Amazon has reinstated sales of a book critical of transgender identity among children after complaints from the author, who speculates many others might have joined her in the pushback.
Earlier this week, Maria Keffler’s new book, “Desist, Detrans, & Detox: Getting Your Child Out of the Gender Cult,” had sold less than 100 copies across three platforms and had received less than a dozen Amazon reviews before the online retail giant pulled it with “no contact, no warning, no reason,” according to Partners for Ethical Care (PEC).
Cofounded by Keffler, PEC is a nonprofit group that hopes to raise “awareness and support efforts to stop the unethical treatment of children by schools, hospitals, and mental and medical healthcare providers under the duplicitous banner of gender identity affirmation.”
“We fully expected it to happen,” Keffler told The Christian Post earlier this week regarding the ban. “We knew it was going to. We decided to launch it on multiple platforms because we expected it to be canceled. And so that’s why we also put it on Smashwords as well as Lulu, a print platform.”
As The Christian Post further reported:
Shortly after CP’s interview with Keffler Wednesday, the author said that the online retailer sent her an email, which she shared with CP, explaining that the scrubbing of the book was an “error.” The Kindle version went live and the paperback version should be reactivated soon. Amazon had previously told her that the book had violated their terms of service, which she challenged.
In a subsequent email to CP, Keffler said it was possible that “a calling and emailing onslaught may have affected the outcome” as “lots and lots of people were contacting Amazon to complain.”
Keffler believes that Big Tech and large corporations are intent on silencing critical voices of transgender ideology because there is big money in the “gender industry,” referencing The 11th Hour Blog, a website where the revenue streams fueling transgender ideology worldwide have been traced and documented.
Keffler hopes her book can help parents of children struggling with gender identity but is sad that anyone would feel the need to buy a copy. “We talk to new parents all the time and several support groups for parents on social media, and there’s just more and more of an influx of them coming in. It’s heartbreaking. Honestly, I’ve felt this way about the book for almost a week now, and every time someone buys it my heart hurts a little bit because I know that this is another family that’s been impacted by this.”
Amazon has a history of banning books that present transgender behavior as symptomatic of mental illness, which has drawn the attention of some GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
“As a bookseller, we provide our customers with access to a variety of viewpoints, including books that some customers may find objectionable,” Brian Huseman, Amazon vice president of public policy, told Republican Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida, Mike Lee of Utah, Mike Braun of Indiana, and Josh Hawley of Missouri in a March letter. The group of senators received the letter in response to questions over the retailer’s decision to pull Ryan T. Anderson’s “When Harry Became Sally.”
“Amazon works hard to ensure customers have a great shopping experience, and access to the widest and most diverse cross-section of written and spoken word in retail today,” Huseman said. “That said, we reserve the right not to sell certain content. All retailers make decisions about what selection they choose to offer, as do we. 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.”