This PragerU Documentary Is Anti-Trans Propaganda

If you were on X at all at the end of last week, then you probably had the misfortune of seeing the term “Detrans” trending. For those who didn’t investigate, here’s the unpleasant rundown: “Detrans” is the latest short film from the Prager University Foundation, a conservative nonprofit group best known for its videos that present archaic viewpoints on various civic and social justice topics. So you know that the documentary’s creators aren’t acting in good faith when they withholds that context and make it look like giant swaths of trans people regret their decision to affirm their gender. On their site, they claim to “promote American values” and offer an “alternative to the dominant left-wing ideology in culture, media, and education.” PragerU was in headlines earlier this year when the Florida Board of Education approved their PragerU Kids videos for use in public K-12 classrooms, including one video geared toward children, in which a cartoon Christopher Columbus justifies colonialism by calling Indigenous people “vicious cannibals.” “We put so many resources behind promoting because it is one of the most important projects we have ever done,” PragerU’s spokesperson said over email, after I asked why they decided to put so much muscle behind this campaign specifically. One of the most prominent voices featured is that of Harmeet Dhillon, a lawyer and former chairwoman for California’s Republican Party who keeps using the term “transgenderism” — hardly an objective source.