It needs repeating. This nonsense is an example of a classic cult. It is Transcult.
When you talk about a cult, the automatic assumption is religious nutters who believe in the end of the world. Our image of a cult in this way, often prevents us from seeing one for what they are.
A cult doesn’t need to be a religion. Its merely a set of beliefs to which adherence to is crucial and central to a sense of belonging. Someone’s entire being and identity becomes intrinsically linked to that need to belong to the group. There is nothing else in their life beyond that. In the case of Transcult this is either being a transwoman/man or a liberal trans ally.
A belief in a cult can be political as easily as it can be religious, but the structure of such an organisation remains remarkably similar: a charismatic leader, a simplified singular goal or aim, restriction of critical thinking and discussion, a central bureaucracy, discouragement of interaction with others outside the group, a punishment or enforcement system, a hierarchy and a system of roles within the society and loyalty to the group at the expense of all else.
Sound familiar?
Those in the group are often the subject of exploitation which they are unaware of it. This can be in the form of personal contribution or financial exploitation. Individuals are conditioned to do or say something which is wholly against their own best interests unwittingly because the ideology blinds them to what is really going on. They are just pawns in the pursuit of power for the leadership.
Cults profess to be freeing to their members by offering them a utopian way of life, yet cults are actually authoritarian in nature, with repetitive mantras, in order to reinforce doctrines and assist in restricting debate. ‘Transwomen are women’ is a good example, and happens to be a good example of a Thought-terminating cliché and training people to adhere and believe in an idea. Encouragement of self imposed echo chambers are another way of ensuring debate is limited. Key principles or myths are commonly used to provide a framework which allows general day to day knowledge to be forgotten and be regarded as unimportant.
Still with me on seeing the parallels?
Cults rely heavily on propaganda system and enforcement of belief through bureaucracy. They shun individuals who do not comply and try to exclude them. They have their own language system and a range of offenses which are labelled as ‘crimes’ against the belief system.
There is an emphasis on this idea of virtue and how the core belief and any who follow it are undeniable good at heart. This is often matched by a sense of persecution from outsiders who do not understand and are therefore somehow evil. This sense of them versus us, entraps members within a cult, as the cult isolates them from all other sources of support.
Just today this blog by Sophia Botha has been circulating which pushes this idea that terfs want to kill all transwomen despite all evidence to the contrary.
Is this not the stuff of what we typically associate with the doomsday prophesising of a religious cult?
Harassment is sometimes used as a way of controlling those who challenge or question their beliefs. Scientology is a good example of where this is done systematically. Anyone deemed ‘a threat’ to the church is regarded as ‘fair game’ to be harassed using any or all means possible until they desist.
What was that notorious facebook group all about?
Transcult ideology like Scientology also noticeable has an aversion to both psychiatry and psychology. Why? Because they are entirely about critical thinking and the idea of the self and why we do things and what we do and therefore deemed a threat to the ideology. Hubbard went as far as pushing the idea that psychiatry was a tool of political suppression.
And whilst TRA idealogy is political not religious, it also curiously has this faith idea in which individuals are ‘born into the wrong body’ which in essence relies on the concept of a soul over science. Which is also why it is so difficult to make a rational argument against as its quasi-religious and science therefore is irrelevant.
Have we ticked all the boxes yet?
Or course, you’ll get the classic reversal accusing gender critics of also being part of a cult, which is entirely false because of one crucial, key characteristic, undeniably expressed throughout this thread:
The presence and active encouragement of engagement with others to critically think by asking questions…
But yeah, no one critical should post on this thread. 