Amazon employees at a warehouse in Alabama continue to struggle with the company for unionization.
Online retail giant Amazon told senators on Thursday that it would no longer list a conservative book that criticized the “transgender moment” or any other “that frames LGBTQ + identity as a mental illness.”
The letter came amid an uproar over the company’s decision to stop selling conservative author Ryan T. Anderson’s book, “When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment”, which was published in 2018 and reached the top of bestseller lists on the site.
Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Josh Hawley, R-Mo., Mike Braun, R-Ind. And Mike Lee, R-Utah sent a letter to Amazon in February, shortly after Anderson noticed the removal of his book on the website.
“We carefully consider the content we make available in our stores and regularly review our approach,” said Amazon, responding to a question from senators about why the book was originally allowed on the site. “As described above, we chose not to sell books that frame LGBTQ + identity as a mental illness.”
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“By removing this book from its markets and services, Amazon has openly exercised its huge market share to silence an important voice merely for the crime of violating awakened group thinking,” said the senators at the time of the letter.
Anderson’s publisher, Encounter Books, allegedly claimed to have been informed that the book violated Amazon’s content guidelines. The specific reason was not clear at the time it was informed.
Anderson responded on Thursday, arguing, “Everyone agrees that gender dysphoria is a serious condition that causes great suffering.”
“There is a debate, however, that Amazon is trying to end, on the best way to treat patients with gender dysphoria.”
On its website, the American Psychiatric Association suggests that not everyone who identifies as transgender experiences dysphoria.
“The term ‘transgender’ refers to a person whose sex assigned at birth (that is, the sex assigned by a doctor at birth, usually based on external genitalia) does not match their gender identity (that is, the psychological sense of someone of your gender), “he reads.
“Some people who are transgender will experience ‘gender dysphoria, ‘ which refers to the psychological suffering that results from an inconsistency between the sex assigned at birth and someone’s gender identity. “
Medical associations and liberal groups like the Human Rights Campaign say that gender is more complicated than some have suggested. “Gender identity and sex assigned at birth can be different from each other, and that difference needs to be recognized in order to effectively guarantee access to care for transgender people,” said a 2018 letter from dozens of health groups, including the American Psychiatric Association, American Academy of Pediatrics and Endocrine Society.
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Anderson’s book quotes Dr. Paul McHugh, a professor at Johns Hopkins who previously served as chief psychiatrist at the university hospital. McHugh said: “Transgender men do not become women, nor do transgender women become men” and “Everyone … becomes feminized men or masculinized women, counterfeiters or imitators of the sex with which they ‘identify’. That is where the your troubled future. “
The American College of Pediatricians has also condemned treatments such as puberty blockers for children. In 2019, the group called on the surgeon general to investigate these types of treatments.
Amazon declined to comment.