On Thursday, a Fairfax County father of three daughters elicited applause after asking the county school board to add Abigail Shrier’s powerful expose dealing with transgender transitions, “Irreversible Damage,” to the school’s library, as he said, “There should be room after the pornographic book involving fourth-graders and sexual acts is removed.”
Kevin Zrenda began, “It’s okay to believe that God loves you as the boy or girl he created you as. I have three daughters here in these public schools and I applied multiple times to speak on the safety of the girls in our schools. Given the news of the alleged rape in neighboring Loudoun County by a boy in a skirt using the girl’s bathroom, I focus on that. Scott Smith, we pray for your family.”
He then addressed the board directly: “With your policies on gender fluidity, you have placed our daughters at risk, allowing no room for their safety or disagreement; no free speech, no parental notification. Teachers lose their jobs if they fail to use the correct pronoun. School board, tell the students to love one another; to be kind to one another and that you can do so while also disagreeing about this. Tell them that they are beautifully and wonderfully made, created in a certain way as a boy or girl, not that they can be some sort of avatar generation. That is not love. That is a lie.”
“I move that a copy of Abigail Shrier’s book, ‘Irreversible Damage,’ be placed on the shelves,” he asserted. “There should be room after the pornographic book involving fourth-graders and sexual acts is removed.”
“Shrier’s book is actually educational; she interviewed hundreds of teens experiencing gender dysphoria,” he noted. “Most mature and revert back to their actual gender. Most transgender used to be boys, but the recent explosion has put girls in the majority. Studies show that it mostly is spread along social networking lines and friend groups, mostly white, young, middle-income suburban girls with what is known as rapid-onset gender dysphoria.”
“Remember that time when we were all against gender mutilation as something that happened overseas in some other culture?” he recalled. “Her book shows most youth that undergoes genital surgery return to having the same levels of stress, anxiety and depression as before, even when surrounded by families that love them and affirm them. Love these kids, but tell them the truth. I want to know if this board will stand against the (unintelligible) support of those experiencing body dysphoria. Some people actually believe they’re disabled and have surgically removed arms, self-blind.”
He concluded, “Do we have to encourage them to blind themselves to pretend to love them? Please add ‘Irreversible Damage’ to the library. God loves me.”
The Daily Wire reported on July 15:
The American Bookseller’s Association is apologizing for including Abigail Shrier’s best-selling book, “Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters” in its July promotional mailing to approximately 750 retail outlets.
After receiving backlash from both members and Twitter rubberneckers, the 121-year-old organization, issued a lengthy statement, saying, “An anti-trans book was included in our July mailing to members. This is a serious, violent incident that goes against ABA’s ends policies, values, and everything we believe and support. It is inexcusable.” …
As the Daily Wire previously reported, Shrier’s book, which was published by conservative publisher Regnery in 2020, has been subjected to speech suppression before. In November, Target announced it was removing the book after a complaint from an LGBTQ activist. After public backlash, the retail giant reversed course, saying the book was back on shelves.
Since that time, however, the company has quietly removed the book again. A search of Target’s website shows the title is no longer available. …
Shrier, a graduate of Yale Law School who has written for the Wall Street Journal and Newsweek, blasted the ABA’s response on Twitter, saying, “If there were a Hall of Fame for capitulations to Woke bullies, the American Booksellers Association is hereby inducted. The ‘serious, violent incident’ they perpetrated? Including my book in a large box of new book samples sent out to independent booksellers.”
She later added, “The book-banning Left is a totalitarian movement. It has no use for an open, liberal society with a broad diversity of viewpoints, and it will use shame, fear, and coercion to win. It can’t be harmonized with Liberalism.”