Wrapping up Banned Books Week

While preparing this series on this year's Banned Books Week, which ends today, I happened to be searching some old posts here for an unrelated reason, and coincidentally came upon this one from 2004, which I had forgotten about. In it, I quote Mark Shea from his now-defunct Blogger blog:

I assert that no book is banned if it's not illegal to print it or possess it. For every book on their "banned" list, I could order up a dozen copies and freely read them on the steps of the police station. . . .

This affected outrage at this straw-man threat to liberty leads people to believe that they are living with a boot on their collective neck. And since most—;if not all—;of the banned books are children's books "banned" at the behest of parents, the kids get the idea that parents are oppressive.

Seventeen years later, I still generally agree with this. In fact, it's worth elaborating on.

I'm a boy, I'm a boy, but my ma won't admit it

Once again, this Banned Books Week, let's see how the sponsors of Banned Books Week like to pay lip service to opposing censorship while actively attempting to limit access to books they disapprove of.

In 2020, Regnery published Irreversible Damage by journalist Abigail Shrier, subtitled The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters. This book discusses the rapid proliferation in recent years of transgender identification amongst young women and girls. It defends the idea of "rapid onset gender dysphoria," a form of social contagion in which several members of a young peer group, who previously showed no signs of confusion about their gender identity, suddenly identify as transgender and show symptoms of gender dysphoria. (Or, as my medically unqualified self would tend to call it, peer pressure.)

Irreversible Damage has controversial: generally receiving positive reviews in newspapers and news magazines, but more critical reviews in science and (understandably) LGBT publications. But it has sold well. At the time of writing, it is the #1 book on Amazon on transgenderism, and #13 in political topics. The Sunday Times of London predicted it would be one of the best books of 2021. As a brisk-selling book, then, it was understandable that the American Booksellers Association (ABA) would promote it to its members.

And that's where the trouble started.