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I've advocated the social contagion theory here before. That's definitely a big part of it. But at the same time, it's not just social contagion.
From a very young age I had persistent thoughts about wanting to be a girl, even before I ever went on the internet for the first time. When I first discovered AGP porn in my early teens, I took to it immediately. I didn't have to be "conditioned" into it with a gradual process of more and more niche porn. From day one my reaction was "wow, this is great, it's so cool that I'm not the only one who's into this!"
I agree that limiting exposure to trans content online will be effective in stopping most people from transitioning. But at the same time it should be acknowledged that the autistic-programmer personality cluster is correlated with other factors that make them more susceptible to this sort of thing in the first place. For most men, you could make them read trans forums all day every day, and they would never feel any desire to transition.
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