Amazon execs say Matt Walsh’s bestselling children’s book is ‘traumatic’ for trans employees and customers

Before playing a complaint from a customer, one team member said: "It's been a very traumatic experience for transgender Amazonians and our transgender customers. What I don't want to come out of this is slamming the books team with a bunch of tickets; they're already aware of this. There will be there are things in this space that are happening."

"But 'Johnny the Walrus' is a bit of a problematic book. Not a bit, it is — it is not a bit of a problem. It's one hell of a problem," he stressed.

The team member continued on to play a complaint from a female customer, who claimed that the children's novel is pushing kids to bully transgender children into committing suicide.

"I just checked your website and the book is still on there. I hate to tell you, but it says that the book that it is shipped and sold from you, it is by Matt Walsh," the woman said.

"It is teaching kids to kill, well, to bully transgenders. Yeah to-to bully them into committing suicide the LGBTQIA, especially transgenders," she continued.

Explaining the book, the woman said that that the book is about a child that pretends to be a walrus, and "the community tells him he either has to be a human or he has to be a walrus or they're going to kill him. He can't be both, he can't pretend anymore."

The woman continued on to reference a tweet posted by Walsh in December, which stated: "I now have the number one LGBT book in the country. Any further criticism of me or my book is now homophobic. Checkmate," though the woman said he had the number one "anti-LGBT book."

"You are selling a manual on how to teach kids to bully other kids to commit suicide," the woman yelled, saying the book needs to be stripped from the website.

"Now he is bragging that he has the number one book, you are still gonna continue to sell it and now he's bragging and that he's glad it's going to make the LGBTQIA kids, especially transgenders, commit suicide. He's bragging about it on Twitter," she said, noting that she identifies as part of the LGBTQIA community.

A team member said that the ability for Walsh's book to rank so highly on the LGBTQ list was because "it's bad faith. It's basically abuse of Amazon systems," and that Walsh and others "are taking advantage of Amazon and how the Amazon algorithms work. To promote their particular brand of hate and harm on the community."

Another team member said, "This is a case of someone exploiting our systems, right? Our systems aren't—they're not set up to catch. You know, they can—self-publishing authors, they can categorize their books, however they want," before wiping away tears.

"This is really tough content and if you're transgender, if your gender non-binary, and this is super triggering, and this is super—like I would, like I would understand if you needed to leave. This is for education for people who don't get it, who don't understand, and I would understand if this was a lot, but equally I want folks to know that we—that we're doing this because this really matters to get this education out there," he said.

Responding to the video, posted to Twitter by Libs of Tik Tok, Walsh said: "This is the greatest moment of my career."

The book has come back into the headlines after outcry this winter because it was officially released on Tuesday.

At the time of publishing, the book was number 20 on the Amazon best sellers list, number three in humor, and number three in political commentary and opinion.

In early December, Walsh's work skyrocketed to the top of Amazon's LGBTQ+ best sellers list. Walsh said of the achievement: "I am thrilled and honored to have written the number one LGBT book in the country and take my responsibility as a leading LGBT voice very seriously." The podcast host and now-bestselling writer added, "Going forward, all criticism of me or my work is homophobic."

The book centers around a child named Johnny, who thinks that he is a walrus, even donning spoons as tusks and wearing tube socks to dress up as the animal.

While his mother initially is enthused by Johnny's imagination, the trans species movement attempts to enable Johnny's full transition into being a walrus, with one doctor saying he can cut the boy's feet into fins.

The mother is pressured to go along with it until when she takes Johnny to the zoo, and a zookeeper tells her to ignore what the activists say online.