The anti-LGBTQ+ hate group Genspect hosted an annual lobbying event called “Detrans Awareness Day” last month in Washington, D.C. It brought together two major strands of rhetoric popular with anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups: so-called “parental rights” claims, which amplify the views of parents who do not support trans kids, and inaccurate anti-trans detransitioner narratives.
Speakers at the March 12 event included Federal Trade Commission Chair Andrew Ferguson, who said it was a “day of reckoning,” and Assistant Secretary for Health Admiral Brian Christine, who vowed not to stop until gender-affirming care was “eradicated like the plague it is.”1
The officials’ appearances follow a 2025 White House directive to the National Institutes of Health to fund projects to better study detransitioners. At the Genspect event, Christine lauded President Donald Trump’s administration for taking actions “supported by gold-standard science, not driven by a warped social, financial and political agenda.”2 Organizers claimed the event, which is in its fourth year, was attended by 70 people who had detransitioned.
Anti-trans “detrans” rhetoric weaponizes a small contingent of trans people’s experiences to malign gender-affirming health care and LGBTQ+-affirming public spaces. Anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups exaggerate the prevalence of transgender people who no longer identify as trans and obfuscate the reasons why.
During the event, Christine reportedly referred to the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Endocrine Society as “wolves in sheep’s clothing,” organizations that “intended to push a social agenda” as “they ignore the studies and the reports that decry sex-rejecting procedures as harmful to these vulnerable populations.”3
Anti-trans groups would have the public believe that trans people are detransitioning en masse due to regret. However, detransition is a much broader category, with some studies suggesting people detransition for various reasons and that only about 0.3%-3.8% of those who detransition do so because of regret.4 Those studies show that most people who detransition cite reasons related to stigma, social pressure and anti-trans discrimination.
Genspect and other groups bolster misleading narratives about detransition with sensationalized and questionable accounts of medical malpractice. Although the research is clear that affirmation and support produce the most positive outcomes for LGBTQ+ people’s physical and mental health, Genspect and other groups cast gender-affirming care as sinister, eroding its public support. They push policies to censor LGBTQ+ lived experiences in schools, online and in public spaces, and they seek to revitalize the discredited and dangerous practices of “conversion therapy.”
Genspect and the push to re-pathologize transgender identity
Though anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups and anti-trans groups claim trans people are a recent “fad,” gender-nonconforming people have existed throughout history and across many cultures.5 According to the American Psychiatric Association, “The presence of gender variance is not the pathology.” The American Psychological Association says trans identity is not a mental illness, but the distress many trans people experience resulting from societal inequity, discrimination and violence can lead transgender people to suffer from anxiety and depression.6 7
Anti-trans detrans narratives disguise the role of social stigma and amplify disingenuous claims of a trans “cult” via social media or by bad-faith actors.
In a series of Substack posts titled “The Cult Connection” that insinuate the “transgender movement” is a cult, Genspect author Catherine Monaghan wrote, “There is a demand for total belief, silencing of dissent, control of language, and psychological pressure on people — especially detransitioners and feminists — who speak out.”8 Narratives by anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups also inaccurately suggest that young people identify as transgender due to targeting at a young age by leftists, LGBTQ+ rights groups or trans activists.9
In a Jan. 21 blog post, Genspect Canada Director Mia Hughes wrote that “there is no such thing as a transgender child,”10 a statement counter to scientific studies that have found that while not all trans people realize they are trans in childhood, most trans adults begin to understand their gender as children like cisgender children do.11 Genspect suggested in blog posts in 2025 that anti-trans detransitioners — those who mostly stopped transitioning and advocate against gender-affirming care — represent the only true experiences of young people, though they’re an extreme minority.
Events like Genspect’s Detrans Awareness Day promote its efforts to end gender-affirming health care and re-pathologize transgender identity. In October, Genspect announced an initiative targeting policymakers and professional medical organizations to reclassify transgender identity as a mental illness.12 Detrans narratives and pseudoscientific claims that trans people are mentally ill, or that trans identity is a phase, help justify their anti-LGBTQ+ goals.
