Evan Urquhart

I've been researching how people get into ideological groups and much of the time people join a group, get a sense of belonging and then absorb the ideology of the group. So if the most readily available support group for detrans women is based in anti-trans radical feminism...

...chances are a lot of people who join it will end up adopting transphobic rad fem beliefs over time in order to better fit with the group that's giving them support. They may come to think that all trans people are products of patriarchy, should "reconcile w/ their sex", etc...

...but that doesn't mean they're a trans person trying to suppress themselves. Of course those spaces will also attract trans people who for one reason or another can't accept themselves and are trying to "overcome" being trans by absorbing anti-trans ideology and practices.

Different kinds of people end up in transphobic detrans subcultures for different reasons. Some are trans people trying not to be trans, some are detrans people looking for help who pick up transphobic views, some get into ideology to get a sense of purpose. It's complicated.

There are parallels between transphobic detrans communities and ex-gay groups but there are also differences. Both the similarities and the differences are important to note if you want to criticize and resist transphobic detrans communities and narratives effectively.

Won't disagree with any of this, but I would add that "ex gay" communities may not have been much different. What the general public remembers about ex-gays is that many prominent ones turned out to be gay, and either recanted or were found to be having gay sex on the dl.

But, that doesn't mean that every single member of the community was really gay. There were people with mental illness- OCD manifesting as intrusive fears that they were gay as one example. And, likely, people who were a little bi but able to put that part of them aside.

What we remember is all the gay hypocrites, but human beings are never so straightforward. It was a lot of gay hypocrites/self-hating gays and then some other people who were there for complicated reasons.