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A review by trywii
Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters by Abigail Shrier
1.0
Great for a headache
Abigail’s book offers itself as a neutral, not anti-trans call for attention towards criticism of medicalization for trans youth. It’s really anything but. With its tone and its sparse features of trans voices, what would’ve been simply a criticism of the inconsistency of trans medicalization turns into something bordering what many anti-gay literature was decades ago, only now applying it to trans folks.
After wading through several pages of reviews left by prominent right-wing, conservative speakers, followed by an eyebrow-raising introduction from the author warning the reader of its alluring “dangerous” contents, what is left in front of you is an onslaught of emotionally charged language, contradictory stances, and eye rolling “jokes” used to urge the reader into a specific frame of mind. Not to mention a severe lack of voices of those whose experiences are either ignored or hardly mentioned when it comes to medicalization for transgender people.
Out of all points made in the book, what made this make me drop the rating to 1 star is the author’s stances shifting at the drop of the hat at the nearest opportunity to dismiss a trans person’s experience or uphold anything that contrasts to their lives.
She says she’s down with “watchful waiting”: an examination of a trans person’s life that requires them to “live as the opposite sex” for two years before medical transitioning…but raises alarm bells in disgust when an “obvious male” is working at a women’s clothing store.
She says she respects adults who’ve gone through transitioning and respects their identities…except when apparently it’s too confusing or hard for Abigail to understand them, to which she refers to grown trans men as “girls” or “women”, no matter how much medicalization they’ve undergone or however long it’s been since the start of transitioning.
She says trans people are real and deserve empathy…except when talking about trans youth, in which it’s a “contagion” that one can “catch”, and even instructs parents to cut their children away from peers who may “infect” them, going so far as to suggest *physically moving homes away from their peers*.
She says she means no harm, that this book is entirely just criticism, not hate…but she makes no hesitation to cite conservative or right-wing sources, or to consistently refer to transness as a “contagion”, an “epidemic”, a “craze”, despite even she herself recognizing that while all other crazes come and go, transness has a visible history that hasn’t wavered (she however fails to mention any prevalence of trans identities and communities across the globe, saying this is obviously just a First World Problem.)
I came into this book knowing that while I may not like or agree with it, I would at least come out understanding ‘the other side’ a little better. Had it been any other author using a better voice throughout, maybe. But Abigail has a bitter undertone that sours the whole book, everything feels dripping in contempt and an almost opportunistic glee to refer to many ‘real’ trans people featured in this book in ways that many would consider humiliating or demoralizing. Eugh…
Bad book, but my favorite part is one of the therapists suggesting that trans teens never EVER self-pleasure( I mean, they’re teens, c’mon now…*Never?*). Had a good laugh, I’ll give you that.
Abigail’s book offers itself as a neutral, not anti-trans call for attention towards criticism of medicalization for trans youth. It’s really anything but. With its tone and its sparse features of trans voices, what would’ve been simply a criticism of the inconsistency of trans medicalization turns into something bordering what many anti-gay literature was decades ago, only now applying it to trans folks.
After wading through several pages of reviews left by prominent right-wing, conservative speakers, followed by an eyebrow-raising introduction from the author warning the reader of its alluring “dangerous” contents, what is left in front of you is an onslaught of emotionally charged language, contradictory stances, and eye rolling “jokes” used to urge the reader into a specific frame of mind. Not to mention a severe lack of voices of those whose experiences are either ignored or hardly mentioned when it comes to medicalization for transgender people.
Out of all points made in the book, what made this make me drop the rating to 1 star is the author’s stances shifting at the drop of the hat at the nearest opportunity to dismiss a trans person’s experience or uphold anything that contrasts to their lives.
She says she’s down with “watchful waiting”: an examination of a trans person’s life that requires them to “live as the opposite sex” for two years before medical transitioning…but raises alarm bells in disgust when an “obvious male” is working at a women’s clothing store.
She says she respects adults who’ve gone through transitioning and respects their identities…except when apparently it’s too confusing or hard for Abigail to understand them, to which she refers to grown trans men as “girls” or “women”, no matter how much medicalization they’ve undergone or however long it’s been since the start of transitioning.
She says trans people are real and deserve empathy…except when talking about trans youth, in which it’s a “contagion” that one can “catch”, and even instructs parents to cut their children away from peers who may “infect” them, going so far as to suggest *physically moving homes away from their peers*.
She says she means no harm, that this book is entirely just criticism, not hate…but she makes no hesitation to cite conservative or right-wing sources, or to consistently refer to transness as a “contagion”, an “epidemic”, a “craze”, despite even she herself recognizing that while all other crazes come and go, transness has a visible history that hasn’t wavered (she however fails to mention any prevalence of trans identities and communities across the globe, saying this is obviously just a First World Problem.)
I came into this book knowing that while I may not like or agree with it, I would at least come out understanding ‘the other side’ a little better. Had it been any other author using a better voice throughout, maybe. But Abigail has a bitter undertone that sours the whole book, everything feels dripping in contempt and an almost opportunistic glee to refer to many ‘real’ trans people featured in this book in ways that many would consider humiliating or demoralizing. Eugh…
Bad book, but my favorite part is one of the therapists suggesting that trans teens never EVER self-pleasure( I mean, they’re teens, c’mon now…*Never?*). Had a good laugh, I’ll give you that.