Everybody’s Business

Amazon is still selling a book that advocates say perpetuates the idea that being transgender is harmful to youth and something to be “cured.”

The book, “Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters,” by the journalist Abigail Shrier, explores what Shrier calls an “epidemic” of young girls coming out as trans.

“A generation of girls is at risk,” the Amazon description of the book reads. “Abigail Shrier’s essential book will help you understand what the trans craze is and how you can inoculate your child against it — or how to retrieve her from this dangerous path.”

Dozens of Amazon employees, including some who are LGBTQ, filed an internal complaint in April arguing that the book violates Amazon’s policy against selling books “that frame LGBTQ+ identity as a mental illness,” according to The Seattle Times, which received images of the complaint.

But on April 23, the company’s director of book content risk and quality announced on an internal message board that Amazon would continue to sell the book.

“After examining the content of the book in detail and calibrating with senior leadership, we have confirmed that it does not violate our content policy,” the director wrote, according to The Seattle Times.

Not everyone on the board that reviewed the book agreed with the company’s decision. The Seattle Times cited Slack messages in which at least one employee involved in the review process said, “We told them it’s transphobic and needs to be removed.”

An Amazon spokesperson told NBC News in an email, “As a bookseller, we believe that providing access to written speech and a variety of viewpoints is one of the most important things we do — even when those viewpoints differ from our own or Amazon’s stated positions.”

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has vocally supported LGBTQ rights in the past. In 2012, he donated $2.5 million to advocates fighting for marriage equality. The company also recently joined a list of businesses that support the Equality Act — a bill that would provide LGBTQ people with federal protections from discrimination in housing, education, public accommodations and other areas of life. Amazon also signed on to a recent Human Rights Campaign letter condemning states that pass anti-LGBTQ legislation, including bills that target transgender youth.

Shrier has defended the book’s content, writing on Twitter with a link to The Seattle Times article about Amazon’s decision, “Anyone who thinks my book ‘advances a narrative of transgender identity as a disease’ hasn’t read it, or is a bona fide idiot.”

She writes in the book’s introduction that it is “not about transgender adults,” but about what she says is an increasing number of children assigned female at birth identifying as transgender. She told The Seattle Times that her book doesn’t take a stance against transitioning for adults in any way, but that she opposes the “fast-tracking of youth” into medical transition.

Shrier did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment.

Trans advocates and physicians who treat trans youth oppose Shrier’s book because they say it poses a danger to youth and spreads misinformation. Medical experts have said that trans minors are never “fast-tracked” into medical transition. Rather, international medical guidance recommends that prepubertal youth socially transition and receive mental health therapy.

Dr. Jack Turban, a fellow in child and adolescent psychiatry at the Stanford University School of Medicine, where he researches the mental health of transgender youth, said the book “promotes the idea that transgender youth are ‘confused’ and that gender diversity is something to be ‘cured.’”

“Every relevant major medical organization (The American Academy of Pediatrics, The American Psychiatric Association, and The American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, to name a few) disagrees with this position,” Turban said in an email. “A recent study from our group found that attempts to force transgender people to be cisgender are strongly associated with suicide attempts.”

The ideas in Shrier’s book, Turban said, could have negative effects on the mental health of transgender youth. “Research consistently shows that family rejection of a young person’s gender identity is a major predictor of bad mental health outcomes, including suicide attempts,” Turban said. “This book promotes that kind of family rejection. I can’t emphasize enough how dangerous that is from a public mental health perspective.”

In November, Target said it would remove Shrier’s book from shelves after backlash from LGBTQ advocates. But it reversed that decision after critics said it was suppressing Shrier’s free speech rights. At the time, trans people and advocates condemned Target’s decision.n1266447&sessionId=f05d091f28fd33ae6b252c89996f977218833b26&siteScreenName=NBCNews&theme=light&widgetsVersion=82e1070%3A1619632193066&width=550px

Shrier and her book faced criticism again when she testified against the Equality Act during a Senate hearing in March.

But she has also received a wave of support in part from people who argue that books of any kind should not be censored.

Nadine Strossen, former president of the American Civil Liberties Union and a law professor at the New York Law School, said she hasn’t read Shrier’s book, but “it doesn’t matter” to her what the book says — she thinks it should continue to be published and sold as a matter of free speech.

