Irreversible Damage

Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters is a 2020 book by Abigail Shrier, published by Regnery Publishing, which endorses the controversial concept of rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD). ROGD is not recognized as a medical diagnosis by any major professional institution nor is it backed by credible scientific evidence. Shrier says that the book is about "the sudden, severe spike in transgender identification among adolescent girls" in the 2010s, referring to teenagers assigned female at birth. She attributes this to a social contagion while promoting the book she wrote that these were "the same high-anxiety, depressive (mostly white) girls who, in previous decades, fell prey to anorexia and bulimia or multiple personality disorder". Shrier also criticizes gender-affirming psychiatric support, hormone replacement therapy and sex reassignment surgery (together often referred to as "gender-affirming care") as treatment for gender dysphoria in young people. The book has received mixed responses. Several positive reviews were published endorsing Shrier's claims about trans people, but the book was also criticized for repeating anti-trans medical misinformation. Several retailers refused to sell the book in response to these criticisms.