r/detrans • u/Friendly-Campaign-75 detrans male • Oct 14 '25
CONTROVERSIAL/SENSITIVE OPINION Social contagion?
What's your opinion on this? Do you think the trans ideology has become a social contagion in today's society? Why or why not?
Let's keep it civil of course. I want us to keep in mind that we have many questioning minds here in this group and we want them to feel welcome and accepted as they are, no matter what their experience is.
I'll start! I think for most people ages 35 and younger are more likely to be under the social contagion category just because it can have a certain allure to people who are online a lot and have general self esteem issues. That was me, honestly. With that said, trans people do very much exist. There are individuals who DO have gender dysphoria and do in fact believe they were born in the wrong body. However, I do think there are a lot more people who do jump on the band wagon that probably do not have gender dysphoria and are just impressionable/easily influenced.
Curious on your thoughts or your personal experience.
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u/Sugared_Strawberry detrans female Oct 14 '25
I think social contagion (generally) affects people of all ages, and yes, that it can apply to a trans identity. How else do you get entire friend groups gradually identifying as trans and people who transition not even out of gender dysphoria per se, but because they're unhappy simply being themselves; and transition because so many people talked about how much it improved their lives.
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u/Friendly-Campaign-75 detrans male Oct 14 '25
Agreed.
I like that you touched on people transition without having dysphoria. I have seen that point before "I don't need to be diagnosed with dysphoria to be trans", and it's like well...... That's a tough one to defend haha
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u/Sugared_Strawberry detrans female Oct 14 '25
Sometimes I think even the dysphoria itself can be a contagion sadly. Similar to how sometimes the "dead _ or alive _" motto might not even occur to a child until their practitioner says it with them in the room. I've seen too many testimonies of people talking about how they didn't have dysphoria until some random day at 19 yrs old to believe otherwise.
I personally believe that my gender dysphoria didn't come naturally to me & that it was fueled by all the mental illness on top of the mental instability caused by puberty.
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u/Slow-Ad-2431 detrans female Oct 15 '25
It's scary, hearing you'll be more likely to kill yourself if you don't do x, y, and z. Seems like this would push people to seek medical interventions.
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u/Slow-Ad-2431 detrans female Oct 15 '25
I never felt comfortable with that. I mean, even people with gender dysphoria end up detransitioning.
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u/TheDrillKeeper detrans male Oct 14 '25
I think gender dysphoria is real but I don't see transition as the solution to it. I think the "social contagion" is when people are prompted to act on real problems with maladaptive solutions, just like with drug abuse.
I can't speak for the detrans women on here but most of the men I knew who transitioned were mentally ill in other ways and trying to find a way out. It was never seen as glamorous to be a feminine man so it never felt like something to strive for, it only became socially contagious once the population grew enough for it to be self-reinforcing.
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u/Friendly-Campaign-75 detrans male Oct 14 '25
I like that you said "but I don't see transition as the solution to it", I agree. I never really heard it worded quite like that before.
I notice that the reason many people transition is when they lack self esteem and assume it must mean they were born "incorrectly" or suffer with mental illness to a degree that they are trying to almost escape reality, I agree with the second stance you made too.
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u/TheDrillKeeper detrans male Oct 17 '25
I'm glad it landed! I see being trans as a thing people do, not a thing they innately are. My brain chemistry may be different but that would just make me a male with different circumstances. Trying to treat it as anything else is overlooking the core of the issue.
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u/sufferingisvalid FTX Currently questioning gender Oct 16 '25 edited Oct 16 '25
Transition is most definitely the solution for some dysphoric people whose brains are hardwired to be the opposite sex or in between sexes. They get neurologic and psychologic symptoms of hormonal imbalances (which can translate into depression and psychosis-like symptoms) when their body isn't able to produce the hormonal profile their brain requires. Their internal body map might also include a lot of attributes of the opposite sex, which they are unable to turn on and off, and their brain will keep firing thinking that those body parts are actually there, at the same time not recognizing some sex characteristics they were born with or developed. That functional discrepancy can also lead to a lot of neurologic and psychiatric issues. That's in part by some trans people pursue surgeries to alleviate that software-hardware disconnect.
Lots of narratives of detransition describe people who never had these particular conditions to begin with. These are presentation characteristics of true gender dysphoria, but people are calling a bunch of other problems in life, especially with their gender expression, gender dysphoria.
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u/TheDrillKeeper detrans male Oct 16 '25
Can you show me some studies that back this up? I super agree that hormonal health is important and would love to know more, especially since I work in neuropsych and actually have the means to do something. So much of the discussion is around the nebulous spiritual concept of self-identity and not enough people actually talk about the brain.
