreversible Damage" Is Full of Misinformation". Psychology Today. Retrieved August 12, 2020.
22. Fonseca, Sarah (January 17, 2021). "The Constitutional Conflationists: On Abigail Shrier's "Irreversible Damage" and the Dangerous Absurdity of Anti-Trans Trolls". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved January 19, 2021.
23. ^ Riley, Naomi Schaefer (June 16, 2020). "The Trans Cult". Commentary. Retrieved December 27, 2020.
24. ^ Kearns, Madeleine (October 19, 2020). "The Beginning of Gender". National Review. Vol. 72, no. 19. pp. 36–39.
25. ^ Written at Washington, D.C.. "Miss gender – A book on transitioning girls is denounced as transphobic". The Economist. London. November 28, 2020. Retrieved December 13, 2020.
26. ^ Turner, Janice (December 30, 2020). "Irreversible Damage by Abigail Shrier review — resisting the 'transgender craze'". The Times. Archived from the original on December 30, 2020.
27. Patterson, Christina (January 3, 2021). "Irreversible Damage by Abigail Shrier review — the risks of transgender activism". The Sunday Times. Retrieved January 19, 2021.
28. Hourican, Emily (January 17, 2021). "Girls who would be boys: The rise in teen gender dysphoria". Irish Independent. Retrieved January 19, 2021.
29. "Cold comforts – Our books of the year". The Economist. December 5, 2020. Retrieved December 13, 2020.
30. Millen, Robbie; Holgate, Andrew (December 1, 2020). "The best books of 2021: our predictions". The Sunday Times. Archived from the original on December 2, 2020.
31. Tracy, Matt (November 13, 2020). "Bigots Swarm Twitter as Target Flip-Flops on Transphobic Book". Gay City News. Retrieved December 13, 2020.
32. Valens, Ana (November 13, 2020). "Bari Weiss Defends Transphobic Book Pulled From Target". The Daily Dot.
33. Valens, Ana (November 16, 2020). "Target restocked a transphobic book because of money—not 'censorship'". The Daily Dot. Retrieved December 28, 2020.
34. Factora, James. "Target Removed a Transphobic Book From Shelves — Then Replaced It a Day Later". them. Retrieved December 19, 2020.
35. "The transgender cult is damaging our daughters". Spectator USA. June 27, 2020. Retrieved December 28, 2020.
36. "Irreversible Damage: the trans threat to girls". www.spiked-online.com. Retrieved December 27, 2020.
37. "apology for transphobic book involvement". YouTube (Video). Retrieved December 27, 2020.
38. ^ Transphobic Book Targets Me & Other Trans Creators, LGBT YouTubers Promote It. Youtube (Video). Retrieved December 23, 2020.
39. Smith, Katie (November 13, 2020). "Target Pulls Anti-Trans Book from Shelves". Book & Film Globe. Retrieved December 13, 2020.

• 2020 non-fiction books
• English-language books
• Gender identity
• Transgender non-fiction books