Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters
Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters book cover

Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters

Hardcover – June 30, 2020

Price
$26.09
Format
Hardcover
Pages
276
Publisher
Regnery Publishing
Publication Date
ISBN-13
978-1684510313
Dimensions
6 x 1 x 9 inches
Weight
1.06 pounds

Description

“Courage is a rare trait. Abigail Shrier has it in abundance. She defies the politically correct tide to write a moving and critically needed book about a terrible new plague that endangers our children—‘rapid-onset gender dysphoria.’ This book explains what it is, how it has spread, and what we can do about it.xa0And Irreversible Damage is as readable as it is important.” — Dennis Prager , nationally syndicated radio talk show host and bestselling author of The Rational Bible“Writing honestly about a difficult and vital topic, Shrier compassionately analyzes the evidence regarding rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD), a phenomenon declared off-limits by many in the media and the scientific establishment. Shrier simply isn’t willing to abandon the future of a child’s mental health to propagandistic political efforts. Shrier has actual courage.” — Ben Shapiro , editor in chief of The Daily Wire and host of The Ben Shapiro Show“In Irreversible Damage , Abigail Shrier provides a thought-provoking examination of a new clinical phenomenon mainly affecting adolescent females—what some have termed rapid-onset gender dysphoria—that has, at lightning speed, swept across North America and parts of Western Europe and Scandinavia. In so doing, Shrier does not shy away from the politics that pervade the field of gender dysphoria. It is a book that will be of great interest to parents, the general public, and mental health clinicians.” — Kenneth J. Zucker, Ph.D. , adolescent and child psychologist and chair of the DSM-5 Work Group on Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders “Thoroughly researched and beautifully written.” — Ray Blanchard, Ph.D., head of Clinical Sexology Services at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health from 1995–2010 “Abigail Shrier dares to tell the truth about a monstrous ideological fad that has already ruined countless children’s lives. History will look kindly on her courage.” — Michael Knowles , host of The Michael Knowles Show“Abigail Shrier has written a deeply compassionate and utterly sobering account of an unprecedented and reckless social experiment whose test subjects are the bodies and psyches of the most emotionally vulnerable among us.” — John Podhoretz , editor of Commentary magazine and columnist for the New York Post“For no other topic have science and conventional wisdom changed—been thrown away—more rapidly than for gender dysphoria. For a small but rapidly growing number of adolescent girls and their families, consequences have been tragic. This urgently needed book is fascinating, wrenching, and wise. Unlike so many of the currently woke, Abigail Shrier sees clearly what is in front of our faces and is brave enough to name it. Irreversible Damage will be a rallying point to reversing the damage being done.” — J. Michael Bailey , author of The Man Who Would Be Queen and professor of psychology at Northwestern University “Abigail Shrier has shed light on the profound discontent of an entire generation of women and girls and exposed how transgender extremists have brainwashed not just these young women, but large portions of the country.” —Bethany Mandel , editor at Ricochet.com, columnist at the Jewish Daily Forward , and homeschooling mother of four “Every parent needs to read this gripping travelogue through Gender Land, a perilous place where large numbers of teenage girls come to grief despite their loving parents’ efforts to rescue them.” —Helen Joyce , senior staff writer at The Economist“Gender transition has become one of the most controversial issues of our time.xa0So much so that most of us simply want to avoid the subject altogether.xa0Such evasion can be just the thing that gives the majority an excuse to look away from the suffering of our fellow human beings. Abigail Shrier chooses to take the bull by the horns. She dives straight into this most sensitive of debates. The product is a work brimming with compassion for a vulnerable subset of our population: teenage girls.xa0It is a work that makes you want to keep reading because it is accessible, lucid and compelling. You find yourself running out of reasons to look away. A must-read for all those who care about the lot of our girls and women.” —Ayaan Hirsi Ali , research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and member of Dutch Parliament from 2003–2006 “Shrier’s timely and wise exploration is simultaneously deeply compassionate and hard-hitting. First carefully laying out many of the physical, psychological, and societal effects of the ‘transgender craze,’ she then points to the inconsistencies within the ideology itself. This book deftly arms the reader with tools for both recognizing and resisting, and will prove important for parents, health care professionals, and policy makers alike.” —Heather Heying , evolutionary biologist and visiting professor at Princeton University "If you want to understand why suddenly it seems that (mostly) young girls from (mostly) white middle- or upper-class backgrounds (many of whom are in the same friend groups) have decided to start dressing like boys, cutting their hair short, changing their name to a masculine one, and even taking hormones, using chest compressors, and getting themselves surgically altered, you must read Abigail K. Shrier’s urgent new book, Irreversible Damage ." -- Commentary Magazine [review by Naomi Schaefer Riley] Abigail Shrier is a writer for the Wall Street Journal. She is a graduate of Columbia College, where she received the Euretta J. Kellett Fellowship; the University of Oxford; and Yale Law School. She lives in Los Angeles, CA.