The American Psychological Association notes: “Parents may become concerned when what they believed to be a ‘phase’ does not pass. Parents of gender-nonconforming children may need to work with schools and other institutions to address their children’s particular needs and ensure their children’s safety.”13 The association’s guidance suggests a community of adults in a child’s life should offer robust, medically informed guidance and support to trans and gender-nonconforming children rather than expecting parents alone to dictate a child’s identity and future or force them into harmful conversion therapy practices.14
Anti-trans detrans censorship narratives
The Southern Poverty Law Center has reported that anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups have pushed a conspiracy theory claiming trans identity spreads like a “social contagion” among children in LGBTQ+-affirming environments. A 2023 SPLC report notes some groups that spread anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience have weaponized the experiences of detransitioners to support the idea of “an opportunistic social contagion.”
Christine reportedly used “contagion” rhetoric at Detrans Awareness Day when asked how “gender ideology” had become “entrenched” in Western societies. “It’s a social contagion. I don’t think epidemiology explains the dramatic increase in numbers of so-called gender dysphoria in minors. … I think it’s those on the left advancing an agenda,” he said.15
The dehumanizing phrase “gender ideology” was popularized by anti-LGBTQ+ extremists. It suggests LGBTQ+ identity is merely an “ideology.” It refers to a hard-right conspiracy theory suggesting adults are colluding to violate so-called “parental rights” by promoting “gender ideology” to children.
In a 2026 blog post Hughes compared the supposed spread of trans identity to bulimia cases, adding that young people identifying as trans is akin to “a mass social-media induced illness.”16 This rhetoric encourages public policy advocacy to restrict information about LGBTQ+ identity.
At the 2025 Detrans Awareness Day event, Tiffany Justice, cofounder of the antigovernment extremist group Moms for Liberty, said that “unless we start to safeguard children and protect the innocence of children across the United States of America and value children again, nothing else will really matter.”17 Using such language, anti-inclusive education groups like Moms for Liberty have helped push book bans, suggesting censorship is necessary to prevent schools from “indoctrinating” kids.18
According to the American Psychological Association, “Anti-LGBTQ+ curriculum laws rely on outdated information and harmful stereotypes that not only create hostile environments for LGTBQ+ [sic] people, but also limit access to cutting-edge information intended to promote public health.” It notes that these problematic laws “are intended to discourage minors from developing same-sex attraction, being in same-sex partnerships, or identifying as LGBTQ+.”19
In conjunction with the 2025 Detrans Awareness Day panels, U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon held a “listening session” with anti-LGBTQ+ activists. The Department of Education described it as a forum to discuss the implementation of President Trump’s agenda and “additional strategies to protect young people from the dangers and harms associated with gender ideology.”20
In a press release about meeting with detrans activists, McMahon said, “We stand firmly alongside parents, professionals, advocates, and especially detransitioners, who understand firsthand the damage caused by indoctrinating kids to believe that they can ever be ‘born in the wrong body.’”
The false claims of so-called “secret transitions” often stem from a dismissed lawsuit filed by January Littlejohn, who is employed by anti-LGBTQ+ hate group Do No Harm. While Littlejohn claimed a Florida school was secretly transitioning her child, court records and news reports show Littlejohn was “well aware” of her child’s social transition. The school board characterized Littlejohn’s claims as “blatantly lying” and her lawsuit as an attempt “to simply gain notoriety or political power.”21
The 2025 Detrans Awareness Day was cosponsored by Genspect, Moms for Liberty, Do No Harm and The Heritage Foundation, coordinator of Project 2025, the anti-LGBTQ+ policy document largely adopted by the Trump administration.22 It also featured as a speaker Clare Morell of the hard-right Ethics and Public Policy Center.23
Elsewhere, in September 2025, U.S. Rep. Bob Onder and U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn introduced the “Chloe Cole Act” based on a Trump executive order targeting gender-affirming care. Detrans activist Chloe Cole said in a press release, “I’m proud to lend my name to this bill and help others whose lives have been forever altered due to these barbaric treatments.”24 The release also included a quote from Jill Simons, executive director of the anti-LGBTQ+ hate group American College of Pediatricians: “This Act will protect American youth from being gaslit into a lifetime of chronic illness and painful regret.”
In 2022, Cole filed a lawsuit for medical negligence against several California health care providers, claiming their advice about and provision of gender-affirming health care “was reckless, willful, malicious, oppressive, and fraudulent, and intended to benefit the Defendants financially.”25 The Dhillon Law Group, whose founding partner Harmeet Dhillon was appointed to lead the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division in 2025, led the suit with support from Dhillon’s nonprofit Center for American Liberty.
In 2024, Cole reportedly told a court in Ohio that since detransitioning, she maintains a lucrative career as a spokesperson for anti-LGBTQ+ causes, partly through employment by Do No Harm.26
Skylar K., a training specialist for the SPLC’s Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Department, contributed to this report.
