Amazon Reverses Decision: Will Sell Book for Parents to Help Their Child Get Out of the 'Gender Cult'
Amazon reversed its decision to ban a book for parents searching for answers for their gender-dysphoric child, telling the author the removal was an "error."
After merely six days on its shelves, Amazon this week blocked the book Desist, Detrans, & Detox: Getting Your Child Out of the Gender Cult from being sold on its site, according to Partners For Ethical Care (PEC), a group that says it works to end the unethical medicalization of children by the gender industry.
The book's author, Maria Keffler, is the co-founder of PEC. According to the group's website, Amazon did not contact the author or publisher before canceling the book.
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The Christian Post reports Keffler received an email from the retailer explaining that the removal of her book was an "error. The Kindle version is live and the paperback version will be reactivated soon.
The author told the CP in an email it was possible that "a calling and emailing onslaught may have affected the outcome" as "lots and lots of people were contacting Amazon to complain."
But questions remain about the retail giant's attempt to censor books questioning the rush to endorse transgenderism among children.
Earlier this year, CBN News reported that Amazon had censored Ryan Anderson's book When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Movement.
In a statement to The Blaze at the time, Anderson defended his best-selling book that came out in 2018.
"It was praised by a who's who of experts: the former psychiatrist-in-chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital, a longtime psychology professor at New York University, a professor of medical ethics at Columbia Medical School, a professor of psychological and brain sciences at Boston University, a professor of neurobiology at the University of Utah, a distinguished professor at Oxford, and a professor of jurisprudence at Princeton University."
But that apparently wasn't enough for big media. Anderson went on to say he's used to the biased scrutiny he has faced from many in the mainstream media, noting both The New York Times and The Washington Post published what he called "hit pieces" on his book.
"People who have actually read my book discovered that it was a thoughtful and accessible presentation of the state of the scientific, medical, philosophical, and legal debates," Anderson said. "Yes, it advances an argument from a certain viewpoint. No, it didn't get any facts wrong, and it didn't engage in any name-calling."
Back in March, Amazon responded to a letter from Senators Rubio, Lee, Hawley, and Braun that asked why Anderson's book had been censored, The Wall Street Journal reported.
"As to your specific question about When Harry Became Sally, we have chosen not to sell books that frame LGBTQ+ identity as a mental illness," Amazon said in the letter, which was signed by Brian Huseman, Amazon's vice president of public policy, referring to sexual identities that include lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, among others.
In a statement to The Journal in response to Amazon's letter, Anderson and Roger Kimball, the book's publisher said, "Everyone agrees that gender dysphoria is a serious condition that causes great suffering. There is a debate, however, which Amazon is seeking to shut down, about how best to treat patients who experience gender dysphoria," they continued, calling their book "an important contribution" to that conversation.
"Amazon is using its massive power to distort the marketplace of ideas and is deceiving its own customers in the process," Anderson and Kimble said. Kimble wrote in the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday that Anderson's book has now been banned by Bookshop.com, a smaller outfit that supposedly wanted to be an alternative to Amazon. But it appears to be wanting to compete with it in censorship instead.
Now with another book banned by Amazon, alternatives are all the more important to the debate. If you want to order Desist, Detrans, & Detox: Getting Your Child Out of the Gender Cult, it can still be found on Lulu, Smashbooks, and Barnes & Noble.