Abigail ShrierCritiques

I am a sucker for books about parenting, kids and their challenges and this one was another winner along with [Generations], [Coddling of the American MInd], [Anxious Generation] (and more). When our kids were little I read [Siblings without Rivalry] and was teased that it was "Earth without Gravity"! Also years ago I read [Bringing up Bebe] about a mom moving to France and describing the difference between American and French childrearing and the ensuing results. Fascinating and very good to know! So this book looks at the very challenged present generation of children who are experiencing very significant mental health concerns and she examines parenting, education and therapeutic approaches.There are so many children diagnosed, in therapy and on heavy duty medications. She has a lot to say and really we must find the "adult in the room" to do a better job as children are not being managed well. The book is well researched with many interviews of experts in their fields and with further book recommendations and references to academic research.

An absolute must read if you have a daughter. I feel every adult should read this.

This balanced, compassionate, and fair book will help crystallize your thinking.

Excellent writer helping make the subject accessible. The book helps you to understand what is going on amongst teen girls and transgender issues.

An excellent and necessary study into the social contagion into which so many young girls are getting caught up. The author treats the subject fairly, noting that she supports many adults who identify as trans and interviews some for this book. The evidence she presents cannot be denied, however, showing that many young girls *are* feeling pressured to give up their identity as girls. There are many reasons: girls coming from middle-class white families looking for an identity as a minority in a society that places high value on such identity; girls raised in progressive households looking to push whatever boundaries they can find in acts of rebellion; the way we've raised kids today to believe that happiness must be a constant state of mind and, when uncomfortable in one's body (as so many teens are!), one *must* be in the wrong body, etc. Particularly valuable are chapters 7-10. Whether one agrees or not with the ultimate point of the book, this is a valuable addition to the conversation about trans identities in children and teens.

Once you go beyond the false pearl clutching and cancel culture hysterics this book actually has a lot to offer. Shrier isn't an expert on psychology nor pretends to be, but allows those who shared their stories to be heard. This work was far less a look at transgender culture and dysphoria itself and focuses on those that instead manipulate both, turning them in to a social subculture with harsh and rigid stereotypical ideals. "Transtrenders" as I've heard people call it. The argument being made is simply: Because you, as a female, don't fit in to prescribed gender roles or what people perceive as feminine it just means you're you. You don't have to rush out to give yourself a title and subculture just because you prefer sports over tea parties and dolls. Be yourself. Shrier also gives space to pointing out the pressure to conform and how cancel culture plays such a deep role in pushing this boxed in sex role stereotype at growing girls and young women trying to navigate the world. How it often tries to negate both lesbians and a more natural emotional/mental progression of identity and maturity through false psychology and peer pressure. There's also the broaching of the problem with girls and women's spaces and outlets being taken away more and more often by overreaching identity politics and the need for safe spaces that aren't subject to pop culture whim.

Overall it wasn't a deep investigation of transperson issues but an honest look at things in a twisting of trans identity issues, largely from those whom have gone through it themselves, family members dealing with the phenomena, the bullying and cancel culture mindset that goes on inside, the ostracizing done on those who don't conform and even those persons ostracizing their own friends and family for not conforming. There is a lot of flap over this one by cancel culture fainting couch pseudo intellectuals but at the end of the day these are issues that need talking about and censorship doesn't accomplish anything versus people willing to speak up.

Once you go beyond the false pearl clutching and cancel culture hysterics this book actually has a lot to offer. Shrier isn't an expert on psychology nor pretends to be, but allows those who shared their stories to be heard. This work was far less a look at transgender culture and dysphoria itself and focuses on those that instead manipulate both, turning them in to a social subculture with harsh and rigid stereotypical ideals. "Transtrenders" as I've heard people call it. The argument being made is simply: Because you, as a female, don't fit in to prescribed gender roles or what people perceive as feminine it just means you're you. You don't have to rush out to give yourself a title and subculture just because you prefer sports over tea parties and dolls. Be yourself. Shrier also gives space to pointing out the pressure to conform and how cancel culture plays such a deep role in pushing this boxed in sex role stereotype at growing girls and young women trying to navigate the world. How it often tries to negate both lesbians and a more natural emotional/mental progression of identity and maturity through false psychology and peer pressure. There's also the broaching of the problem with girls and women's spaces and outlets being taken away more and more often by overreaching identity politics and the need for safe spaces that aren't subject to pop culture whim.

