Amazon.com purge? Many LGBT titles, including ‘Brokeback Mountain,” removed from sales ranks

Are you kidding me? There are reports all over the Web right now that hundreds of LGBT books lost their sales rankings on Amazon.com and are calling into question whether the online retailer is attempting to suppress LGBT books in 2009.

Many Amazon users, authors, and purchasers of LGBT literature have contacted the company and, according to Queers United, many books simply about being transgender are being deemed erotic and even something as seemingly inoffensive is a college guide for LGBT students is being deemed “erotic.”

Amazon.com had not commented as of late Sunday afternoon.

The one that jumps out as particularly outrageous because it was such an important book in my life, is the beautiful Becoming a Man by the late Paul Monette, which deservedly won the 1992 National Book Award.

Some of the authors are speaking out.

“All of my books lost Amazon sales rankings, along with other LGBT books,” author Michelangelo Signorile wrote on his Facebook page a short time ago. “‘Adult’ books? Outrageous….Amazon is suppressing our political speech, simple as that.”

Signorile  provides this link to some of the titles that seemed to have been deemed erotica.

Meta Writer reports the following titles as among those that have lost their rankings: Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs, The Front Runner by Patricia Nell Warren, Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin, Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx,  Maurice by E M Forster, Captain’s Surrender by Alex Beecroft, Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown, A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood.

Non-fiction titles losing their rankings include:  The Advocate College Guide for LGBT Students; Robert Adrich’s Who’s Who in Gay and Lesbian History; Dr. Nathaniel Frank’s Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America; Transgender Warriors and Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue – both by Leslie Feinberg.

See Meta Writer for a comprehensive list. The LA Times is also reporting on the situation.

Amazon has taken the rankings off of many books in “erotica” categories but why are so many non-erotic LGBT books being considered offensive? Here’s how to register a complaint: Their express customer service form or call 1-866-216-1072.