Features & Highlights

  • NAMED A BOOK OF THE YEAR BY
  • THE ECONOMIST
  • AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2021 BY
  • THE TIMES
  • AND
  • THE SUNDAY TIMES
  • "Irreversible Damage
  • . . . has caused a storm. Abigail Shrier, a
  • Wall Street Journal
  • writer, does something simple yet devastating: she rigorously lays out the facts." —Janice Turner,
  • The Times of London
  • Until just a few years ago, gender dysphoria—severe discomfort in one’s biological sex—was vanishingly rare. It was typically found in less than .01 percent of the population, emerged in early childhood, and afflicted males almost exclusively. But today whole groups of female friends in colleges, high schools, and even middle schools across the country are coming out as “transgender.” These are girls who had never experienced any discomfort in their biological sex until they heard a coming-out story from a speaker at a school assembly or discovered the internet community of trans “influencers.” Unsuspecting parents are awakening to find their daughters in thrall to hip trans YouTube stars and “gender-affirming” educators and therapists who push life-changing interventions on young girls—including medically unnecessary double mastectomies and puberty blockers that can cause permanent infertility.
  • Abigail Shrier,
  • a writer for the
  • Wall Street Journal,
  • has dug deep into the trans epidemic, talking to the girls, their agonized parents, and the counselors and doctors who enable gender transitions, as well as to “detransitioners”—young women who bitterly regret what they have done to themselves. Coming out as transgender immediately boosts these girls’ social status, Shrier finds, but once they take the first steps of transition, it is not easy to walk back. She offers urgently needed advice about how parents can protect their daughters. A generation of girls is at risk. 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.

Customer Reviews

Rating Breakdown

★★★★★
60%
(4.7K)
★★★★
25%
(2K)
★★★
15%
(1.2K)
★★
7%
(549)
-7%
(-549)

Most Helpful Reviews

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One More Book Trying to Invalidate the Trans Experience

I was motivated to read this book since I was skeptical upon hearing some of the trans stats Shrier throws out there. For example, she references a whole group of AFABs in one school class being trans. Fair enough, I agree something sounds amiss with that (overall improbable, but not impossible). Anyways, she got me reading as her premise seems believable at first glance.

After finishing the book, however, I’m honestly appalled by the content. Shrier argues that there is only one right way to be a trans teenager: You have to have exhibited gender dysphoria from virtually the moment you’re born to be valid; if not, then it’s too late and you have to transition as an adult. On the contrary, there is no right or wrong way to be trans. Just because one didn’t exhibit a certain trait at a certain age doesn’t make one’s trans-ness less valid if announced or discovered later in life (at ANY age, even if a teenager).

Shrier makes it sound as if the system is stacked against AFABs to turn them into trans-men. She warns about an affirmative care model propagated throughout schools, therapist offices, online communities, etc. that she leads us to believe are actively trying to convince people they are trans. Given the tremendous uphill battle for all trans folks (in every respect, from social to surgeries), an affirmative care model in these core support groups is critical and justified. If there wasn’t this affirmative care model, every single person (especially teenagers) identifying as trans would be dismissed as it just being a phase since it only affects less than 1% of the population.