Image at top: Photo illustration by the SPLC; original images from iStock.
Citations
1 Nick Wallis. “US Health Admiral: gender surgery must be ‘eradicated like the plague it is,’” March 13, 2026.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 “What does the scholarly research say about the effect of gender transition on transgender well-being?” Cornell University; Eva Feigerlova, “Prevalence of Detransition in Persons Seeking Gender-Affirming Hormonal Treatments: A Systematic Review,” The Journal of Sexual Medicine 22, no. 2 (2025).
5 Kit Heyam, Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender (Hachette Book Group, 2022).
6 “Understanding Transgender People, Gender Identity and Gender Expression,” American Psychological Association, July 8, 2024.
7 Jaclyn M. White Hughto, Sari L. Reisner, and John E. Pachankis, “Transgender Stigma and Health: A Critical Review of Stigma Determinants, Mechanisms, and Interventions,” Social Science & Medicine November 11, 2015.
8 Catherine Monaghan. “The Cult Connection – Part 1,” Genspect, August 6, 2025. See also: Brian Wagner, “An Ex-Cult Member on ‘Trans,’ Genspect. October 15, 2025, and Catherine Monaghan, “The Cult Connection Part 2 – Information Control,” Genspect, August 26, 2025.
9 Orion Rummler, “Detransition Is Rare, But It’s Driving Anti-Trans Policy Anyway,” The 19th*, November 12, 2025.
10 Mia Hughes, “Three Fundamental Truths to End the Scandal of Paediatric Gender Medicine,” Genspect, January 21, 2026.
11 Philip Graham, “Transgender Children and Young People: How the Evidence Can Point the Way Forward,” BJPsych Bulletin 47, no. 2 (2023):98-104. doi: 10.1192/bjb.2022.3. PMID: 35177147; PMCID: PMC10063975.
12 “Restoring Clinical Clarity on Gender Distress,” Genspect, October 2025.
13 American Psychological Association, “Understanding Transgender People, Gender Identity and Gender Expression,” July 8, 2024.
14 Harisankar K. Das, Thiruchengodu R. Kanmani, Prasad N. Nagamangala, Pramila Kalra, and Sridhar Rajendaran, “Impact of Gender-Affirming Interventions on Mental Health and Body Image Satisfaction of Transgender Individuals: A Systematic Review,” Indian Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism 29, no. 5 (2026):484-94. doi: 10.4103/ijem.ijem_24_25. Epub 2025 Oct 25. PMID: 41229723; PMCID: PMC12604846.
15 Nick Wallis, “US Health Admiral: Gender Surgery Must Be ‘Eradicated Like the Plague It Is,’” March 13, 2026; Detrans Awareness Day, morning panel. March 12, 2026.
16 Mia Hughes. “Three Fundamental Truths to End the Scandal of Paediatric Gender Medicine.” Genspect. January 21, 2026.
17 “Social Media Is Fueling the Gender Crisis — And Parents Are Powerless.” Genspect.
18 Southern Poverty Law Center, Moms for Liberty extremist file.
19 American Psychological Association, “LGBTQ+ Inclusive Curricula: School Curricula Inclusive of LGBTQ+ History, Culture, and People; Sex Education.”
20 U.S. Department of Education, “U.S. Department of Education Hosts Meeting with Detransitioners and Advocates on Detrans Awareness Day,” press release, March 13, 2025.
21 Samantha Riedel. “Transgender Mice and ‘Secret’ Transitions: Your Guide to Making Sense of Trump’s Address to Congress.” Them, March 5, 2025.
22 Amanda Becker, Orion Rummler, and Mariel Padilla. “Tracking how much of Project 2025 the Trump administration achieved this year.” PBS News Hour. December 24, 2025.
23 “Social Media is Fueling a Gender Crisis and Parents are Powerless,” Genspect, 2025.
24 U.S. Rep. Bob Onder, “Congressman Bob Onder introduced the Chloe Cole Act, which was transmitted to Congress by the Department of Justice,” press release, September 18, 2025.
25 Center for American Liberty, “The Center for American Liberty Sues Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, for Medical Negligence, After Surgically and Chemically Transitioning Chloe Cole,” press release.
26 Erin Reed. “Chloe Cole Testifies She Makes Up To $200,000 Opposing Trans Care,” Erin in the Morning, July 29, 2024.
