The Prager University Foundation, known as PragerU, a conservative advocacy group, purchased advertising on X (Twitter) as part of a $1 million marketing campaign to promote its polarizing film, “Detrance: The Perils of Gender Affirming Care.”
In PragerU’s new documentary, young people who opted out of radical sex reassignment treatment they received as minors discuss what they describe as the false promises and ultimately “tragic” consequences of so-called “gender affirmation care.”
Critics describe the platform’s promotion of this output as X’s shift toward promoting more conservative and extreme views after Elon Musk purchased the platform and removed many of the policies that banned ads promoting anti-LGBTQ views or misinformation, reinstated accounts that Twitter’s previous leadership had suspended for anti-LGBTQ harassment, and shared an anti-trans video from his own account.
Craig Strazier, PragerU’s chief marketing officer, points to Musk as part of the reason the nonprofit group advertises on X.
Craig Strasseri, PragerU’s chief marketing officer, points to Musk as part of the reason the nonprofit group chose to advertise the documentary on that particular platform.
“We decided to choose X because it’s a great opportunity to reach a huge audience about the dangers of gender affirmation care, given that X is one of the least censored social media platforms thanks to Elon Musk,” Craig Strazier said, NBC News reports.
He said it would give more publicity to this topic, which is often restricted with censorship. “It will give millions of people the opportunity to hear important accounts from the detransformers themselves, many of whom have been censored and even ostracized because their life experiences don’t corroborate the mainstream media’s narrative.”
PragerU is also promoting its documentary on Meta and Google. The organization says it also wanted to advertise the production on YouTube, which is part of Google, but was refused.
Musk has demonstrated a particular dislike for the LGBTQ+ community. Over the past year, he has repeatedly even removed an old Twitter policy that prohibited the purposeful naming or misidentification of transgender people.
As recently as this week, Musk tweeted that he believes the word “cis” is a “heterosexual slur,” a personal stance that reflects changes made to the company’s content moderation policies under his leadership.