This book finally made me realize how people without the lived experience should not be writing on topics for which they lack that experience. I used to think this idea was rooted in some of the more extreme views out there, but I now stand corrected: unless carefully and meticulously researched and informed by those that have that lived experience, an outsider really has no part in commenting on how that experience is meant to be understood. Shrier missed that key detail of properly investigating that teenage trans-man experience. She does speak to a few adult trans-men, but I finished the book with a feeling that those experiences from teenage trans-men had only been captured by what their dissenting parents thought and Shrier’s spin about how virtually every person that comes into contact with a teenage AFAB tries to indoctrinate them as trans.

I do remain concerned about those stats that Shrier mentioned in the beginning of the book about the large uptick in teenage trans-men. Shrier’s book, however, did nothing at all to convince me of this supposed impossibility. Just because the trans-men stats don’t line up with the same stats from prior years doesn’t automatically make it a social contagion. Trans acceptance has drastically improved over the past few years, but we regress with the publication of this book that even goes so far as to suggest that parents actively sabotage any mention of being trans from their children, such as sending their child to live on a horse farm with no internet (yes, Shrier actually condones this exact course of action if parents don’t agree with their children). Ultimately, I think Shrier’s book is the real contagion in that it is one more publication trying to invalidate the trans experience and make things harder for the already impossibly difficult life of being trans.
994 people found this helpful
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A thought-provoking book that hopefully will encourage open and honest debate

Before I start, let me say that I have nothing against LBGQT. I have always been liberally minded. I went to middle school in the 90s when homophobia was a real crisis and I refused to ever use a slur against gays and I was bullied and attacked for this. One of the first political causes I became involved with was opposing California's ban on same-sex marriage in high school and in college, I had gay, lesbian, and a few trans friends and hung out in San Francisco's Castro district. I could go on. What really worries me right now is the fanaticism and obsessiveness of identity politics that is currently gripping America and it's worst when it comes to sexual identity. It was in this way that I became interested in reading the book.

The puzzle that Abigail Shrier is trying to solve is why over the past five years has there been an explosion in cases of rapid onset of gender dysphoria mostly among girls. The DMS criteria for gender dysphoria traditionally has been a persistent and consistent identification with the opposite sex since childhood. The diagnosis occurred usually among boys and not girls. Moreover, most boys grew out of the phase as they grew older and the diagnosis occurred in .01 percent of the population. Shrier finds the answer to this puzzle in a study conducted by Dr. Littman. Littman assembled the reports of 256 parents about their trans-identified teens and found two major patterns: 65% of the girls that identified as trans did so "out of the blue" and after much exposure on social media and that the prevalence of girls identifying as trans occurred most when one of their friends had identified as trans. My immediate criticism is that this is just one study but as you read the book (especially the chapter on the dissenters) you will see that those who ask hard questions about this phenomenon are attacked by the mob and lose their careers. So it would be nice to have more studies but we can't have them due to political correctness and the mob. Shrier argues social media trans gurus, K-12 educators, therapists and even the medical community are enabling this trend under pressure from the transgender activists. This part of the book deeply disturbed me. First of all, teens are spending their lives on social media and self-diagnosing after seeing a few videos on YouTube. If they come out as trans online, they get a 1,000 more friends and interact with their online friends more then being in reality. What I read about what is going on in K-12 education shocked me. Why are five year olds being taught lessons in gender identity and sexual orientation? How can they possible know their sexual identity at such a young age? Typical progressive educators that think they know best and are using the classroom to change the world. No wonder kids are so sexually confused these days. Rates of sex are going down amongst teens yet they know their sexual orientation? As the author points out, bullying of LBGQT students can be addressed without indoctrination. With the therapists, the profession and laws force them to automatically affirm the newly discovered gender of the patient and they don't slow down and try to help the patient see if this is what they truly are. They say the parents must accept their kids choice 100% or they will kill themselves. Yes just like the terrorist that says I will detonate the bomb if the political prisoners aren't released. Why aren't these therapists using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to combat these cognitive distortions and tell them that suicide is an irrational thing to do. And then there is the rush to hand out the hormone drugs like they are candy and do life-altering surgery on a whim. Once again, thanks to the mob and the activists this all goes down without being questioned.

