Ky Schevers

Doesn't mean it's not possible but there isn't good evidence to back it up. It'd be really interesting to study ideological detrans people and ask them how they came to their current understanding of themselves because there's a good chance it involved reading blogs and...

...participating in detrans spaces. After I and other detrans rad fems started blogging and promoting each other, more and more people adopted similar views and started identifying as detrans/desisted. We were trying to exert social influence and we succeeded to some extent.

We said we weren't out to recruit but when I look back on our actions we absolutely were. We were smart enough to know that a more subtle touch can work better at winning converts. Just put ideas and stories out there, make them compelling and let people come to you.

If people start hanging out in detrans spaces with a particular ideological bent they'll start picking up the ideology organically as they talk to people and learn the group norms. They'll get encouragement to view their experiences in particular ways, consume media that...

...promotes the views of the group, get support to deal their dysphoria using "alternative treatments" rather than transition, etc. In the detrans spaces I was in, I was encouraged to examine social factors that supposedly made me trans but not social influences that could...

...push a person to detransition. When I started wondering if my detransition and conversion to radical feminism could be related to trauma I experienced in the queer/trans scene, the detrans woman I was closest to didn't want to hear it and got upset and dismissive.

I was encouraged to see my transition as a trauma response/reaction to social influences but wasn't supposed to critically examine my detransition in the same way. I wasn't supposed to question my detransition or evaluate whether it was really working for me.

So you have a detrans community that encourages people to adopt certain views and stories about themselves, how they became trans, transitioned, etc but discouraged them from changing their minds or coming to other ways of seeing things. You can get a lot of emotional support...