#Detrans was trending on X on Thursday, with users flipping the hashtag on its head to spread messages of solidarity and support for transgender people.
Conservative media organization PragerU paid to promote #detrans on X to market its recent anti-trans documentary that highlights the alleged “dangers” of gender-affirming care.
Many users on X combated the transphobic rhetoric, criticizing the promotion and use of the hashtag.
PragerU, also known as Prager University Foundation, is a nonprofit organization and media company founded by conservative talk radio host Dennis Prager and screenwriter Allen Estrin.
The company is known for its inflammatory and misleading content regarding topics such as slavery, LGBTQ rights, and climate change, and is often referred to as a right-wing propaganda network.
Although its name implies otherwise, PragerU is not an academic institution. Despite this, its “educational” political videos have been approved for use in public school curriculums in Florida and Oklahoma.
For years, PragerU has produced content focusing on transphobic propaganda, including promoting the idea that children are routinely subject to gender-affirming surgeries and that children are being “groomed” into transitioning. Its content has also focused extensively on promoting the stories of individuals who previously transitioned and now regret their decisions.
This is the focus of PragerU’s newest documentary, titled DETRANS: The Dangers of Gender Affirming Care. The documentary asserts that children are facing an epidemic of social pressure, as well as pressure from healthcare providers, to transition, sometimes against their will. It also claims that many, if not most, children who transition at a young age will later come to regret their decision.
PragerU announces ‘timeline takeover’
On Wednesday, PragerU announced that it had launched a $1 million marketing campaign and would boost the hashtag #detrans on X in hopes of achieving a “timeline takeover.”
“Every person who uses Twitter that day will see the #DETRANS promotion,” PragerU wrote in its announcement.
PragerU claims that with its documentary, it is “committed to exposing millions to the truth and effects of transgender ideology on vulnerable and impressionable children.”
The company also expressed that it chose X for promotion specifically because of the site’s loosening of its hate speech policy since Elon Musk’s acquisition of the website, including removing protections for transgender users.
PragerU claims that detrans individuals are now finally able to tell their stories and that in previous years they had been “censored” by Twitter.
Many users of X were shocked by the takeover, most notably, that the search bar had been made into a banner with an advertisement for PragerU’s documentary.
Musk's Twitter has become so infested with bigotry and conservative propaganda that now it's being promoted officially on the site. @YouTube has also been promoting transphobic content. #DETRANS being officially promoted by Twitter is a new low for this site. pic.twitter.com/0gA8chnLQ7
— 𝕭𝖑𝖊𝖆𝖈𝖍𝖊𝖉 𝕱𝖑𝖔𝖜𝖊𝖗 🏳️🌈 🖤 (@immafuckingrat) November 2, 2023
Despite having blocked PragerU’s account and selected that they were not interested in being shown its promotional content, many users found that they were unable to opt out of seeing promotional material for the documentary. The hashtag was shown to them anyway, front and center in the website’s “trending” section.
Several users of X purposely flooded the hashtag with messages combating the harmful propaganda being disseminated by PragerU.
One user, Cori Palladium (@CoriPalladium), shared his story in a post with over 4,000 likes.
#DETRANS I'm Cori, used to go by Cassia. I identified as transgender for 4 years, and was on hormones for 2 years. I do not regret my transition, and I'm sick of the harmful lies that conservatives are pushing about us. pic.twitter.com/ln29ObtETq
— Cori Palladium (@CoriPalladium) November 2, 2023
Beginning with the hashtag #DETRANS, he wrote, “I’m Cori, used to go by Cassia. I identified as transgender for 4 years, and was on hormones for 2 years I do not regret my transition, and I’m sick of the harmful lies that conservatives are pushing about us.”
Others spammed the hashtag with pro-trans messages, memes, and unrelated spam posts intended to algorithmically bury the transphobic messaging from PragerU and its supporters.
Some trans users shared their selfies and stories of transitioning as a message of hope to anyone distressed by seeing the hashtag. Trans artists have also used the hashtag to self-promote.
Detrans individuals fight back
Although the subject of people who have detransitioned, often referred to as “detrans” individuals or “detransitioners,” has been weaponized by conservative media groups such as PragerU, many people who identify as detrans have taken to social media to share their experiences and to insist that their stories are not used to delegitimize trans people or to erode trans rights.
One TikTok user, Lavender Lucidity (@LavendersLucidity), who still identifies as gender fluid, shared a video about their detransition process and insisted that they do not regret their transition.
@lavenders_lucidity not every person who's Detransitioning feels the same. #detransitioning #transgender #genderjourney #detrans #dissociativeidentitydisorder #lifelongjourney #nerodivergent #detransition ♬ Lilac – Fthmlss
“I would never have known even an iota of who I am now if I hadn’t transitioned,” they said in their video. “I don’t blame the doctors. I thank the doctors.”
In a video from last week, Lavender challenged the idea that all people who detransition are cisgender.
“Most detransitioners aren’t cis,” they said. In a voiceover, they added, “People detransition for a bunch of different reasons. Detransition just means that you are discontinuing medical, social, or legal transition.”
In a 2021 study of transgender and detrans individuals, researchers found that of those who reported detransitioning, over 85% cited at least one external factor such as social pressure or financial hardship as a reason why they ceased transitioning.
The most common external factor that influenced detransitioning was “pressure from a parent,” with 35.6% of detrans individuals reporting it as a reason why they decided to end their transition. The second most common response was “pressure from community or societal stigma,” with 32% of detrans participants reporting it as a factor.
The study concludes, “It is important to highlight that detransition is not synonymous with regret. […] All existing data suggest that regret following gender affirmation is rare.”
The Daily Dot reached out to PragerU via email and Cori Palladium and Lavender Lucidity via Instagram direct message.
‘Detrans’ misinformation
At the Conservative Political Action Conference in March, Daily Wire host Michael Knowles repeated verbiage from a 2021 PragerU video referring to “transgenderism.”
Knowles infamously declared, “For the good of society … transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely—the whole preposterous ideology, at every level.”
A CNN article from August reports that only 1% of those who had undergone gender-affirming surgeries regretted their decisions. A 43-year study from the Amsterdam Cohort of Gender Dysphoria Study reported that rates of surgical regret among those who underwent gender confirmation surgery were 0.6% for transgender women and 0.3% for transgender men.
FactCheck.org has also challenged many of the common claims made by PragerU’s detrans propaganda.
The Education First Alliance circulated a graphic accusing healthcare providers in North Carolina of “transitioning toddlers.”
In response to this, FactCheck.org reports, “To spell out the reality of the situation: The North Carolina institutions are not providing surgeries or hormone therapy to prepubescent children, nor is this standard practice in any part of the country.”
FactCheck.org goes on to explain that the standard guidance from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health and the Endocrine Society promotes a period of waiting until adolescence to begin hormone replacement therapy and waiting until age 18 or above to undergo gender-affirming surgeries.
In spite of this, many U.S. states hastily promoted and instituted legislation intended to prevent minors from accessing gender-affirming care. The Trans Legislation Tracker reports that “the United States saw more bills targeting gender-affirming healthcare in 2023 than the last 5 years combined,” with 583 bills proposed and 83 passed.
