# The Ongoing Death of Free Speech: Prominent ACLU Lawyer Cheers Suppression of a New Book **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 18, 2020, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ongoing-death-of-free-speech-prominent-aclu-lawyer-cheers-suppression-of-a-new-book/925913 "2020-11-18T20:46:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2020, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ongoing-death-of-free-speech-prominent-aclu-lawyer-cheers-suppression-of-a-new-book/925913/121 "2020-11-19T18:27:42Z")
Thanks! I was starting to pick that up in this thread, but wasn’t sure. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2020, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ongoing-death-of-free-speech-prominent-aclu-lawyer-cheers-suppression-of-a-new-book/925913/122 "2020-11-19T18:29:25Z")
So, you arent fighting for this transphobic bigoted piece of garbage because you agree with it’s message? ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2020, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ongoing-death-of-free-speech-prominent-aclu-lawyer-cheers-suppression-of-a-new-book/925913/123 "2020-11-19T18:31:54Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > And now you don’t have to do any of that, now you can just set yourself up a blog And this is the key point. The marketplace of ideas doesn’t owe you any more than that. Indeed, it doesn’t even owe you that much, but the fact that it’s accessible to anyone puts the lie to Greenwald’s thesis. Nobody is owed anything more than a blog post. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2020, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ongoing-death-of-free-speech-prominent-aclu-lawyer-cheers-suppression-of-a-new-book/925913/124 "2020-11-19T18:38:40Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > But we are not talking about things that are not on Google or Amazon, we are talking about things that _are_ on Google and Amazon. They just are not being promoted as much as the authors would like. People actually have to do some level of seeking it out. We have created a public that doesn’t seem to undertand that “push” is a marketing tool, not an information dissemination service. ---
**Author:** ![BeepKillBeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@BeepKillBeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeepKillBeep)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2020, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ongoing-death-of-free-speech-prominent-aclu-lawyer-cheers-suppression-of-a-new-book/925913/125 "2020-11-19T19:04:30Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > Because there is a lot of value in exposing everyone to a range of opinions I’m going to assume you didn’t look at any of the three papers I cited above (I can get you more if you want). People do not end up being exposed to a range of opinions due to filter bubbling. So if you want to accomplish this then you should be in favor of the media/tech giants automatically posting the opposing viewpoint, which the right is mislabeling censorship. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2020, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ongoing-death-of-free-speech-prominent-aclu-lawyer-cheers-suppression-of-a-new-book/925913/126 "2020-11-19T19:09:08Z")
The right isn’t even in favor of giving the opposing viewpoint _equal time_ on the publicly owned airwaves. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2020, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ongoing-death-of-free-speech-prominent-aclu-lawyer-cheers-suppression-of-a-new-book/925913/127 "2020-11-19T19:11:05Z")
I don’t know about the public, but the OP and their cause célèbre du jour certainly don’t seem to understand that. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2020, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ongoing-death-of-free-speech-prominent-aclu-lawyer-cheers-suppression-of-a-new-book/925913/128 "2020-11-19T19:15:04Z")
This ^ Glenn Greenwald is glorified concern troll. ---
**Author:** ![YWTF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/d07c76/32.png) [@YWTF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YWTF)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2020, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ongoing-death-of-free-speech-prominent-aclu-lawyer-cheers-suppression-of-a-new-book/925913/129 "2020-11-19T19:25:08Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > So, you arent fighting for this transphobic bigoted piece of garbage because you agree with it’s message? Can you please pretty please explain how this piece is garbage? Has Abigal Shrier been shown to be a fraud? Have the book’s ideas been debunked by experts and fact-checkers? I keep seeing bad things asserted about her and the book but I don’t know what support there is for either conclusion. Since I have not read this book, I’m not able to defend it. Have you read it? [For your awareness, Sweden has recently published data on transitioning children over the last decade.](https://genderreport.ca/the-swedish-u-turn-on-gender-transitioning/) After a big spike in females seeking transition starting in 2012, the country has seen a dramatic decline in these cases in the last couple of years. The decline corresponded with experts calling on the government to review clinical protocols and promote more balanced media coverage of detransitioners. So now the Swedish medical community is speaking out against giving puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to kids because of the lack of scientific evidence for this treatment. They are concerned that too many misdiagnoses are occurring and that thousands of kids are being harmed by it. The U-shaped curve in referrals is evidence that highly suggestible kids can easily wide up on a medicalized pathway if treatment standards lack stringency. From what I know about it, the book we’re talking about seems consistent with the same theme. Are you prepared to say Swedish experts are garbage? Are they bigoted transphobes too because of the conclusions they draw? If not, can you explain why Abigal Shrier deserves excoriation but not them? ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2020, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ongoing-death-of-free-speech-prominent-aclu-lawyer-cheers-suppression-of-a-new-book/925913/130 "2020-11-19T19:31:51Z")
Articles complaining about “cancel culture” are like articles explaining how you, personally, can reduce your carbon footprint. They’re essentially corporate disinformation. Exxon wants you to think about climate change in terms of sorting your recycling, and not in terms of holding industrial polluters responsible for the damage they’ve caused, even though the latter is the source of the actual problem. Facebook wants you to think about free speech in terms of tolerating different ideas, and not in terms of preventing a single private corporation from having a stranglehold on public discourse. If there’s a problem with how big tech and freedom of speech interact, the solution is to change big tech, not freedom of speech. Everyone here wringing their hands about “liberals not respecting free speech anymore” is falling for Zuckerberg’s sucker play. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2020, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ongoing-death-of-free-speech-prominent-aclu-lawyer-cheers-suppression-of-a-new-book/925913/131 "2020-11-19T19:35:10Z")