Overall it wasn't a deep investigation of transperson issues but an honest look at things in a twisting of trans identity issues, largely from those whom have gone through it themselves, family members dealing with the phenomena, the bullying and cancel culture mindset that goes on inside, the ostracizing done on those who don't conform and even those persons ostracizing their own friends and family for not conforming. There is a lot of flap over this one by cancel culture fainting couch pseudo intellectuals but at the end of the day these are issues that need talking about and censorship doesn't accomplish anything versus people willing to speak up.

5 starring this book because it needs to exist. The way children are being experimented on needs to be exposed. The perplexing fact that that this one portion of science and medicine is somehow above questioning or criticism is scary.

Pros
-This is a different set of conversations and ideas about an emerging topic
- there are some pieces of information/research that I haven't heard before and found interesting.
- I liked reading a mixture of research and case studies as well as opinion
Cons
-The piece is incredibly sarcastic
- it relies heavily on opinions
- statistics, research and options are repeatedly reiterated.

Overall, I didn't like this book. I felt that rather than presenting research, stories and case studies to present the case that a social contagion has resulted in natal adolescent females claiming theyre trans, it was a lot of derision and sarcasm. The piece felt like opinion journalism, where I was genuinely curious about the topic. I wanted more straightforward information on a topic that I feel could have some credence. What I got wasnt informative so much as stoking the fire of folks who already have a negative opinion.

I won't bother you with my beliefs, background or the stories of the transgender people in my family.

The author offers a balanced and well researched tool that you won't find anywhere else. She interviews people on both sides, provides insight into the beginnings of this phenomenon with it's connections to the past - all with compassion and honesty.

If you've read in a review that she's biased, well, maybe. She is concerned for our daughters. What's wrong with that, I'd like to know? I guess I will say that I have 2 grown daughters and work at a high school so I can confirm all that she said in regards to schools. Schools are hiding these things from parents and are providing life altering information and resources with no regard to the future and, sadly, most parents don't care but if you've read this far, you do. Parents need to stop being friends and be parents. Be informed and involved.

If you are too close minded to read this book than you are exactly who needs to read this.

“Pay it no mind”

- Marsha P. Johnson

The author is not, NOT transphobic. She's actually very supportive and admires transgender people.

The author has a problem with the adults and activists (who are the extreme side of the trans community) who are targeting and hurting teenage girls who are going through normal, regular teenage development and uncomfortable with their bodies into believing they are trans when most of those girls are not trans at all. No teen is comfortable in their body. Not one. But as the author explains, these girls who would have in the past comiserated with their friends in person are now looking to the Internet for answers. There are other factors that the author explores but the author is concerned about the teen girls caught up in this craze and being hurt by it.

She blames adults, not the trans community and not these girls. The adults who should be protecting these girls and not affirming their self-diagnosis from the Internet. Yes, a few of these girls are trans but the vast majority are not and are being hurt in the process of normal human experience of the teenage years.

Sobering, particularly if you are a parent with daughters.

A great study in how this craze has spread, and continues to do so.½

An excellent book, extremely well researched. Every one with a daughter should read this book to help protect their daughter(s) from this trend. They need to know that the “system” is rigged against them and how to fight it. The author points out that only in transgenderism does the medical/psychology/psychiatric industry are patients allowed to declare themselves ill due to gender dysphoria and then allowed, at virtually any age to ask for and be granted their request to change their bodies in irreversible ways, WITHOUT any medical evaluation. Don’t believe it, or agree with it? Then READ this book cover to cover. It makes no difference what political way you lean.

Essential reading, especially if you're the parent of daughters. This book is a serious inquiry into the surge of gender dysphoria among teen girls. Shrier is careful to cast her investigative net widely in consulting with physicians, teachers, trans-affirming psychotherapists, and administrators promoting "gender affirmation" in American public schools. She also interviews many educators who lost their careers or reputations challenging the wisdom of puberty-blocking drugs or “binding” (physically obstructing the growth of breasts). She speaks directly to teens who transitioned and later regretted it.

The book is a sobering wake-up call to people who are in denial that the schools and colleges their children attend are providing transgender affirmation and even treatment without parental consent.