She said she recently tried to persuade a publisher to keep publishing “Mien Kampf,” Hitler’s autobiography, “and it’s not despite the fact that my father barely survived the Holocaust — it’s because of that fact,” Strossen said, adding that she believes free speech is “the most effective way to expand rights and safety and dignity for any individual or group, but, in particular, those who have traditionally been marginalized and oppressed.”

No matter how well intended, suppression of speech does more harm than good, Strossen said. First, she argued that it gives the person being censored and their speech even more attention. Second, she said people who are anti-trans can make people like Shrier “martyrs for free speech.”

She said suppression can also create what’s called the forbidden fruits effect or the Streisand effect — after Barbra Streisand, who, in 2003, tried to have photos of her Malibu house taken off of the internet, which sparked more public interest in the photos.

“A lot of people think, ‘Oh, that idea … people who are trying to suppress it must be really threatened by the idea, let me look into it,’” Strossen said of what happens when ideas or speech are suppressed. “And so the idea, paradoxically, gains credibility.”

She said she believes “the more dangerous an idea,” the more important it is for the idea to be understood and responded to by those who can explain why it’s wrong and dangerous.

In the case of Shrier’s book, Strossen said, it’s important that people who support trans young people can show that “if you truly care about the health and lives and mental health and physical health and equal well being and dignity of these young people, that these ideas are wrong and misguided.”

Amy and Stephanie Mudd drove an hour from their home in Glasgow, Kentucky, to the city of Radcliff on April 3 to meet with an accountant at Aries Tax Service.

Mudd said her mother-in-law, who lives in the area, recommended the business because it offers a $55 flat fee to file taxes electronically.

When they got there, they saw a sign on the door that listed 10 things customers should have with them if they want the business to e-file their tax return. But the last item on the list stopped them from opening the door. It read, “Homosexual marriage not recognized.”

Stephanie Mudd said the first emotion she felt was anger that businesses can still turn away same-sex couples.

“It just kind of makes your heart fall into your stomach,” Amy Mudd said.

The couple took a photo of the sign and left.

“We wanted to bring attention to it, so that he knows that that’s not OK,” Amy Mudd said. “Nowadays, you’re providing a public service, and it’s federal taxes, and in the United States, it’s OK for us to be married.”

Kenneth Randall, owner of Aries Tax Service, said the issue “is a matter of personal conviction.”

“I put it to any reasonable person: ‘If you have a matter that’s a central conviction for you, are you willing to stand up for it?’” he said. “I am.”

He added that there are other tax preparers in the area that same-sex couples could use and that he’s protected by federal law.

There’s no federal law that explicitly allows people, based on their personal beliefs, to turn away same-sex couples or other classes of people, but there’s also no federal or Kentucky state law that protects LGBTQ people from discrimination in public accommodations, such as businesses.

Legal advocates say situations like the Mudds’ are on the rise as conservative religious organizations, such as the Alliance Defending Freedom, have been building campaigns and lawsuits for years to challenge civil rights laws.

“They want to get legal rulings that there are religious and free speech rights to violate these laws,” said Jennifer Pizer, law and policy director at Lambda Legal, a national LGBTQ legal organization. “We have seen a significant rise and a very troubling rise in these cases, and it’s not an accident.”

For years, same-sex couples have been turned away by business owners who don’t want to provide wedding-related services, citing their religious or moral beliefs. In 2018, the Supreme Court narrowly ruled in favor of Jack Phillips, a Christian baker who refused to make a cake for a gay couple’s wedding. The court ruled on a technicality — avoiding the issue of whether a business owner, due to their religious beliefs, could refuse to serve a same-sex couple.

Since then, religious denial-of-service cases have continued. In 2019, the Washington Supreme Court ruled against a florist who refused to provide services for a gay couple’s wedding. Last year, President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice backed a wedding photographer in Kentucky who sued the city of Louisville over its anti-discrimination ordinance that prohibited her from refusing to serve same-sex couples. That case is ongoing.

Earlier this month, the ADF filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York arguing that the state’s nondiscrimination law unconstitutionally prohibits wedding photographer Emilee Carpenter “from adopting an editorial policy consistent with her beliefs about marriage.”

