The Everything Store appears to have a double standard when it comes to gender identity content.
Amazon recently rejected The Daily Wire‘s paid ads for Matt Walsh‘s book “What Is A Woman?,” saying the ads contain “prohibited content.”
The company cited a policy banning content that questions a person’s sexual orientation.
“We don’t allow content that appears to infer or claim to diagnose, treat, reverse or question sexual orientation,” Amazon Advertiser Support wrote in an email to The Daily Wire.
It’s a strange rationale.
“What Is A Woman?” is not about sexual orientation as much as gender identity and the radical progressive ideology around it. The book, whose rating averages 4.9 stars on Amazon’s five-star scale, chronicles Walsh’s efforts to find out how radical gender theory proponents answer the title question. Walsh also released a hit documentary by the same name.
Amazon’s decision is even stranger considering some of the other content the company sees fit to advertise on its platform. The e-commerce giant may have drawn the line at advertising “What Is A Woman?,” but it does not maintain that same standard for all gender identity content.
Let’s take a closer look at exactly what kind of gender content Amazon promotes.
Amazon approves ads for a slew of titles encouraging people, even young children, to question their gender identity. Meanwhile, Amazon displays few if any ads for resources aimed at transgender people who are considering detransitioning, or reverting back to the gender identity that aligns with their biological sex.
Titles like “How To Understand Your Gender,” “You and Your Gender Identity: A Guide to Discovery,” “Trans Futures Now,” “Before I Had the Words: On Being a Transgender Young Adult,” and “Blink, Plue, and Colorful You,” a children’s book about gender identity, are just a smattering of the titles for which Amazon displays sponsored ads.
Amazon takes ads for books about people who question heterosexuality, but not the other way around. (Amazon screenshots)
The first of those titles blames Christianity for violently suppressing transgender and non-binary people. Transgender people having more visibility presently is “just the natural order reasserting itself,” the book asserts.
“Cis people have a lot of questions, like ‘why is this suddenly a thing?’ It’s not, pumpkin,” the book snarks. “We have always been here. This has always been a thing.”
The children’s book “Blink, Plue, and Colorful You” introduces youngsters to the concepts of non-binary and transgender using colorful cartoons of cute monster characters who channel a woke Dr. Seuss with lines like, “I’m a little bit pink. I’m a little bit blue. I am proud to be me. Are you proud to be you?”
Another book with paid ads on Amazon, “We Make It Better: The LGBTQ Community and Their Positive Contributions to Society,” is described as a “gender identity book for teens.”
Amazon seems to have two standards for books on sexuality. (Amazon screenshots)
A New York mom whose child identifies as transgender expressed her disappointment with Amazon’s decision to reject the “What Is A Woman?” ads.
“I once thought Amazon was the greatest marketplace of ideas; now it seems it’s just a marketplace — one of constant consumerism and activist dictates. It’s a sad day for books and an even sadder day for reason,” she told The Daily Wire.
“If more young girls were asked this question, before they cut off their breasts, perhaps we would have fewer vulnerable kids with lifelong regret,” the mom said. “Don’t they deserve protections? Don’t they deserve critical inquiry? Don’t they deserve for us to ask, ‘What is a woman?'”
The mom pointed out that the term “conversion therapy,” which usually refers to an attempt to change a person’s sexual orientation, is sometimes misused to apply to therapies for children who are exploring their dysphoria and anxiety about their bodies.
“Helping a child or adolescent feel safe and happy in his or her body is not conversion therapy,” she said.
Amazon did not respond to a detailed request for comment.
Earlier this year, Amazon employees held an internal meeting to discuss Matt Walsh and his “traumatic” books for sale on Amazon, leaked video from the meeting showed.
The group leaders complained that Walsh was “taking advantage of Amazon and how the Amazon algorithms work to promote their particular brand of hate and harm.” They called it “disturbing” that Walsh was at the time preparing to release “What Is A Woman?”
“Does a man even belong in this conversation? No, he doesn’t.” the host said. “But guess what, it’s not even on sale yet, and it’s number one in women’s studies.”
Whether Amazon will reverse its perplexing decision on “What Is A Woman?” ads remains to be seen. In the meantime, the mammoth bookseller is at no loss for a glut of content encouraging people to question their gender.