Amazon announced this week that it no longer sells books that portray LGBTQ identities as mental disorders.
In response to Senators Marco Rubio of Florida, Mike Lee of Utah, Mike Braun of Indiana, and Josh Hawley of Missouri, the Wall Street Journal published a letter signed by the company’s Vice President of Public Policy, Brian Huseman. In February, the lawmakers wrote to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, demanding an explanation as to why author Ryan T. Anderson’s book When Harry Became Sally: Reacting to the Transgender Moment, released in 2018, was no longer available on Amazon, Kindle, or Audible.
The letter read: “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.”
In response to the specific questions asked by senators, the company wrote, “We review both our Content Guidelines for Books and our approach to curating Amazon’s bookstores regularly, which can sometimes result in the removal of books that were previously available on our shelves…When we decide no longer to sell a book, we remove it from our store, and we send an email to the author, publisher, or selling partner, informing them of the removal.”
The best-selling When Harry Became Sally is still a contentious book among transgender people. In 2018, Anderson stated on Twitter that “gender dysphoria is a serious mental health issue. By contrast, transgenderism is a belief system that increasingly looks like a cultish religion — modern-day Gnosticism denying physical reality for deceived perceptions — being forced on the public by the state.”
According to the book’s official summary, “Everyone has something at stake in the controversies over transgender ideology, when misguided ‘antidiscrimination’ policies allow biological men into women’s restrooms and penalize Americans who hold to the truth about human nature.”
Anderson replied to Amazon’s letter with a series of tweets on Thursday night, saying, “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. Gender dysphoria is listed in the APA’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which Amazon sells. So the real deciding factor seems to be whether you endorse hormones and surgery as the proper treatment or counseling.”
In a February blog post for First Things, Anderson reported that neither he nor his publisher had been told of the book’s removal from Amazon.
According to Amazon, Harry Became Sally’s distributor was informed of the book’s removal by email “for violating our content guidelines.”
Amazon’s decision comes when the nation’s largest tech companies are being questioned more than ever about the content they embrace. The senators described Amazon’s decision to ban the book as a warning “to conservative Americans that their views are not welcome on its platforms” in a letter dated Feb. 24.
In their letter, the senators also asked Mr. Bezos if Amazon’s content policy had changed since 2018. In its response on Thursday, the company stated that it had updated its guidelines since that year.
Mr. Huseman of Amazon said, “Amazon reserves the right not to sell such content.” He said, ” All retailers make decisions about what selection they choose to offer, as do we.”
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