if you take it that everyone is inseparable from their social context, then ya it’s a social contagion. i think i reject gender essentialism. like wasn’t i victim of a social contagion when i was cis and hadn’t yet questioned whether i was trans, and everyone around me pushed a cis worldview onto me? direct social intervention by institutions even more worrisome than a contagion? cis people trying to erase trans people is insane, like conversion therapy, governments actively intervening to “encourage citizens ‘to appreciate their sex’ and not ‘become disdainful of their sex’”.