A book review discussing the irreversible damage of gender dysphoria in children was removed after backlash.
A favorable review on Science-Based Medicine about “Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters” by Abigail Shrier was removed after it received considerable backlash on social media.
“After careful review, the editors of SBM decided to retract this book review,” the blog said. “Because we allow trusted authors to publish without prior review for the sake of efficiency and timeliness, occasionally corrections need to be made post-publication. In this case we felt there were too many issues with the treatment of the relevant science, and leaving the article up would not be appropriate given the standards of SBM.”
The blog denied that the move had anything to do with censorship.
“Already there are false accusations that this move was motivated by pressure from readers,” the blog’s press release read. “This is not the case. SBM had and never will cave to outside pressure. We have endured a great extent of such pressure, including the threat of lawsuits and actual litigation...any attempts at portraying this retraction as censorship are also false. This has nothing to do with silencing opinions or perspectives, but rather is entirely a matter of quality control. SBM is first and foremost about high quality scientific evidence and reasoning to inform medical issues, and we felt the article in question was below the minimal acceptable standard for SBM.”
Still, some prominent conservatives on Twitter didn’t buy it.
“It was absolutely censorship, and anyone saying otherwise is delusional or gaslighting,” Mark Hemingway, Senior Writer at RealClearInvestigations wrote.
“This is madness. We’re retracting REVIEWS of books ppl may find controversial now? Grow up,” Megyn Kelly added.
“This is terrifying stuff. How did criticizing gender transition for children become the most intolerable position in American debate?” Tim Carney, a columnist at The Washington Examiner, said.
The blog added that it would leave comments up “for now” to “ encourage full, open, and respectful discussion.”
Conservatives are under attack. Contact Dr. David H. Gorski, Science-Based Medicine’s Managing Editor, at SBMEditor@icloud.com and demand that the blog not target conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us at the Media Research Center contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
