I became aware of the book Desist, Detrans, & Detox: Getting Your Child Out of the Gender Cult on April 13, when its author revealed on social media that Amazon had removed the book, launched only six days prior, from its bookstore. Maria Keffler, the author, was later informed by Amazon that the book’s content violated “content guidelines.” One of Keffler’s supporters, who asked an Amazon representative why the book was removed, was told the book was “offensive.” The account used to publish the book was blocked. Met with complaints from Keffler’s supporters around the world, Amazon restored the book and the account the following day with an apology for the “inconvenience” caused by the company having “incorrectly suppressed” the work.

On April 14, I sat with author Maria Keffler to briefly discuss her new book.

Yesterday was my first time hearing about your book, Desist, Detrans & Detox. I read your post saying that Amazon had removed your book from its listings. I remember this happened to another author recently, Ryan T. Anderson, who has a book that was also published on the topic of gender identity.

Yes, but we were pleased and surprised that Amazon put it back up this afternoon.

I’m glad. I just read that on Twitter a little while ago. Can you tell me what your book is about?

It’s for parents of trans-identified kids who want to go a different direction than affirmation of the trans identity. The book outlines how trans ideology correlates with cults, and how to apply love and logic to help bring a child out of the cult.

That’s great, especially in light of the recent longitudinal study, which found most boys who transition desist at later ages. The study found that children are less likely to desist if transitioned at a young age, so it seems that the affirmative approach is fixing children onto a path they might not otherwise choose, given time.

Yes, exactly. Affirmation fixes a child into the trans identity. There’s so much wrong with affirmation-only. Talking to do many parents who have gone through this, and being baffled by how “experts” could be ignoring sound principles of child development and robust research led me to feel a need for better guidance for parents. I’ve been asking for a while, “Who is writing guidance for parents? Who’s working on a roadmap for this?” Others are working on various aspects of this – politics, sports, financial investigation, etc. But no one seemed to be working on anything for parents.

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Thank you, Maria. I would encourage everyone concerned about the effects of the gender identity movement on children to purchase Desist, Detrans, & Detox: Getting Your Child Out of the Gender Cult, particularly in light of the revelation that roughly two million transgender high schoolers now identify as transgender. I will be reading the book, too. All of the proceeds of book sales will go to Partners for Ethical Care, an organization dedicated to stopping the unethical, unnecessary medical intervention to which children are being subjected by “schools, hospitals, and mental and medical healthcare providers under the duplicitous banner of gender identity affirmation.” The organization published the book after receiving many questions from parents asking what they could do to save their children, and realizing there were no resources to direct the parents to. Desist, Detrans, & Detox: Getting Your Child Out of the Gender Cult can be purchased on Amazon or Smashwords.

You can watch a more extensive discussion of Desist, Detrans, & Detox: Getting Your Child Out of the Gender Cult between Keffler and Erin Brewer, below.