You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘Censorship on the Left: Irreversible Damage – Abigail Shier’ tag.
Let’s start of with Halifax Pride statement of desperately hurt feelings:
In recent weeks, Halifax Pride was made aware of a petition asking the Halifax Public Library to remove a newly acquired book that jeopardizes the safety of trans youth, through unsupported medical claims and the transphobic assertion that trans identities are a choice.
We want to thank the individuals who took the time to create and bring this petition to our attention. We recognize their work and emotional labour in holding their own discussions with the library.
We reached out to the library to understand their acquisition process and urge them to take corrective action to remove the book and review their Collection Development Policy. We hoped that they would understand that the book’s misleading health advice put local trans youth in immediate harm. We expected feedback from trans individuals and a queer community partner to result in further reflection and a new course of action.
Yesterday, representatives of the library communicated to members of our community, and to us, that they have decided to keep the book in their collection without further review of their policies.
Halifax Pride has decided to end our partnership with the Halifax Public Library, including events planned for the 2021 festival, and will refrain from booking library spaces until this issue is addressed with some combination of internal review, policy change, and training.
Halifax Public Library’s collection process is at odds with Halifax Pride’s commitment to protecting vulnerable members of the 2SLGBTQ+ community. We hope the Halifax Public Library will reconsider its stance and amend their policies to prioritize the health and safety of the public.
What is this evil tome that is ‘jepordizing the safety of trans youth’ (!?!?!?!??) you may ask?
Irreversible Damage by Abigail Shrier.
A quick Summary of Shrier’s work from Wikipedia:
‘Shrier states that she began to investigate adolescent-onset gender dysphoria after being contacted by the mother of a young adult with no apparent history of childhood gender dysphoria, who identified as transgender in college. She describes what she sees as difficulties facing teenagers who were assigned female at birth, whom she refers to throughout the book as “girls”isolation, online social dynamics, restrictive gender and sexuality labels, unwelcome physical changes and sexual attention. She 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 and endorses its findings. 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 criticizes transgender-related curricula and policies in 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 or radical feminists; transfeminine/male-to-female athletes competing in girls’ and women’s sports; the use of trans-inclusive language; intersectionality; and identity politics. She argues that medical interventions such as puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries include risks, and describes a transgender person who became disabled after a failed surgery. She also profiles detransitioned young women.’
Yes, so the faux-progressive authoritarian Left in Halifax is having a major fit about a book that shed’s some light on the gender magic they hold near and dear. Now that you have a sketch of Shrier’s book, let’s break down Halifax Pride’s Official statement.
“In recent weeks, Halifax Pride was made aware of a petition asking the Halifax Public Library to remove a newly acquired book that jeopardizes the safety of trans youth, through unsupported medical claims and the transphobic assertion that trans identities are a choice.”
Which unsupported medical claims are you referring to? The only unsupported claims I can see being made are the ones contained in your sentence. Demonstrate where Shrier’s book is in fact a real and present danger to children. If the case for being trans or attempting to trans children is rock solid it should a easy slam dunk to refute. But it isn’t, so we are left to swirl in the mists of vague statements like ‘unsupported medical claims’ and the near ubiquitous injunction of ‘transphobia’. Women speaking about their experiences, biological fact, and material reality have all been branded as ‘transphobic’ by the high priests of gender ideology. It is the new heresy on the left and can, in most cases, be dismissed as vacuous bullshit.
“We want to thank the individuals who took the time to create and bring this petition to our attention. We recognize their work and emotional labour in holding their own discussions with the library.”
A small group of nearly permanently offended individuals are now extra offended at the mere presence of a book in a public library that concretely refutes the gender orthodoxy they believe in. This blasphemous work must not be seen by others as people must not be exposed to ideas and notions that are critical of the transgender religion. Questioning the ideology is verboten, and dissent must be quashed before it can grow. As you can clearly see, all the hallmarks of a condition/ideology that has a firm basis in reality…
“We reached out to the library to understand their acquisition process and urge them to take corrective action to remove the book and review their Collection Development Policy. We hoped that they would understand that the book’s misleading health advice put local trans youth in immediate harm. We expected feedback from trans individuals and a queer community partner to result in further reflection and a new course of action.”
Burn this book immediately! And here are more unsupported claims to coerce and shame you (Halifax Public Library) to bow to our campaign and stop other members of the Public from reading these heretical books and ideas that contradict our version of reality.
Protecting adults from dangerous ideas and criticism of transgender ideology. Nothing says ‘progressive’ like a good book burning.
