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March 23, 2021 - Dennis Prager Show
07:06
"When Harry Met Sally"
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Time Text
Claims of Mental Illness in Books 00:03:09
I'm Dennis Prager.
I'm speaking to and with Ryan Anderson.
And he's president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, among other achievements.
His book is When Harry Became Sally, Responding to the Transgender Moment.
It's taken off a few weeks ago, simply removed after three years, removed by Amazon.
No reason given other than...
What was their wording again, Ryan?
They falsely claim that the book frames LGBTQ identities as mental illnesses.
Are there any books out there that claim that Trump's support was a mental illness?
I'm sure there must be.
Trump derangement syndrome.
No, that's our claim.
That's the people who hate Trump.
By the way, I wonder if anybody who says Trump derangement syndrome could not have his book sold.
That's claimed to be a mental problem or mental illness even.
What about all of the psychiatrists who said that he was mentally ill and unfit to be president?
Are their books allowed on Amazon?
The answer, of course, to all of this is yes.
I'll ask you two questions.
Why do you think this is the third rail now, the transgender issue?
Which is a very large question.
And the other is, why did they allow Abigail Schreier's book on this subject to remain on Amazon?
Those are great questions.
On the latter, I have no idea because I think Abigail's book is outstanding.
It's excellent.
It doesn't pull its punches.
I encourage all of our listeners to go out and buy it.
You can't buy it from Target, though.
Target removed Abigail's book, put it back for a little bit, and I believe just removed it again a couple weeks ago.
I don't know.
This would suggest that there's some arbitrariness to Amazon's standards.
That's what you were getting at.
With your question of, you know, are they going to be doing this to anyone who discusses, you know, mental illness, blah, blah, blah.
It just seems like they're being arbitrary.
They're being selective.
They're doing this in a targeted way to try to take someone down.
You know, I now run a think tank that was probably the most prominent organization in D.C. opposing the Equality Act last week.
You know, the two people who testified against it was Abigail Schreier and was one of our fellows at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
So all sorts of reasons why they might be.
To your first question, though, and I think that's really the crucial question here, I think to a certain extent, some of the transgender issues actually, they realize how weak their claims are that they can't win in an open, fair debate that ordinary Americans would see through.
Admitting Insecurity 00:04:12
The emperor has no clothes on these issues, and so they have to shut down the debate.
So actually, I don't think it's a sign of...
You know, them being secure in their position, I actually think it's a way that they're admitting some insecurity, that they don't think they can win if all the facts get out.
And so they're trying to, you know, prematurely censor the debate from even happening.
I think it's a very good answer.
Of all their positions, that might be the most self-consciously weak.
That men give birth is not easy.
For even a leftist to say with a straight face.
That's right.
And that high school boys should be winning girls' athletic competitions.
These track athletes who have lost.
These two high school boys who keep coming in first and second place in all the Connecticut state track championships.
Joe the Plumber sees that and knows it's wrong.
You don't need to be politically conservative.
You don't need to be religiously devoured.
To say that something's not fair when obvious biological males are competing against girls and wiping the floor with them.
I mean, there's an unfair advantage there.
And so I think they just want to ignore it.
Censor it.
Quiet.
Stop raising an issue about this.
Where is your book available?
The best place to get it is going to be direct from the publisher because the publisher has a backbone.
They're not going to cancel me.
They're not embarrassed about this.
It's Roger Kimball.
And Encounter Books.
And you probably have had tons of guests from Encounter Books over the years because they publish a lot of really good books.
And so I would say go to EncounterBooks.com and then look at what else they carry because you're probably going to find three or four additional titles that you might want to read.
Is it still available on Barnes& Noble?
It is.
So I think Barnes& Noble sees this as a market opportunity.
With Amazon canceling the book, So far, they have refused to cancel it.
They are out of stock, though.
And so, unfortunately, what ended up happening was there was the Streisand effect.
As Amazon canceled it, more people wanted to go out and get it.
Walmart also sold out, and then they started canceling people's orders.
So it may actually end up hurting me with book sales because people who went out to buy the book are now getting their orders canceled from Walmart.
That just strikes me as a bad business practice.
Asked you why you think that there is such an uproar over this issue in particular.
And you mentioned, and I think it's a very intelligent response, they in their hearts know it doesn't make sense.
That it's not fair to girls to have biological boys compete against them.
They know that.
They have to suppress it.
I think, so I agree.
So I'm asking an additional question.
Why do you think they've even taken this position?
Ideology.
I think most politicians who were in favor of gay marriage didn't think twice about what the T in LGBT even stood for.
And now you have Joe Biden saying that transgender rights are the human rights issue of our time and we can't compromise over them.
I doubt if you were to sit down with him, you know, privately, confidentially over dinner and say, Joe, tell me about, you know, what is a transgender right?
Like, what is this?
I doubt he fully knows what it means for medicine, puberty, blocking drugs.
Well, listen, your center is in good hands with you.
It's a very important book.
When Harry became, is it became or becomes?
I want to get that right.
When Harry became Sally at Encounter Books or Barnes& Noble.
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