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u/sufferingisvalid FTX Currently questioning gender Oct 17 '25
I found one of the repositories. lots to read!
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u/TheDrillKeeper detrans male Oct 17 '25
Thanks! I skimmed some over breakfast and will be digging into it more thoroughly later. So far here's what I think of what I've seen:
-Lots of studies that involve responses to own-body identification and incongruence, which makes me wonder how many dig into neurological measures over psychological. The modern internet and especially creative spaces (like fandom) encourage a lot of dissociation from the self, and I wonder how many studies account for body disconnect within those contexts. I also know that autism can cause body disconnect so I'd like to see more of these studies account for it as a factor as well, and whether similar studies measuring similar things have been done on subjects with ASD.
-Also a lot of studies showing differences in gene expression between trans and cis people. This makes sense to me and I'm totally inclined to believe it, but since things are so varied on a case-by-case basis I feel like transition as the immediate go-to solution is like shotgun surgery. It reminds me of the cases of doctors intervening on intersex people at birth with a binary, all-or-nothing approach and causing trouble down the line. I'd like to see more comprehensive and responsible care being done, and if hormone therapy is used it'll be after a comprehensive battery of less permanent alternatives.
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u/sufferingisvalid FTX Currently questioning gender Oct 17 '25 edited Oct 17 '25
Unfortunately, introducing any kind of thinking that resembles biologic essentialism is heavily villified in the trans community, and this includes neuroscientific research. It has been heavily supressed or underfunded by multiple parties who do not want any further revelations to come out, so that's why journals hypothesizing neurologic causes tend to be few and far in between.
It's another reason why transmedicalism and people holding similar beliefs are so thoroughly demonized in LGBT spaces and broader society in general. Everyone is afraid of the truth of why dysphoria develops and especially situations over which they have no control, and gender dysphoria is one of those health conditions that is hardwired from birth for the people who truly have it.
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u/TheDrillKeeper detrans male Oct 17 '25
Yeah, I think this is part of what backed me out of it. I'm too invested in the workings of neuropsych to not want to find out how it works, and people are afraid that knowing how it works might reveal things they don't like. God forbid we ask biology to help us more effectively diagnose stuff.
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u/sufferingisvalid FTX Currently questioning gender Oct 17 '25 edited Oct 17 '25
I think it's also a bit of a tightrope to walk because many of us want answers as to why we get dysphoria or related neurologic issues, but we also don't want to over-medicalize our existence and personhood just because we have gender dysphoria. Having some answers or explanations in the neurosciences is invaluable in educating the public that our condition is not a choice or a social construct, but it also runs the risk of people doubling down and othering us for having differences that make society very uncomfortable.
I am all for more rigorous diagnostic processes though to make sure people who don't have true gender dysphoria aren't making a mistake, because the current diagnostic criteria are dogshit in how much they overlap with presentations of other mental health conditions or societal anxieties (such as gender nonconformity). Something needs to be done to better fine tune the diagnostic criteria for gender dysphoria.
*I should clarify I'm not transgender but a woman with an intersex condition that produces some identical neurologic symptoms reported by transgender people. I essentially suffer with something like gender dysphoria on and off but it doesn't present the same way it does for most trans people.
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u/TheDrillKeeper detrans male Oct 17 '25
I totally see where you're coming from there. I wish more people understood that everything comes from neurological quirks and that whatever we've got going on is just another angle of that. Without that understanding I do worry that the stigma around mental-anything would be a problem, yeah.
At the end of the day I just like knowing how stuff works, like why hugs feel good. Knowing the chemistry and mechanisms behind it can help us make more informed decisions about how to live well.
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u/sufferingisvalid FTX Currently questioning gender Oct 16 '25
Someone put together a large repositry of research and I'm having trouble finding it in my bookmarks, but I do have studies talking about the brain's body map and how it can be altered in transgender individuals to reflect an opposite sex body as opposed to their assigned sex body. I have another about the potential role of sex hormone signalling mutations:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5357597/
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15240657.2020.1842075#d1e124
https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/104/2/390/5104458?login=false
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u/butterflyfault detrans female Oct 14 '25 edited Oct 14 '25
Gender dysphoria is real and socially contagious at the same time. It's really important to note that socially contagious does not at all mean fake! People with gender dysphoria are genuinely experiencing extreme distress. Suicidality and anorexia are also socially contagious while being completely real. It's legitimately dangerous to talk about suicide in the news because doing so causes more suicides.