Shrier profiles the few ADULTS in the room that have urged caution. They are not "transphobes." They just don't think 13 year olds should have their breasts cut off because of their immediate feelings and once again urge caution and waiting to see if this is what the patient really needs. To me, it is like if a depressed patient came to a psychiatrist and the first thing they recommended was ECT. The book also mentions that real transgenders usually want to be left alone and don't want to scream their identities from the roof top. In the chapter Transformation, the author describes the lasting alterations that hormone drugs and surgeries cause. I really felt sick to my stomach reading this chapter. Once again, why are these procedures being handed out so lightly? The author concludes with discussing those who have regretted transitioning and gives advice to parents.

Several people interviewed for the book talk about parts of the trans community as being a kind of cult. As I read this book, the outside world confirmed this thesis. Just look at all the one star reviews by people who haven't read the book on Amazon and can't refute a single point and just rehash the usual talking points ("give in to the kids or they will kill themselves.)" I also was having lunch with someone and discussing this book and an irate woman came over to my table and starting screaming at me that I was a hate monger. I also read that the activists tried to get Amazon to pull this book. The mob is increasingly making it unable to discuss anything anymore in a rational way. To me the bottom line is this, I of course believe that there are genuine transgenders who should transition and be supported but why are we rushing with the life-altering drugs and surgeries to kids?!?! I was once a kid and I did really stupid things. A kid cannot make a decision like this and claim to know their true sexual identity at 5 or 13. I even think there needs to be more screening and waiting time for adults to get transition surgeries. There is a lot more that could be said but I just want to thank Abigail Shrier for writing this book though I fear we have reached a stage where free debate of the issue is no longer possible.
186 people found this helpful
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Irreversible Damage indeed

This is perhaps the most important book you didn’t know you should be reading. I can not recommend it enough. Abigail Shrier writes in an approachable and engaging way what could be preconceived a rather esoteric subject to some/most. The book is poignant; it will shock you, it will move you, it brought me to tears many times, full blown bawling tears but the urgency of the book is warranted, rest assured, this is an emergency. Knowing that we’re living in times where everything can be deemed ‘transphobic’ and bigoted unless it fully embraces the transgenderism trend, Shrier is a modern day heroine, shedding light on this bizarre flying by the seat of their pants ideology that has run amok and without oversight.
184 people found this helpful
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An engrossing book that offers a cogent and stirring call for common sense to prevail.

A couple of years ago, I read Ryan Anderson’s book When Harry Became Sally (2018) to better understand transgenderism. The book was informative, thoughtful, and compassionate.

One chapter I found troubling was called, “Childhood Dysphoria and Desistence.” In this chapter Anderson discussed how the transgender affirmative approach was being used to address gender dysphoria for children and teenagers. It struck me as irresponsible to affirm and promote gender transitioning with this particular group. Mature self-aware adults can make such consequential decisions, but children and teenagers?

Skeptical of using a transgender affirmative approach with children and teenagers who experience gender dysphoria, I felt compelled to read Abigail Shrier’s book, Irreversible Damage.

Shrier deftly tells the story of an unprecedented increase of teenage girls transitioning. She points out that a majority of this group of natal females do not fit in the typical pattern of those experiencing gender dysphoria. Even so, they are often being persuaded, even pressured, into medical interventions that have life altering consequences.

