Amazon workers quit over anti-transgender book row

Amazon employees have resigned in protest of the company’s decision to sell a book that depicts transgender children as mentally unwell.

According to NBC News a complaint was posted to Amazon’s internal message board in April 2021. Over 467 employees supported the petition to withdraw the book, citing a previous statement by Amazon that said they had “chosen not to sell books that frame LGBTQ+ identity as mental illness”.

The book’s author Abigail Shrier denies the book depicts LGBTQ people as mentally ill despite sections within the book saying otherwise.

Although the author denies claims from the Amazon employees who protest the book, sections are quoted as saying: “Many of the adolescent girls suddenly identifying as transgender seemed to be caught in a ‘craze’ — a cultural enthusiasm that spreads like a virus,” and Shrier defines her use of ‘craze’ as a “crowd mental illness.”

Shrier also compares therapists who support a trans person’s gender identity with a therapist who would support a person with anorexia in their belief they are ‘fat’: “We wouldn’t think such a therapist was compassionate. We might think she was a monster,” she says.

Selene Xenia is one of the employees who resigned over the book. She is a software engineer who identifies as trans and had worked at Amazon for seven years but left in June after hearing the company would still sell the book.

“The book literally has[craze] in the title and considers being transgender a mental illness in many senses throughout the book,” Xenia said.

“I found it extremely hypocritical for Amazon to say that it would stock this book and not another similar one,” Xenia said, speaking of another book, When Harry Became Sally. “It looks like Amazon had to remove that particular book for PR reasons, not because they felt morally obligated to.”

Author Shrier said in a statement: “This issue won’t go away just because some disgruntled Amazon employees wish it would. And banning the book won’t help these girls or anyone else.”

An Amazon spokesperson said in a statement: “As a bookseller, we believe that providing access to written speech and a variety of viewpoints is one of the most important things we do — even when those viewpoints differ from our own or Amazon’s stated positions.”