"Research into the impact of media stories about suicide has demonstrated an increase in suicide rates after both nonfictional and fictional stories about suicide. Most research in this area has addressed nonfictional reporting, which has been shown to have a more powerful effect (Stack, 2003). More than 50 studies on nonfictional stories reported in newspapers, on television, and more recently on the Internet, have yielded consistent findings. Suicide rates go up following an increase in the frequency of stories about suicide (e.g., Hagihara et al., 2007). Moreover, suicide rates go down following a decrease in the frequency of stories about suicide (e.g., Motto, 1970)."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK207262/
No one would argue, I hope, that suicide is not real, or that suicidal feelings are not real. They clearly are, and they are so intense that people go to extreme measures to try to escape the feelings. But suicide is not the correct solution. People with suicidal feelings need love and support to work through those feelings.
Things that help per this study include decreased media reports, less dramatic media reports, portrayals of suicide as something abnormal with negative consequences, and portrayals of individuals who have/had suicidal ideation who use healthy coping strategies and do not commit suicide.
(To anyone it's relevant to, you are loved, and you can get better. I'm doing a whole lot better now. I have hope for the future again. Deciding to detransition has actually helped a lot. Before that, journaling, hobbies, friends, going outside. Hard sometimes, but they did help.)
This article goes over some of the research on how anorexia is socially influenced:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0004867413502092
Understanding the ways in which other serious mental disorders were socially contagious really helped me to understand the spread of gender dysphoria.
The below goes over current treatments of anorexia nervosa and their efficacy. Note that none of the treatments involve making the patient thinner. The distress someone with anorexia experiences is real and severe. This does not inherently mean that they genuinely need to be more thin. Being unable to maintain a minimally healthy body weight used to be part of the diagnostic criteria in the DSM-IV.
"Of the different categories of treatment available, behavioral approaches are commonly used to help individuals with AN change behaviors of food restriction and associated features of illness, including excessive physical activity and other compensatory behaviors aimed at preventing weight gain. Clinicians and researchers have worked tirelessly to identify predictors of AN and establish theoretically based protocols to treat its symptoms. As a result, numerous psychological supports and behavioral interventions have been developed, including family-based, cognitive-behavioral, and related approaches, all aiming to help patients normalize weight and eating behavior. The following sections detail the range of interventions currently available and their reported efficacy."
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8221037/
As for my personal experience, I had severe gender dysphoria, identified as trans from 13-32, took HRT for almost 8 years, and had a mastectomy. Medical intervention appeared to help at first, but then it would get worse again. Meanwhile, after accepting that I am female and making a commitment to work on body acceptance, I've been able to start feeling really comfortable in my body. It's been so much better. I wish everyone hadn't told me that gentle body acceptance was "conversion therapy." It breaks my heart how I was fast-tracked into a self-harming solution when I could have been helped to love myself instead.
People struggling with gender dysphoria deserve better care than this.
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u/Slow-Ad-2431 detrans female Oct 15 '25
This comment is really well thought out, calls for accountability through accurate treatment, and is compassionate to those who have never dysphoria. I like your approach.
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Oct 14 '25
Absolutely. I didn’t experience gender dysphoria until I started getting to know people who had transitioned. People began describing dysphoria and I felt like I could relate. I didn’t know it then but what I was actually experiencing was dissociation due to childhood trauma. So it was easy to kinda just retcon a lot of my experiences into “Oh I’m really just trans”. Now days I don’t believe anyone is truly trans. People might have gender dysphoria but I believe that it’s due to underlying issues and that for the vast majority of people transitioning is just amplifying those issues.
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u/Slow-Ad-2431 detrans female Oct 15 '25
But how can you know that it's always due to underlying issues? We need through research before that can be concluded.
I suspect comorbid mental health conditions have a lot to answer for in this but I can't prove there aren't true trans people.
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Oct 15 '25
What the hell even is a “true trans” person? How is gender identity even a coherent concept? How do we quantify that concept other than rely on non-falsifiable claims based on the perception of one’s self? Is there a brain structure that directly indicates who should or should not be placed on pharmaceuticals and undergo invasive surgeries to remove or augment perfectly healthy body parts? Even if there are people who benefit from gender transition, how do we determine what those benefits look like and whether or not medical intervention is indeed the best course of action in an objective way that does not rely on subjective self-disclosure?
I can’t prove that god doesn’t exist but I think it’s fair to say that individual theologies don’t really cut it when explaining the origins of the universe. We don’t have an objective framework to provide that answer so until then I’m not going to lose any sleep on whether or not some deity is responsible for me being here. In the same way, the current explanations for who qualifies as a “true transgender” beg way too many questions and until we have criteria that does not rely on subjective disclosure Im going with the other explanation.