“Halifax Pride has decided to end our partnership with the Halifax Public Library, including events planned for the 2021 festival, and will refrain from booking library spaces until this issue is addressed with some combination of internal review, policy change, and training.
Halifax Public Library’s collection process is at odds with Halifax Pride’s commitment to protecting vulnerable members of the 2SLGBTQ+ community. We hope the Halifax Public Library will reconsider its stance and amend their policies to prioritize the health and safety of the public.”
We are taking our toys and going home in hopes that our tantrum will shame you into throwing the notions of free speech and the free exchange of ideas under the bus. There is no protection going on here, just the creeping rise of censorious gender totalitarianism that seeks to throttle all dissent and criticism of an ideology that is harmful for females and children. The Halifax library has rightly told the Halifax pride to fuck the hell off with their demands for censorship of criticism of their precious (and pernicious) ideology.
Well enough of that. The hurt feelings brigade has registered another loss in trying to coerce a public institution to bend its knee to their bullshit ideology. Score one for the good guys. Thank you Halifax Public Library for defending free speech and the exchange of ideas in the public sphere.
This excerpt from Megan Mackin writing on the Feminist Current:
“This review grew out of a discussion with a dear friend who, at the time, supported gender identity ideology. I, on the other hand, had become increasingly frustrated with the loss of women’s rights to female-only spaces and laws protecting us from sex discrimination, as well as with the silencing of dissent to transgender dogma, and had urged her to examine the available information for herself. Then, I told her, we could revisit the conversation. She did, we did, and together we found pockets of dissent where we could speak further. These small spaces for critical thought on the topic of transgenderism continue to grow across the political spectrum. While we are not alone, as feminists concerned with gender identity ideology, we are — through the loss of access to social and other media, and due to threats of firings and physical violence — effectively silenced.
My friend — herself an academic and writer — noted the eerie (apparent) disinterest in Abigail Shrier’s new book, Irreversible Damage, by political and literary communities. Last month, she wrote to me via email, saying “I, too, have been surprised by what appears to be a deliberate silence around [Irreversible Damage] by newspapers and magazines ‘of record.’” She named it, aptly, “a reception vacuum,” calling book reviewers “taste makers and opinion diffusers.” By pretending the book doesn’t exist, they are ensuring the book will not exist for potential readers either, depriving the public sphere of the research and arguments Shrier presents.
Shrier contributes frequently to the Wall Street Journal, and among her degrees is a Juris Doctor from Yale University. She is a skilled writer who offers complex ideas with accessible delivery. It is possible the media would have covered her work had she resorted to obfuscating postmodernist jargon. Shrier has received no reviews from the established liberal press — not from the New York Times, The Atlantic, the Kirkus Review, nor any other mainstream online publications. Amazon, which still sells and thus profits from Irreversible Damage — garnering rave reviews there — has refused to allow sponsored ads to promote the book.
My friend wrote to me:
“Book reviews are a way of creating and nurturing readers by guiding them toward understanding the meanings and significance of a work. That no politically or culturally ‘liberal’ publications online or in print have even dared to acknowledge the existence of Shrier’s exposé of ROGD [Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria], the medical issues endemic to medicalizing children for life, infertility-producing surgeries, mental distress masked as dysphoria, and the real presence of de-transitioners, is no surprise for many of us.”
Shrier is terribly careful. She only addresses a narrow subset of “dysphoria”: RODG — the apparent social contagion spreading among circles of adolescent girls who have never previously expressed discomfort with their sex or sex role (“gender”). She explicitly acknowledges and interviews (favourably) adults who identify as transgender, and concedes that young children who insist they are the opposite sex consistently, from the time they are toddlers, may have a legitimate form of dysphoria. From a feminist perspective, because “transgender rights” mean women and girls must sacrifice their rights (for example, female-only shower rooms, shelters, and washrooms must allow males access, under gender identity legislation and policy), and the concept of fighting women’s oppression is undermined (seeking to become a member of the dominant sex is an absurdly individualist solution), Shrier’s acceptance of transgenderism itself is a great deal of ground to cede! Despite this, Shrier is silenced.”
Abigail Shrier, at least on this topic, inhabits the same area of Limbo as Noam Chomsky does when he writes about American foreign affairs or the the state of the American polity. The established press and the audience connects through them is suddenly no where be found. It isn’t some sort of dark magic; it is nothing more than the suppression of ideas that contradict the current orthodoxy.
Compare and contrast with the idea that the Left is a defender of free speech and a supporter of the free marketplace of ideas. Perhaps not so much. Especially when it comes to defending the rights, boundaries, and safety of women.
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