Abigail Shrier’s 2020 book Irreversible Damage put her on the map as a clear-eyed observer who wasn’t afraid to draw conclusions from the things she saw and heard. Irreversible Damage is a sobering, forthright, and frequently persuasive case against transgender “care” for minors, especially girls. Just how influential that book became may never be fully known, but considering the medical, legislative, and cultural backlash against things like hormone therapy and “top surgeries” for minors, it’s worth pointing out that an excellently written polemic can play a role in bringing about real change.
Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up has the same stylish verve and “Wow”-inducing level of journalistic discovery as Irreversible Damage. Unfortunately, it is unlikely to be as influential as the former book, which is a shame, because Bad Therapy arguably goes upstream from the gender insanity and finds what very well may be its source. The problem is not so much that Shrier says wrong things or even misunderstands the meaning of what she observers. The problem is that, compared to transgender ideology, what she documents in Bad Therapy has a far more sympathetic audience of people—people who could have used a book that went out of its way to persuade, not merely agitate.