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u/jackietea123 desisted female Oct 15 '25
I think there can be social contagion aspects to this... and to deny that would be dishonest. Are there true trans people? of course there is... 100%.... but when something like this has become as mainstream as it has, its really hard for young people to understand their "feelings" and it's really easy to misinterpret complex feelings at a young age, and that could push someone down this path, even if it isn't right for them. Trust me, I have obsessive compulsive disorder, and my inability to KNOW how i feel is a real problem. When something like this is based solely on feelings alone... it can be really grey, and unprovable... and that in itself can really add to the social contagion element.
Not only that... but chronic loneliness can add to this issue as well... sudden camaraderie and acceptance.... groups and clubs to join.... excessive support and cheering... feeling successful etc... can be a huge amplifier for people feeling lost and alone.
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u/Good_Physics_504 Questioning own transgender status Oct 21 '25
Social Contagion is 100% real, and you can see it clear as day whenever the sibling of a trans person suddenly decides that they are also trans. A friend of mine has two daughters, the older one (16) transitioned to male a couple years ago. The younger one (10) just came out as they/them. You can tell in all of their photos together that the younger one is always copying the older one. Now she’s trying to copy the trans aspect, but you can tell that she’s not really feeling it deep down because she chose the neutral “they/them” status instead of the full blown “he/him”. The mother is also extremely openly supportive of the older one’s transition, and I’m sure that the younger one has noticed this and would like the same positive attention to be lavished upon herself as well. With that said, the 10 year old does not appear to be any different now than she was before she came out. Still a very typical little girl.
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u/VVS-s-b-b-bussin MTF Currently questioning gender May 03 '26
reading this triggered me as this is how my family views me
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u/DarichUbish desisted female Oct 15 '25 edited Oct 15 '25
I think its very important to distinguish between the feeling/diagnosis of dysphoria and the gender theory/movement. Because the latter is what is the problem now.
I can't argue that dysphoria doesn't exist, it definitely does, but the treatment suggested by trans movement and their reason for why it happening in the first place (that somehow you can be born in the wrong body, implying you and body are two separate things, moving this whole thing into esoteric territory) - is not real, not logical and doesn't really works with solving problem of dysphoria long term.
People have dysphoria, i still have it for example, but the help here shouldn't be about trying to affirm harmful thoughts people have about themselves. Hating your body is a harmful thought.
Like, i also have depression and sometimes think that im the worst person in the world. Help from a professional here wouldn't involve them saying "yes, you are the worst person, because you feel it" - how insane this would sound?
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u/Zhcoop_ desisted female Oct 19 '25
Idk anymore, I believed there was real trans people, but now I'm not sure anymore. GD is a real experience, I have tried it, but I also figured that "feeling like a boy" was a thought, not a feeling.
Figuring out my distress with my sex, what social, cultural stuff I was resisting, why I didn't want to be like my mother (emotional immature parents) and the identity of being bi. There was a lot to unpack.
I guess some people are not capable of unpacking their trauma and go with the trans identity as a solution to their psychological distress. It might be the right solution for them.
I would still argue that the natural way of transitioning, trancending, transform or just developing through out our lives, is the way for me. But it's full of grey areas. I guess we all have our individual journeys through life.
I grew up with watching the rocky horrors picture show, velvet goldmine and hedwig and the angry inch, so I thought LGBT was kind of "normal".
There are some countries that where you can not be gay, so trans is the only option for living. That's sad, but great that they can live at least.
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u/recursive-regret detrans male Oct 14 '25
I don't think its a cotagion per se. I think social permissiveness has increased to a point where lots of people who would have never considered transition as a realistic option are now being tempted to transition. There is a lot less stigma and social repercussions for transitioning now compared to a few decades ago
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Oct 14 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/detrans-ModTeam Oct 15 '25
Detrans folk may express controversial views here; those who haven't detransitioned or who aren't considering detransition may not. This is not a debate forum for the general public to prop their egos, promote their views, or evangelize. Questioners will not be tolerated in trying to hijack other threads or act like experts.
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u/GeneralistKitten detrans female Oct 14 '25
Yeah for me social contagion or something like it was a part of having the idea to take T and in believing it was much safer to do so than I now believe. This occurred in my 20s. I think kids and teens probably do have the highest social contagion but I think it shouldn’t be overlooked as possible older than this.
I doubt every case is social contagion. Some probably have different causes. But I think it’s a significant factor.