In a controversial but important book, the author details the risks to young girls of the current trans trend, encouraging girls who are not sufficiently "girly" to declare they are boys. What makes it worse is that they are being encouraged to take puberty blockers, followed by cross sex hormones, to bind their breasts, and to have double mastectomies. Well researched and well written, with a few weaknesses. For one, the author too often accepts the phrase "top surgery" which doesn't describe well what is really happening and lulls people into a false sense of not so bad. But what lost the book a star was the ending of the book where she declares that women have it pretty good, better than men mostly, and that we actually are a nurturing sex, prone to caring professions. In short, not men. This may be a function of being published by Regnery, a nod to the conservatism of the publishers, or she may actually be doing what she says she is doing and using her daughter as a sample size of one to declare how women behave (like a little girl, apparently). Otherwise, highly recommended. If you are a hypersensitive feminist (I am sometimes) you might start by tearing out that chapter before you read.

Scare mongering. Even the cover - suggesting little children get such treatment - is deliberately misleading. Gross.½

Extremely well written, nuanced, engaging look into the movement that is plaguing American girls.

The central thesis of this book is that some proportion of adolescent women who trans identify is triggered not necessarily by gender dysphoria they are experiencing, but rather a fad that is only promoted by mental health issues (such as social anxiety or "not fitting in") endemic particularly in late Gen Y / Gen Z teenagers. I don't believe this should be an idea that is taboo to bring up, and I found the position reasonably-argued by the book. Three things stuck out to me as compelling:

* Trans identification is concentrated in friend groups.
* The rapid increase in the identification among girls, without a corresponding rise among boys.
* The significant increase in mental health issues, combined with a fall in sexual experience as well as general in-person socialization, for teenagers in recent years.

As a (hopeful) future father, it was very surprising to me to hear that children as early as kindergarten are being taught about how gender is a continuum and shouldn't just be thought of as binary male-female. I don't have a problem with this idea in general, but I do think it is far too early to be introducing it to 5-year-olds -- it feels akin to talking about sexual intercourse or viewing a horror movie. None of these topics are intrinsically bad, but to me are inappropriate things to be exposed to at that age.

On the education topic, the lengths to which colleges (& high schools!) would go to to hide a student's trans identification from their parents made me extremely concerned. It made me wonder more generally about how good the relationship could be between parents & children in these households, if the interactions have gotten so bad that the women didn't even feel comfortable to talk about something so core to their identity as gender. My perception is, the trans identification and the parents' surprise and/or resistance was really a symptom of a problem that started much earlier and encompasses the entirety of their familial relationship.

I think my ultimate takeaway from the book is to try to encourage positive habits among adolescents in order to avoid getting into this situation in the first place. Things like promoting independence of thought, of socialization among a wide group of people, of having experiences generally and not being afraid of making mistakes. The book provides a pretty strong argument to be wary of giving unfettered access to the entire Internet to adolescents, since it means they can fall into bubbles and start to act more as a cult member than just a consumer of information. I think this all basically falls into, how good is your relationship with your children? Are you consistently investing time and energy to make sure you're there for them?

NB: I have a problem with the cover design of this book, which I believe is pretty deceiving. In an interview, the author dismisses this as "I obviously wasn't involved with the design", but in a book that takes pains to differentiate teens/adolescents versus adults, it is quite surprising to use an image of a girl that looks a decade younger than the group of people Shrier actually writes about. It is unfortunate that this design was chosen, and I hope that it is changed in future editions.

Irreversible Damage is a book filled with horror and tragedy. It is vital reading for everyone living in the contemporary English-speaking world, at the very least. It is, for outsiders of other cultures or of the (hopefully not too) distant future, an interesting journalistic account of the range of human social psychology, that may serve as a warning. For too many, the concept of "cult" is necessarily linked with religiosity; unfortunately, that has left many of us (including my younger self) vulnerable to the (often atheistic) Transgender Cult which is exerting worrying influence not only via the internet, but also on policies in schools, government, and medical centers.

An opinion writer for the WSJ, Abigail Shrier has crafted a highly engaging text, her writing style keeping me hooked the whole way through. Her arguments are logically compelling; indeed, as she writes with regards to one, many arguments almost write themselves. It is somewhat an exercise of explaining the obvious to a culture that has become afraid of saying the wrong thing, even if it is true. With a wealth of information not only from textual research, but also from her many interviews with parents and their trans-identified children, internet personalities, gender "therapists", school officials, surgeons, psychiatrists, transgender adults, and finally de-transitioners, 'Irreversible Damage' is an excellent reference for facts and personal experiences helpful in understanding the current Transgender Craze.

