Detrans (film)

''Detrans: The Dangers of Gender-Affirming Care'' is a 2023 documentary short film produced and distributed by PragerU, an American conservative advocacy group. The film centers on interviews of two adults who once self-identified as transgender, but later came to identify as cisgender. It has been described by the Human Rights Campaign's president as propaganda to "spread misinformation and stigmatize transgender people".

Plot

''Detrans'' shares the stories of Daisy Strongin and Abel Garcia, two individuals who transitioned and who later "detransitioned" after their gender identity changed. It also includes Leor Sapir, a Manhattan Institute for Policy Research fellow, as well as attorney Harmeet Dhillon, who has brought cases against health care providers who perform gender-affirming surgery, representing individuals who chose to undergo surgery when they were under the age of 18. In less detail, the film also showcases Chloe Cole, Prisha Mosely, and Camille Kiefel, all of whom have detransitioned and now advocate against the rights of transgender people.

The film claims that the individuals interviewed were "manipulated by the trans movement". It also criticizes the practice of providing gender-affirming care to minors, though Strongin and Garcia were legal adults when they began medically transitioning.

Ad campaign

''Detrans'' was released as part of a campaign and advertised on X (formerly Twitter) as part of a "timeline takeover", which showed a single ad to all users promoting the hashtag "#DETRANS". Users were not able to mute or block the hashtag, and PragerU's advertisements were "the first one displayed for most users of the social media platform throughout the day". PragerU has stated they chose to advertise on X because it is "one of the least censored social media platforms".

PragerU also stated that YouTube rejected their application to advertise the film there "almost immediately upon submission". A YouTube spokesperson clarified that the ads were prevented from appearing in users' home feeds due to a policy enacted in 2021 that restricted political ads from appearing there, and noted that PragerU's other ads promoting the film "do not violate outube'sads policies and are currently running across tsplatforms."

Reception

''Detrans'' was panned and has been described as propaganda by the Human Rights Campaign's president, as the short film does not mention that research shows that only around one percent of transgender individuals regret transitioning:

So-called documentaries like the one peddled by PragerU do nothing more than spread misinformation and stigmatize transgender people. Given the growing threats of violence faced by the transgender community, offering a platform to this type of hate-filled propaganda is not just immoral–it's dangerous. Today's timeline takeover is another stain on the platform.

In a piece for ''HuffPost'', Ian Kumamoto expresses a similar sentiment, referring to the film as "fear-mongering" and "pure anti-trans propaganda", and calls the advertising campaign "a massive misinformation campaign." Of the people featured in the documentary, he says that "while their stories are valid — and definitely involve some instances of medical neglect — there’s no nuance or context provided, and it’s clear that the documentary’s aim is to make it seem like ''all'' kids are endangered by trans acceptance." Kumamoto's piece publicizes email correspondences between himself and PragerU staff, including one interaction where a press representative did not give any names in reply to a question about which individuals produced and directed the documentary, and another interaction where a spokesperson told him that the organization had put resources into promoting ''DeTrans'' in order "to reach a massive audience on the dangers of gender affirming care", which the spokesperson then called a "social contagion". Kumamoto also says that the documentary includes "very few expert sources", and that Harmeet Dhillon is "hardly an objective source."

On behalf of Truthout, Erin Reed wrote, "The story of Daisy's platforming to attack transgender people has many echoes of the ex-gay movement of the 1990s and early 2000s... a focus on being broken, a search for religious redemption, a framing of LGBTQ+ identities as a 'choice' or something people are coerced into, and a story of being 'healed. In response to the short film, James Factora, writing for ''Them,'' provided statistics about the low detransition rate and concluded, "As PragerU shows, ..the right-wing isn't as concerned with facts as they are about feelings, to borrow a turn of phrase." In response to PragerU's timeline takeover, which promoted their film to all users on the platform using the hashtag "#DETRANS", Twitter users expressed frustration that they could not block or mute the hashtag, and attempted to hijack it, flooding it with unrelated tweets as well as affirmative, counter-narrative stories about trans people. PragerU has stated that the short film was rejected by multiple film festivals.

See also

* 2020s anti-LGBTQ movement in the United States
* Anti-gender movement
* Gender-affirming hormone therapy
* Transgender health care
* Transgender health care misinformation
* Transphobia in the United States
* Transgender youth

Footnotes

References

{{reflist

2020s anti-LGBTQ movement in the United States
2020s political films
2023 controversies
2023 LGBTQ-related films
2023 short documentary films
American documentary films
American LGBTQ-related documentary films
American LGBTQ-related films
Anti-gender movement
Anti-LGBTQ sentiment
Conservative media in the United States
Detransition
Films about gender
LGBTQ-related controversies in film
LGBTQ-related controversies in the United States
Social conservatism
Transgender-related documentary films
Transphobia in the United States