Shreir addresses how the online transgender community provides an immediate support group and indoctrination into the trans life. She carefully documents how educators and mental health professionals engage in “gender affirmative care,” which basically mandates them to defer to the self-diagnosis of children and teenagers. In short, if a 13 year-old girl expresses she thinks she may really be a boy—presto, the diagnosis is established. Very often, parents are purposefully kept in the dark by educators and mental health professionals about their child’s decision to transition.

Caught in the current of transgender movement, these girls are being encouraged to socially transition, take testosterone, and eventually have “top surgery.” Of course, these interventions have consequences that these teenagers do not fully consider or even know how to process.

It is disconcerting to witness a culture that assumes teenagers are capable of self-diagnosing such a serious matter. It is unconscionable that adults support the self-diagnosis of adolescents and then facilitate actions that can cause “irreversible” changes to their bodies.

This approach becomes perverse when you take into account that 70% of adolescents who experience gender dysphoria will not transition if just given time to mature, grow, and explore their own identity.

Shrier’s chapters on “Dissidents” and “The Moms and Dads” provides an unsettling reminder how free speech and parental rights are being subverted and marginalized in our culture.

This book is not about adults who make the decision to transition. It is about our teenage daughters and granddaughters who are being coached into making premature decisions that will forever alter their lives. I hope this book gains wide circulation and increases awareness of this craze among teenage girls. It is a sobering call for common sense to prevail.
154 people found this helpful
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Helpful for families handling dysphoric adolescents

This book is well written and very well researched, with the author having conducted over 250 interviews and including a bibliography around 30 pages long. There is a lot of misinformation surrounding the young transgender community and she makes a lot of great points about how this demographic is being mistreated. She is respectful of the transgender community as a whole, but seeks to bring to light the growing group of adolescents who seem to be suffering from a social contagion rather than being truly transgender, and who ought to be better counseled rather than affirmed into serious medical interventions that they may come to regret. Very good book.
118 people found this helpful
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Not A Good Resource for Learning About Transgender People

This book is poorly researched and goes against actual scientific evidence and studies done on the topic of transgender people and transitioning. The book speaks of a "transgender agenda" claiming that transgender influencers are trying to convince teenage girls to transition if they're not actually trans.
67 people found this helpful
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Excellent and well researched!

This book has been very helpful for me to help warn parents. Check out SB 132 California: Self ID into prison; 100% tax payer funded SRS surgery in California for a convicted murderer; JAMA Pediatrics on 13-17 year old females getting both breasts removed BEFORE their prefrontal cortex is mature...there's so much evidence. Lupron is a chemo that is used for puberty blocking. It has more than10,000 adverse events filed with the FDA and many news reports. This is a move on preverbal children too.
43 people found this helpful
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Important Reading for All

This information is so necessary to understand in the “new world”where politics seem to trump science and the Hippocratic oath for many doctors...
43 people found this helpful
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Excellent Read

Excellent book. Fairly and accurately informs the reader, and the writing is easy to understand and not unnecessarily pretentious as nonfiction books often are. Most importantly, this is a devastating topic that is being shoved under the rug by many in our society today, and this book reveals those issues to the world.
32 people found this helpful
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This is a must read.

This book is amazing.
My sister identifies as a “trans-man” but she never once had gender-dysphoria in early childhood. She actually came out in high-school, and only hung around those kind of people. I can relate to the stories in this book, it makes me feel like I’m not alone, like someone is actually talking about it. My sister is so angry, depressed, and she was even diagnosed with autism and Asperger’s.

I just wish that there was a way where I could help my sister. She started T as a 17 year old then as soon as she turned 18 she got top surgery. Now, just a few days from getting that surgery she’s talking about bottom surgery. I wish I could show her this book, but I know she’ll throw in my face and call me “transphobic” “bigot” and even a “racist”. The T makes her extremely sick, she throws up everytime she takes a shot. Her dysphoria gets worse the further she goes with transition, along with her anger and depression. She barely graduated highschool and she used to be a 4.0 student. I found this book because I heard target removed it, and I needed to see why... I needed this book. Thank you Shrier.
31 people found this helpful