> [@YWTF](#): > > Since I have not read this book, I’m not able to defend it. Have you read it? No, I would never support bigoted books. To read is to buy, and I won’t buy. Do I need to read Mein Kampf to tell you it is bigoted garbage? > **[Target Pulls Anti-Trans Book By Abigail Shrier - Book and Film Globe](https://bookandfilmglobe.com/author-stuff/abigail-shrier/)** > > Writer Abigail Shrier is the newest subject of internet controversy, as Target pulled her recent book, Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing **# Target Pulls Anti-Trans Book from Shelves** > **[Abigail Shrier and the Dangers of Making Psychological Assertions from...](https://theorion.com/85233/opinion/abigail-shrier-and-the-dangers-of-making-psychological-assertions-from-limited-data/)** > > This article focuses on a straight, white, cis female opinion writer discussing the book a straight, white, cis female opinion writer wrote concerning transgenderism. I can’t possibly see how this article could get into any difficult territory. ... \*## At times, reading this book gives you the sense there is an underlining trans-exclusionary radical feminist (TERF) message. In the way that feminist women like to blame the transgender community for the problems society as a whole has created against women. Now these messages aren’t blatant but rather sprinkled in with delicate phrasing. \* \*While researching reactions to this book I found a disturbing amount of feminist blogs, articles and youtube videos that push this anti-trans narratives. One article praised Shrier for her attention to the problems facing young women while links to other articles labeling transgender people as sexual and violent degenerates ran alongside it. \* _There was no way to avoid the anti-trans stench that assaulted your senses like a tomcat’s piss. Potent and saturated to let you know how much they hate transgender people and their gender ideology._ > **[Target Removed a Transphobic Book From Shelves — Then Replaced It a Day Later](https://www.them.us/story/target-transphobic-book-removed-irreversable-damage-abigail-shrier)** > > As always, it bears repeating that The Brands Are Not Your Friends. _# Target Removed a Transphobic Book From Shelves — Then Replaced It a Day Later… Target recently came under fire from all directions for claiming that it would remove the widely-criticized book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters from its shelves, only to walk back that decision almost immediately after countless screeds about “free speech.” All of this, naturally, is unfolding during Trans Awareness Week, ensuring that no trans person online can exist for even a second without being aware of the soul-crushing weight of transphobia_. So, to make my position clear- **trans people who have read and reviewed the book say it is transphobic. I accept what they say.** “Garbage” may be a bit too strong, sure. But “bigoted” is not. ---
**Author:** ![BeepKillBeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@BeepKillBeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeepKillBeep)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2020, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ongoing-death-of-free-speech-prominent-aclu-lawyer-cheers-suppression-of-a-new-book/925913/132 "2020-11-19T19:39:02Z")
> [@YWTF](#): > > Have the book’s ideas been debunked by experts and fact-checkers? Yes, they have, perhaps not her specifically. Her entire viewpoint is inconsistent with the existing psychological literature on transgenderism. It is nothing but transphobia in book form. ---
**Author:** ![BeepKillBeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@BeepKillBeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeepKillBeep)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2020, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ongoing-death-of-free-speech-prominent-aclu-lawyer-cheers-suppression-of-a-new-book/925913/133 "2020-11-19T19:44:57Z")
Funny you should mention that because the author in question has a video at Pranger (I will not give them the University suffix because that’s a lie) railing about cancel culture for anyone who dares have the wrong opinion about transgenderism. I watched it. Don’t bother. There’s nothing especially new or interesting in her rhetoric. ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2020, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ongoing-death-of-free-speech-prominent-aclu-lawyer-cheers-suppression-of-a-new-book/925913/134 "2020-11-19T19:45:07Z")
Can we please not derail this thread into talking about the trans stuff? Unless you’ve read the book, we don’t need your opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2020, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ongoing-death-of-free-speech-prominent-aclu-lawyer-cheers-suppression-of-a-new-book/925913/135 "2020-11-19T19:45:48Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > Can we please not derail this thread into talking about the trans stuff? Unless you’ve read the book, we don’t need your opinion You’ve read it? ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2020, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ongoing-death-of-free-speech-prominent-aclu-lawyer-cheers-suppression-of-a-new-book/925913/136 "2020-11-19T19:46:53Z")
I have not, and that’s why I didn’t give my opinion on it. This thread is about censorship. ---
**Author:** ![BeepKillBeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@BeepKillBeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeepKillBeep)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2020, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ongoing-death-of-free-speech-prominent-aclu-lawyer-cheers-suppression-of-a-new-book/925913/137 "2020-11-19T19:48:02Z")
So, we’re not allowed to express our opinions in this thread as we see fit? You’re the gatekeeper of what can and cannot be posted? CENSORSHIP!!! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2020, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ongoing-death-of-free-speech-prominent-aclu-lawyer-cheers-suppression-of-a-new-book/925913/138 "2020-11-19T19:49:11Z")
I agree with **DemonTree**. Can we have discussion about the book in a different thread? ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2020, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ongoing-death-of-free-speech-prominent-aclu-lawyer-cheers-suppression-of-a-new-book/925913/139 "2020-11-19T19:49:34Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > This thread is about censorship. Well, no. There have not been any examples of censorship in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2020, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ongoing-death-of-free-speech-prominent-aclu-lawyer-cheers-suppression-of-a-new-book/925913/140 "2020-11-19T19:50:43Z")
A thread that asks, “Is this censorship?” is a thread about censorship, even if the answer is a resounding, “No, it’s not.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ongoing-death-of-free-speech-prominent-aclu-lawyer-cheers-suppression-of-a-new-book/925913.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ongoing-death-of-free-speech-prominent-aclu-lawyer-cheers-suppression-of-a-new-book/925913.md?page=8)