Detransition Awareness Day is March 12. Ahead of this little-known holiday, survivors of transgender indoctrination offer warnings and messages of hope.
“Some say that detransition is very rare,” the message reads further. “Others refuse to acknowledge that we exist. We want all to see that we are a group that is rapidly growing.”
As noted by Advocates Protecting Children (APC)—an organization dedicated to “fighting the gender industry”—the number of members on “detrans” page on Reddit, an online social platform, stood at 44,200 members as of Feb. 9. That was an increase of more than 1,100 in one month. By Feb. 28, the number had grown by another 400. By March 6 the number grew by another 200. The next day, another 100 joined.
Erin Brewer is the co-founder of APC. She holds a doctorate in instructional technology. Brewer is also a former self-described “trans kid.”
‘I Had Gender Dysphoria’
“When I was a child I had gender dysphoria,” Brewer told The Epoch Times. “I would have been considered a transgender child. I was insistent, consistent, and persistent that I was a boy. Thankfully, I went through it during a time when my teachers recognized this as a mental health issue and referred me to the school psychologist.”The Mayo Clinic defines gender dysphoria as “the feeling of discomfort or distress that might occur in people whose gender identity differs from their sex assigned at birth or sex-related physical characteristics.”
The World Health Organization decided in 2019 that being transgender is no longer classified as a mental illness.
Brewer said she was horrified when she started to hear that children were being told they could be born in the wrong body and advised to seek medical treatment to change their external appearance to that of the opposite sex.
“It broke my heart that these kids are being told there is something so wrong with them that they have to change who they are in order to survive, when the majority of these kids will come to terms with who they already are as they progress through puberty,” she said. “Many of us who develop a trans identity are victims of sexual assault and trauma and use the trans identity as a coping mechanism. So, to deny psychological treatment to these children is just a travesty.”
Political ideology appears to determine peoples’ views on the transgender issue.
‘When the Online Trans Community Found Me’
While Brewer credits the intervention of caring teachers for saving her from making irreversible, life-altering decisions, Prisha Mosley was not as fortunate.
While avoiding the “ugly details,” Mosley had what she describes as a “very troubled childhood.” Because of that, she had no friends. Before the age of 12, the emotional stress and loneliness of her dysfunctional home life manifested in a diagnosis of anorexia.
Eventually, she was hospitalized because she couldn’t stand or walk without blacking out. At the age of 14, she was sexually assaulted. The assault resulted in a pregnancy. With her frail body barely able to sustain her own life, it rejected the baby. Mosley sank deeper into depression. Her body was now covered with “self-harm scars.” By 17, she was “madly suicidal.” In one of her many efforts to end her own life, she said she almost succeeded.
“That’s when the online trans community found me,” Mosley said.
They embraced her. They welcomed her, and they quickly began to encouraged her to become one of them.
“They found me and totally convinced me that I was born in the wrong body and that all of my problems would go away if I was a boy,” she recalled.
Mosley said she was already “deep in the trenches of the pro-ana community,” explaining that “pro-ana” is an online pro-anorexia community where people post photos of themselves and “encourage each other not to eat for days on end.” She found the trans community to be similar. They also share pictures of themselves with each other. They also encourage each other to lie, both to their parents and their doctors.
Desperate for acceptance and to be free of her pain, Mosley followed their directions willingly. They taught her how to locate a “gender-affirming therapist,” how to get her “letter of recommendation,” and how to find a doctor to start her transition.
It began with testosterone. Her beard earned praise from the online trans community. It was intoxicating, but it didn’t last. She needed another high. A year later she had her breasts removed. The adulation she received from the trans community gave her another addictive rush of euphoria. When that wore off, she began seeking “the next high.”
With the surgeries came new scars.
“What they did was assist me in mutilating myself,” she said. “I was doing the same thing at home. I was trying to destroy myself through gender ideology and my doctors completely assisted me.”
Two years later, Mosley met a man who had a daughter who—despite her beard and the absence of breasts—“clocked” Mosley “as a woman” and started calling her “mommy.”
That was it. That was the moment she realized she wasn’t a boy. She didn’t want to be a man. She “wanted to be mommy.”
For Mosley, detransitioning was a “two-part series.” She began with dialectical behavioral therapy, a type of cognitive behavioral therapy that’s used to identify and change negative thinking patterns.
“That’s when all of the healing and all of the magic happened that they told me I would find when I transitioned,” Mosley confessed. “I realized I didn’t have to take poisons and have surgeries to feel better. I just needed to heal my traumas.”
Warnings and Hope
For those being drawn into the trans world with promises of happiness, Brewer offers a warning.“Anybody who tells you that you have to change who you are and to medically damage yourself in order to survive is not to be trusted,” she asserted. “We know these interventions are dangerous and have lifelong consequences. When you are told to kill who you are and to become someone else in order to survive, that’s a predatory message.”
Mosley shared her own warning.
“You are poisoning your body if you take hormones,” she said. “Your previously healthy body will be destroyed and you will not be able to produce your own hormones, and the side effects are severe. Do not change your body to solve mental or emotional distress.”
Both also shared messages of hope.
Brewer advised that “support is out there,” and suggested those who want help should contact APC.
“You are being betrayed by the very people who should be supporting you, so it’s understandable that you are in despair,” Brewer said. “But there are people out here who are ready to support you and care for you.”
Mosley says she has met “the most amazing people” through her detransition.
“I am supported and loved,” she said. “I am no longer living in denial of myself. I feel so much better.”
