Amazon Pulls Books Presenting LGBTQ + Identities As Mental Illness After GOP Complaint

Amazon on Thursday announced plans to stop selling all books that describe transgender and other sexual identities as mental illness, a move made after four Republican Senators complained to CEO Jeff Bezos last month when the company released a single book on the subject of its virtual shelves. .

In his response to Senators Thursday, Brian Huseman, Amazon’s vice president for public policy, said the company’s content guidelines were regularly updated, sometimes resulting in the deletion of previously approved books.

The company had no intention of picking just one book, he explained. On the contrary, it will completely ban the whole category.

“We reserve the right not to sell certain content,” wrote Huseman. “All the retailers decide which selection they choose to offer, just like us.

“As for your specific question on When Harry became Sally, we have chosen not to sell books that present the LGBTQ + identity as a mental illness. “

The book, “When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment,” had been available on Amazon for three years before it was retired in February.

His sudden disappearance from the Amazon store prompted Republican Representatives Marco Rubio (Florida), Mike Lee (Utah), Mike Braun (Ind.) And Josh Hawley (Mo.) to accuse the e-commerce giant of political censorship “for the crime of violation awakened group thinking.

The men also accused Amazon of having “a vague and undefined standard of ‘offensive content'” that had been inappropriately used to justify the deletion of a single book, noting that it had previously been allowed to be sold.

In response to that claim on Thursday, Huseman noted that Amazon had clarified its content guidelines. The company now explicitly bans “books that portray LGBTQ + identity as a mental illness.”