All the eyerolls 🙄 they/them 'not Daddy!'

What a melt!

Yes. I'm pretty familiar with the litigation around Scientology. They have lots of money and very aggressive lawyers, so even on something like coercion it's difficult to prove a case against them.

But the law doesn't get into potentially harmful beliefs, for good reason. Because that's a rabbit hole we don't want society to go down. I don't want the government deciding that my beliefs are harmful and I need to be re-educated.

So if people want to believe in L Ron Hubbard's teachings and worship the Smash Martians, they can knock themselves out. You have to demonstrate harms that go beyond people's personal beliefs.

Same with genderwoo.

Rules for cults? You mean laws? No. Coercion, generally. Nothing that I'm aware of wrt cults.

I’ve had some bad experiences with public bodies following the emperor’s new clothes doctrine before, so that has coloured my thinking on this.

I also know various vulnerable adults of the kind who would never have the wherewithal to think, or write articles, or post online about their own vulnerability and how much they need support, let alone everyday respect and decency. So this kind of thing makes me worry about scant resources being diverted to deal with all the damage from cult like grooming that been happen at scale.

The grooming could be avoidable if govs would step in upstream online. So far govs have just facilitated it all more, or have seen it all as a hot potato and backed away quietly. So it’s tough shit for groomed individuals, their families and the everyday lives of lesbians and gay people and women as a result. But we do have rules to deal with cults don’t we? I mean I am asking, I don’t know if we do but there must be some legal powers already around? The whole identity change is such an abuse of (male) power even if it doesn’t have one wealthy cult figurehead raking it in at its centre. It taps into such deep male entitlement it seems to have countless cult figureheads

ArabellaScott I didn’t see your post but I think most of us including you have all been saying the same thing. Sympathy for the partners and families of people drawn into this identity cult and to a degree for the people who are down the rabbit hole.

On one hand I feel like when will all this male entitlement ever end? Then and on the other hand, I have autistic DC and can see how easily this online grooming-radicalisation can happen, and then easily snowball into something lifechangingly shit for the individual and their family, because of their black and white thinking and this climate of unchecked online grooming and captured organisations supporting it all. I have no idea or special knowledge whether there is any ND involved with this guy or not obviously but just feel like this family could lose out on a lot if he or they privilege the emperor’s new clothes

Oof - I posted a one word agreeing comment on that thread and got this:

"unfortunately your comment has been removed from r/stupidpol because your account does not satisfy our requirements. Your account must be at least 31 days old and have at least 200 total karma in order to participate. We realize that these requirements are quite high and we don't want to repel left-leaning users, which is why we will consider allowing you to post and comment without the required karma or account age if you go to the flair request thread and submit a comment describing your politics in sufficient detail. Do not delete your comment as we may manually approve it."

I've been on Reddit for years but rarely post, apparently I have karma of 83. I mean I know we knew that Reddit was a cess pit but it's where 40% of the "facts" that ChatGPT works on originate from, so I guess we shouldn't be surprised with what ChatGPT comes out with.

That reddit post is gold - I read a few subs related to work/hobbies/travel and I read detrans because it is good to hear the success stories of happy people post cult and salutary to read the difficult stories. I'm adding that to my list.

Agree, Motherfluffers. And I feel bad for mentioning her. I've asked for my comment to be taken down.

Writing that winsome article about his search as a comfortable straight white man to find some oppression has proven quite fateful for him then. If his wife’s situation has now got a sympathetic online nod from JKR, that is overnight exaltation for pink-haired father to the very top of his perceived oppression tree.

He will be dining out on his mention for the rest of time and maybe never leave the special identity fold again. There is no greater validation in that canon than ‘JKR was a tiny bit rude about my ideas once’ (She hasn’t been rude in the slightest, just realistic, but that’s how it will be perceived.)

I worry for the mum and kids needing practical and emotional support while this guy who has already been sucked down a rabbit hole and groomed, plays all this out. It’s sad to see.

i doubt she calls herself mum…. Most likely birthing parent

I really hope his partner discovers mumsnet if she hasn't already.

I'm sure she wouldn't be the first woman to read mumsnet and think "why have I put up with this dickhead for so long?!"

And if the usual pipeline is anything to go by, he’ll eventually decide he’s “poly” too.

I wonder what his partner thinks of his sudden fame and if she’s reading the comments (though of course she’s probably v. busy dealing with twins while he pens articles about his specialness). You can imagine the MN thread “DP wanging on about being non-binary while I’m knee-deep in nappies”.

I hadn’t heard of Nathan Barley, just googled him 🤣🤣

Remember though he could be a super brave stunning they/them. Rather than dad he's a special dad. His kids can introduce him as the 'additional needs person' so people can talk slowly to him and reign in expectations.
Maybe with extra time he'll grow up.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Christ on a bike. Could he be any more self-obsessed?

I have to admit that this part made me snigger:

I realised I was non-binary and came out in early 2017, at the start of a wave of lots of other people realising the same thing. I was 25 and had a brief period of unemployment, living back at home with my parents, which gave me time to be introspective and figure out who I was.

Yeah, mate, it's not actually all that surprising that you came up with this silly idea whilst unemployed and living with your parents with unlimited access to the internet and far too much time on your hands.

But you're a dad now. It's time to grow the fucking fuck up.

Have you ever seen Nathan Barley? He’d fit right in at Sugar Ape.

He’s just the kind of twit who’d talk about bringing his (their!) whole self to work.

I should imagine his work colleagues are very grateful for any working from home opportunities.

He reminds me of Colin from the Fast Show, big colourful glasses, dungarees, & if I remember correctly the office weirdo / annoyance 🤡.

Also agree he’ll go the whole hog at some point.

What a complete arse!

Plain average man returns to parent’s home following job loss. Spends too long lying on his bed, contemplating why his life isn’t more interesting. Decides to go ‘trans-lite’ - dye his receding hair pink & bore the world with his gender navel-gazing.

But hey, he parked his frustration at not having a suitable gendered parent name (or some such bollox!) while his newborn twins were in hospital. What a self less guy!

I guarantee the twins will be gender fluid/non binary by Reception, and he’ll be attending parent’s evening in a dress.

😱
😂

Dupers delight. I bet he’s thrilled to get a mention from JKR.

Gawd I wish that article had open comments - just for the entertaining reading. But you ladies never disappoint.

Do PN not use editors? Even just for basic spag. I thought they identified as a news outlet with er... journalists