Conservative author Ryan T. Anderson criticized Amazon’s decision to re-list his 2018 book “When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment,” calling it a “purely political move” made out of concern for regulatory scrutiny.
“I think this is purely a political move. Four years ago, with the Biden administration, they thought that they were on the right side of history. And now, four years later, they see that they’re not,” Anderson told Fox News. “My guess is that they didn’t want the Federal Trade Commission to open an investigation.”
“When Harry Became Sally” was a bestseller on Amazon after its publication in 2018. The book was intended to provide “thoughtful answers to questions arising from our transgender moment” and offer “a balanced approach to public policy on gender identity, and a sober assessment of the human costs of getting human nature wrong.”
However, Amazon removed the book in February 2021, weeks after the Biden administration took office. At the time, Amazon’s Vice President of Public Policy defended the decision, stating that the company chose not to sell books that “frame LGBTQ+ identity as a mental illness.” Anderson, however, rejected that characterization, stating that “nowhere” in his book did he make such a claim.
Now, without direct communication from Amazon, Anderson’s book has been re-listed. He speculated that the decision stemmed from Amazon’s concern over scrutiny under the Trump administration, as his organization had pressured the company to reinstate the book after President Donald Trump took office and signed an executive order defending “the biological reality of sex.”
Amazon released a statement in which it explained its decision, saying, “Balancing free speech and content that could be construed as hate speech is one of the most difficult adjudication decisions we make as a company. A few years ago, we removed ‘When Harry Became Sally’ from our store after concluding that it violated our guidelines prohibiting books that promote hate speech. This was not an easy decision and was hotly debated.”
The statement continued, “Since then, many other retailers (e.g. Barnes & Noble, Walmart, Powell’s, etc.) have continued to sell this book, and we’ve continued to receive feedback from customers that the ideas presented in this book, while controversial, should be available for those who want to read and understand the perspective of its author.”
“The combination of our peer retailers continuing to sell the book and the ongoing feedback made us re-examine our decision. As was the case when we reviewed the book a few years ago, it was not an easy decision, but we concluded that we erred on the side of being too restrictive last time, and decided to return the book to our store,” Amazon concluded.
