Irreversible Damage

The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters

By: Abigail Shrier

Narrated by: Pamela Almand

Irreversible Damage is an exploration of a mystery: Why, in the last decade, has the diagnosis "gender dysphoria", transformed from a vanishingly rare affliction, applying almost exclusively to boys and men, to an epidemic among teenage girls?

Author Abigail Shrier presents shocking statistics and stories from real families to show that America and the West have become fertile ground for a "transgender craze" that has nothing to do with real gender dysphoria and everything to do with our cultural frailty. Teenage girls are taking courses of testosterone and disfiguring their bodies. Parents are undermined; experts are over-relied upon; dissenters in science and medicine are intimidated; free speech truckles under renewed attack; socialized medicine bears hidden consequences; and an intersectional era has arisen in which the desire to escape a dominant identity encourages individuals to take cover in victim groups.

Every person who has ever had a skeptical thought about the sudden rush toward a non-binary future but been afraid to express it - this book is for you.

©2020 Abigail Shrier (P)2020 Blackstone Publishing

Too Important To Ignore

To say a book is bad, suggests one thing. To say a book should not be read, suggests another.

Shrier's analysis of this social phenomenon is a well-observed five-alarm-fire for all parents. To argue this does not affect non-trans people is simply wrong, as many of Shrier's interviews revealed well-intentioned parents caught blindsided by their children's rapid behavioral and ideological changes. Anyone with a working definition of basic terms like "man/male" and "woman/female" has a vested interest in prescribed changes to those definitions. So... everybody is affected by this. Everyone.

Shrier's recommendations are largely commendable. Minors should not receive smart phones with unlimited internet access. Parents should let their kids rebel in less dramatic, more easily recoverable ways. These two things are important starts.

Shrier does not conclude that transition is no good for anyone. Her concern is over how soon and by what criteria one should be able to choose to transition.

Almand narrates the book well. She reads very matter-of-fact, which did not engage me at times, but kept the performance fair and free of bias.

A MUST READ for all parents.

It's sad that I have to preface my review with a signaling to my virtuousness (LOL) but here we are. I am a woman who has dated trans men & butch lesbians. I have zero bigotry toward anyone in the queer community. However, this book is actually WHOLLY UNRELATED to those facts about me. It's NOT about actual trans people. It's about the sudden trend of teen girls claiming they're trans out of the clear blue sky.

The book doesn't touch on this, but I personally believe the new trans movement is extremely anti-gay. Many of the lesbians I have dated talked about their childhood and laughed about how bad they wanted to be a boy...how they wanted their name changed, wanted to tell everyone they were a boy. Not a single one of these women would want to be a man now. It was a PHASE...a natural tantrum that a kid throws when they realize they aren't into the girly stuff their mom is dressing them in. They see the boys doing the stuff they want to do, so they think they want to be a boy. But then they grow up a bit and hit puberty and get a girlfriend and quickly realize they're a lesbian.

The trans men I have dated knew they were dysphoric at age 5 - but instead of growing out of the phase, they never desisted. It was never a shock to any parent or friend...they had been this way all along. No one should have a problem with that.

This book is not about trans people. It is about teen girls who have become susceptible to yet another crazy, like bulimia, anorexia, multiple personality disorder, & now claiming to be trans.

A must read for the 2020-2021 New World

This book is a must read for anyone with daughters or anyone trying to get a handle as to what we are witnessing in 2020 and now 2021. There is a crisis going on with young girls and the author does an excellent job presenting her argument as to why this is happening.

Heartbreaking stories

The book is excellent. Well researched and the stories are told fairly and impartially. The stories are heartbreaking but, this is what proper Journalism is intended to produce. Thank you.

Required Reading

This book discusses a very important and controversial subject in a thoughtful and thorough way. As am educator seeing how social media and peer pressure affects students, I believe this should be required reading for anyone who wants to truly support teens as they grow and discover who they are.