Anti-transgender book called out for numerous errors months before author testified in front of Senate committee

Abigail Shrier's anti-transgender book was called out for numerous errors months before she testified before Congress against of the Equality Act.

In the world of the anti-LGBTQ propaganda, bad faith players are highly important. Bad faith players are legitimate researchers, physicians or journalists who have decided to lay their integrity on the altar of bigotry for either personal reasons or a high paycheck. 

They come out with junk science studies, cherry-picked works or books which denounce LGBTQ people. They then become hyped by the religious right and conservatives until - and this always happens - their work and motives are legitimately questioned and it is discovered that they have not been altogether honest in their claims and research.

In the 80s and 90s, LGBTQ people had to deal with  researcher Paul Cameron, who made an infamous name for himself via his now highly discredited studies. During the marriage equality fight of the mid 2000's, there was Mark Regenrus attempting to pass off his bad work as legitimate in a sad last ditch effort to make the case against marriage equality.

And now while we are knee deep in attacks on the transgender community via bad legislation, a new bad faith player has taken centerstage.

Abigail Shrier.

Shrier, a former Wall Street Journal writer, published Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters last year. The book is an ugly and inaccurate attack on transgender Americans. 

According to The American Independent:

Shrier, for her part, has written a book about transgender youth that falsely claims children are being pushed into believing they are transgender through social pressure by "trans-influencers" or trans-affirming schools. 

Experts have thoroughly debunked many of the assertions she makes in the book. She has pushed the idea of "rapid-onset gender dysphoria," the concept that transgender kids aren't really trans and are susceptible to outside influences, which first started spreading in anti-trans blogs around 2016, according to Media Matters. Those arguments are not based in fact. 

Shrier's social media presence has been hostile to transgender equality as well. This year, after the American Civil Liberties Union tweeted, "On International Women's Day, here's your reminder that trans women are women," Shrier responded in a quote-tweet, "Please keep your phony, passive-aggressive 'reminders' to yourself. No one asked you. Sincerely, women."

Her book has gotten a lot of hype and attention from the media, particularly Fox News and untalented actor/podcaster Joe Rogan, because it plays into controversy and pushes a mindset that conservatives embrace about trans people.  The American Independent points out that the anti-LGBTQ industry also embrace Shrier and her work because it aids in their present attack on transgender children under the fake guises of "protecting women's sports" and keeping children safe from unnecessary surgery." Shrier also testified in front of  a Senate committee last week against the Equality Act. The irony is that she ended up helping to refute a key negative lie about the bill.

But like other bad faith players who came before her, Cameron and Regnerus, Shrier's work is flawed. In December of last year, Psychology Today via an article by Jack Turban MD MHS, researcher, medical journalist, and child and adolescent psychiatry fellow at Stanford University School of Medicine,  called out numerous errors in her book. I want to break them down into numerical points, but please check out this link if you want to read the full article:

1.Shrier did not interview most of the transgender adolescents she wrote about. - She talked to parents who did not accept their children's transgender identity. That in itself is a serious problem from the beginning.

2. The author claims she is apolitical, but the book was published by Regnery Publishing, a publisher whose mission is advancing politically conservative viewpoints. 

3. Shrier claims that “in most cases—nearly 70 percent—gender dysphoria resolves," and thus youth should not be provided gender-affirming medical care. That statistic is false. 

4. Shrier claims that a large number of kids who say they are transgender are actually LGB and afraid to say so because transgender identity carries less stigma than being LGB. Actual data suggest otherwise. 

5. Shrier states there is evidence that providing adolescents with puberty blockers makes them more likely to continue to identify as transgender. That’s false. 

6. Shrier ignores all of the data showing that gender-affirming medical care results in improved mental health outcomes for transgender youth.

And I would like to point out something myself which accentuates just how problematic Dr. Turban's points are. Shrier has no expertise in treating trans people, much less trans children. She has nothing resembling a medical degree nor has any expertise in any form of medicine of which I or anyone else are aware of.

In other words, to be put it nicely,  Abigail Shrier doesn't know what the hell she's talking about. 

But it didn't keep her from writing her book demonizing trans people, particularly trans children. Nor did it keep her from embracing all of the attention and praise from entities who have attempted to use her book (as she probably knew they would)  to undermine the rights and safety of trans people, especially our trans children.

Issues involving transgender Americans are complex and never clear-cut. To understand these issues and trans people in general, we need to be listeners and we also need people with some expertise in the matter giving us accurate and unbiased information.

The one thing we don't need are bad faith players trying to make a fast buck off of fear and ignorance.  However, when taking it into account that bad faith players are in the mix, what we also apparently need is discernment. Anyone coming out a book shouldn't be put on the same level as medical professionals with experience, particularly  if said books has numerous errors and if that person comes across as a shrewish liar with no credentials and no regard for  the lives she will damage in her pursuit of fame and prominence.