Amazon workers stage ‘die-in’ protest over refusal to stop selling anti-trans books
(Getty/SOPA Images/Nicky Ebbage)
Trans Amazon workers and allies staged a ‘die-in’ protest at a company Pride celebration to protest the sale of anti-trans books.
At an Amazon Pride event in Seattle on June 1, around 30 protestors were seen lying on the floor wrapped in trans flags, while organisers made a powerful speech about transphobia at the company.
No Hate at Amazon, a worker-led group, organised the peaceful protest. It followed a petition, signed by about 600 employees, calling on Amazon to discontinue the sale of titles such as the highly-controversial Irreversible Damage, which likens being trans to having a mental illness, and the disturbing anti-trans children’s book Johnny the Walrus.
As both books remain available from Amazon, employees took to the company’s Seattle headquarters to protest.
According to Insider, the ‘die-in’ protest aimed to highlight that trans young who are denied access to gender-affirming healthcare have disproptionately high suicide rates compared to the rest of the population.
No Hate at Amazon said it organised the protest to hold Amazon accountable for “their lack of action on hate and discrimination”.
While protestors lay on the ground, representatives of No Hate at Amazon made a speech condemning the company for “spreading a culture of hatred through the sale of transphobic books”.
“We are here because Amazon upper management is not equally enforcing its content policy for transphobic books” representatives said.
“This is discrimination against transgender employees and our transgender customers.”
Protestors also criticised Pride event for being a “PR stunt”, saying: “This is blatant rainbow-washing that we cannot accept when Amazon has ignored the concerns of trans workers and our allies and profits from transphobic hate content.”
Amazon has not publicly responded to the protestors requests to discontinue the sale of anti-trans books.
Its own policy prohibits selling books “that frame LGBTQ+ identity as a mental illness”.