The complaint says Carpenter “is already willing to work with clients no matter who they are, including those in the LGBT community” but that the state goes too far by requiring that she “celebrate” same-sex marriage in images on her website.

The ADF also argues that part of the state law limiting statements that certain customers are “unwelcome, objectionable or not accepted, desired, or solicited” interferes with Carpenter’s free speech, because it doesn’t allow her to express her views about same-sex marriage on her website.

Pizer said the New York case represents an area of law that is unsettled, specifically as it relates to people who work in artistic fields like photography.

For the most part, courts have upheld nondiscrimination laws, but in the instances they haven’t, they often rule on technicalities or rule that the laws violate the freedom of expression of creative professionals, Pizer said. For instance, in September 2019, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that the state’s nondiscrimination law violated the free speech of two artists who create custom wedding invitations by compelling them to promote same-sex weddings.

Pizer said using free speech rights to justify discrimination “represents a dramatic shift from what the law has been for a long time.”

“Why would you think that a video of a couple’s wedding would be the message of the person holding the camera?” she said. “If the law changes in that way, then it’s hard to see where there’s a limiting principle, and it means that civil rights laws, at best, have a big hole in them and maybe, at worst, have very little effect at all.”

The free speech argument could also represent a potential challenge to the Equality Act, proposed federal legislation that would protect LGBTQ people in many areas. The measure passed the House in February but has not yet been voted on in the Senate.

Pizer said that, because Kenneth Randall is an accountant and not a creative professional, she doesn’t think an argument related to free speech would apply if there were a federal or state nondiscrimination law in Kentucky.

But Randall said he refuses to file taxes for same-sex couples because it would require him to express recognition of their marriage. Randall also sells insurance, and he said he has both sold insurance to and filed taxes for single gay people. But if a same-sex couple asked him to sell them insurance, he would only do it if he could put them down as single, he said.

“I don’t hate a particular individual. It’s a stand on a particular institution that I find wrong,” he said, adding that he’s been harassed and threatened since local news outlets published stories about his sign. “If people are willing to accept that, fine. If they are not willing to accept it, there’s plenty of other places to go for insurance.”

Pizer said the idea that people can receive services elsewhere “ignores a core purpose of civil rights laws.” She said the lunch counter sit-ins held by Black college students in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1960 to protest racial segregation weren’t about whether they could “get a sandwich.”

“It was about whether they were being treated the same as other people,” she said.

In the absence of a federal measure like the Equality Act or a statewide nondiscrimination law, the Mudds and couples like them don’t have any options for legal recourse, Pizer said, and businesses can — and do — continue to refuse to serve them.

In North Carolina, which also doesn’t have a statewide anti-discrimination law protecting LGBTQ people, at least two wedding venues made national news within the span of four months for refusing to host events for same-sex couples.

But the issue extends far past weddings. Some states, like Arkansas, have passed legislation that allows medical providers to refuse to serve LGBTQ people if it conflicts with their religious or moral beliefs. The Supreme Court will also soon decide a case that could allow private religious adoption agencies that receive federal funds to reject same-sex couples.

Pizer said growing acceptance of LGBTQ people has pressured some religious people “to stop doing types of discrimination that they’ve done for a long time.” That pressure has made them uncomfortable and it has made them feel victimized, in some cases, she said, and they’re fighting back.

“Being encouraged to treat everyone according to the golden rule is not being victimized and it’s not being excluded and it’s not being discriminated against,” she said. “When we’re operating in the public marketplace, being asked to stop discriminating is not to suffer discrimination yourself. It’s to be invited to play by the same rules that everybody else is expected to play by.”

As for the Mudds, they said they wouldn’t pursue legal action even if they could, but they wanted to make a statement about Randall’s choice to refuse same-sex couples.

“I understand that there’s freedom in this country, and that is what we were founded on,” Amy Mudd said. “And I understand that as a private practice, I guess he is allowed to do that … but to provide a service to the public and deny such a huge population is bad business.”

Stephanie Mudd added, “If we’re talking about morals, that’s quite the opposite of morals. People often hide behind their religion to justify their hate, and that is what is so frustrating.”