Amazon is no longer selling books that paint LGBTQIA identities as mental illnesses.
This was stated in a letter from the company’s Vice President of Public Policy, Brian Huseman, which was published by The Wall Street Journal. This letter actually responded to an earlier letter by right-wing US republican senators – Marco Rubio of Florida, Mike Lee of Utah, Mike Braun of Indiana, and Josh Hawley of Missouri – who asked Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in February why an anti-transgender book was no longer available on Amazon, Kindle, or Audible.
The politicians framed the removal of “When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment” published in 2018 by Ryan T. Anderson, as a free speech issue.
In response, Huseman stated that Amazon has “chosen not to sell books that frame LGBTQ+ identity as a mental illness”.
Amazon prohibits products “that promote intolerance based on race, religion, and sexual orientation,” as well as those “that promote, incite, or glorify hate or violence towards any person or group.”
Anderson – the book’s author – tweeted in 2018 that “gender dysphoria is a serious mental health issue. By contrast transgenderism is a belief system that increasingly looks like a cultish religion — modern day Gnosticism denying physical reality for deceived perceptions — being forced on the public by the state.” The book’s description, in fact, partially stated: “Everyone has something at stake in the controversies over transgender ideology, when misguided ‘antidiscrimination’ policies allow biological men into women’s restrooms and penalize Americans who hold to the truth about human nature.”