Reading the book was frustrating, but in the way a tragedy is frustrating. Unfortunately, Irreversible Damage tells true stories of suffering and professional incompetence; I found myself filled with an urge to share the book with everyone I know who works with young people. There were some moments of relief: in particular, the middle chapter on dissenting psychiatrists was a welcome intervention of good sense in a narrative filled with interviews of individuals actively endorsing the psychic and medical harm of young girls and women. The final chapter, 'The Way Back', left me feeling hopeful: this tragedy can be overcome, and we as a culture have clear lessons to learn.

Although there were certain sentences or passages I might critique, none were necessary to the book: they were typically analogies meant to invoke pathos. Because of its quality as a reference and its urgent relevance to our contemporary culture, I without hesitation give this work five stars.

Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters by Abigail Shrier is a very highly recommended objective, balanced examination and exploration of the current and dramatic increase of the number of teenage girls identifying as transgender. According to the CDC, currently over 2% of high school students, overwhelmingly girls, identify as transgender when historically gender dysphoria (severe discomfort with one's biological sex) was .01% of the population and almost exclusively male. Gender dysphoria usually emerges early in childhood. Today, however there is an overwhelming surge of adolescent girls claiming to have gender dysphoria and are self-identifying as transgender.

Puberty is hard on girls. (I know; I understand.) Adding to the stress of your changing body is the cruelty and criticism girls inflict upon themselves and others. They are in genuine pain. As Shrier points out this transgender movement in young girls is a new social contagion. We know it is a social contagion because it is so statistically new and overwhelmingly high in numbers. Often this is concentrated among a group of peers or around a specific community or school system. Girls are learning about this through school programs, but especially through social media influencers. We all know that social media can make everyone anxious and sad, however, it affects adolescent girls are the hardest. "[A]dolescent girls, who historically faced life’s challenges in pairs and groups, are now more likely to face them alone." These are girls who are isolated from other people and turn overwhelmingly to social media for their support and information. This gives them a community, acceptance, and the opportunity to escape into a victim identity, which gives them support immediately. Being transgender is one of the few you can choose.

When talking to a counselor or therapist, the young girls often are encourage to quickly start puberty blockers, or testosterone, and look toward top surgery (double mastectomy), all of which inflict irreversible damage on their bodies. It seems appropriate (to me) to have a requirement that young people wait until their brains mature before being encouraged to make such life changing decisions. "The prefrontal cortex, believed to hold the seat of self-regulation, typically does not complete development until age 25." Certainly you can live as a man and later, after age 25-28 once your brain has reached maturity, you can look into hormones or surgery. Shrier makes a good point that this transgender craze may partially be the result of over-parented kids desperate to stake out territory for rebellion.

"According to Dr. Zucker, the mere fact that patients may have fixated on gender as a source of their problems does not mean that that they are right or that transitioning will alleviate their distress. "I said to this kid, ‘I don’t care if you have a male brain or a female brain. This is how you’re feeling currently and we need to figure out why you’re feeling this way and what is the best way to help you lose this dysphoria.’ " It is worth asking whether a standard guided less by biology than by political correctness is in the best interest of patients. Allow their brains to mature, pass the age of rebellion, before making life changing decisions that will affect their health. "Teens and tweens today are everywhere pressed to locate themselves on a gender spectrum and within a sexuality taxonomy - long before they have finished the sexual development that would otherwise guide discovery of who they are or what they desire."

Shrier talked to trans people, parents, influencers, doctors, academics, and professionals on both sides of the issue in this informative, well written and presented examination of this current trend. This is not a transphobic book, unless information is something to be feared. She ended the book with seven rules that were wonderful for reasons beyond the topic at hand: 1. Don’t Get Your Kid a Smartphone 2. Don’t Relinquish Your Authority as the Parent 3. Don’t Support Gender Ideology in Your Child’s Education 4. Reintroduce Privacy into the Home - Quit the habit of sharing every part of your lives (and theirs) on the internet. 5. Consider Big Steps to Separate Your Daughter from Harm 6. Stop Pathologizing Girlhood 7. Don’t be Afraid to Admit: It’s Wonderful to Be a Girl.

I totally agree with this closing remark from Shrier because it seems that being female has lost favor with the broader culture and there is a war against it: "But for Pete’s sake, whatever type of women young girls become, they should all listen to feminists of a prior era and stop taking sex stereotypes seriously. A young woman can be an astronaut or a nurse; a girl can play with trucks or with dolls. And she may find herself attracted to men or to other women. None of that makes her any less of a girl or any less suited to womanhood."

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Regnery Publishing.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2020/07/irreversible-damage.html
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3427205914