Books

Irreversible Damage

Abigail Shrier

NAMED A BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE ECONOMIST AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2021 BY THE TIMES

‘Abigail Shrier does something simple yet devastating: she rigorously lays out the facts’ The Times

Groups of female friends in schools across the world are coming out as ‘transgender’. Most are girls who have never expressed any discomfort in their biological sex until they hear a coming out story from a speaker at a school assembly or discover the internet community of trans influencers. ‘Gender-affirming’ therapists now recommend medical interventions for them.

Abigail Shrier, a writer for the Wall Street Journal, investigates this phenomenon. Shrier has talked to the girls, their agonised parents, and the therapists and doctors who enable gender transitions, as well as to ‘detransitioners’ – young women who regret what they have done to themselves.

Shrier concludes that far too much of the discourse around being female is negative, and offers a series of steps parents can take to enhance their daughters’ well-being.

‘Every parent needs to read this’ Helen Joyce

Hardback

ISBN: 9781800750340

Published: December 31, 2020

Paperback

ISBN: 9781800750364

Published: June 17, 2021

Ebook

ISBN: 9781800750357

Published: December 11, 2020

Category:
Non-fiction

Reviews for Irreversible Damage

A Times Best Book of 2021

‘Punchy, analytical and written with the zest and elegance of a journalist at the top of her game’ – Sunday Times

‘Courageous. Vital. Brilliant. Humane‘ – Mail on Sunday

‘Every parent needs to read this gripping travelogue through Gender Land, a perilous place where large numbers of teenage girls come to grief despite their loving parents’ efforts to rescue them’ – Helen Joyce, senior staff writer at The Economist

‘In Irreversible Damage, Abigail Shrier provides a thought-provoking examination of a new clinical phenomenon mainly affecting adolescent females that has, at lightning speed, swept across North America and parts of Western Europe and Scandinavia. It is a book that will be of great interest to parents, the general public and mental health clinicians’ – Dr Kenneth J. Zucker, adolescent and child psychologist and chair of the DSM-5 Work Group on Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders

‘A work brimming with compassion for a vulnerable subset of our population: teenage girls. It is a work that makes you want to keep reading because it is accessible, lucid and compelling. A must-read for all those who care about the lot of our girls and women’ – Ayaan Hirsi Ali

‘A folksy, anecdotal tour of a well-evidenced phenomenon‘ – Private Eye

‘A detailed look at the context and consequences of this rise in transgender identity’ – Irish Independent

Author

Abigail Shrier

Abigail Shrier is a writer for the Wall Street Journal. She holds an A.B. from Columbia College, where she received the Euretta J. Kellett Fellowship; a BPhil. from the University of Oxford; and a J.D. from Yale Law School.