To what extent are we allowed to discuss parallels between cults and gender ideology?

[WitchyWitcherson]

Although harrowing and upsetting, I find cult documentaries fascinating. There are a couple that stand out to me as having really strong parallels to gender ideological beliefs.

Notably (on Netflix if anyone else wants to watch them!):

• Docs on Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (FLDS) such as Keep Sweet. The phrase and purpose of "Keep Sweet" as used by the Jeffs patriarchs has a lot of similarities with the "Be Kind" narrative that has been peddled to keep people from questioning things.
• The Programme: Cons, Cults and Kidnappings - Episode 2 in particular on vulnerability of desperate parents to looking for easy solutions, then subsequent denial/minimisation of the damages done to their children.
• Twin Flames: They coerce people into medical transition because of a belief in a male or female spirit.

Anyway, these parallels to me are stark, but over the years I've noticed post deletions where people describe gender ideology as cult-like (incidentally in the "The Programme" doc, there was an online forum for parents with kids in the 'school' that deleted all posts criticising the programme...! Talk about more parallels...). So I ask... to what extent are we allowed to discuss these parallels without posts being deleted?

To caveat: I understand not all trans-identified people have homogenous beliefs on sex and gender, and I'm not saying all trans-identified people are part of some cult conspiracy, just that there are aspects to gender ideology and some of the people who are proponents of said ideology adhering to similar behaviours to people who are within cults (shutting down discussion, holding onto beliefs in the face of clear facts and harms, claiming special/"other" status, offering a solution to people's suffering etc. etc.).

I am an ex evangelical Christian from a very culty style of church. The trans ideology movement seems very cult like to me. There are so many parallels in how they behave and relate to each other that remind me of high control religions.

l find myself thinking this about a lot of far left politics as well. There is a worrying extremism that can be scary.

It was and is a very odd phenomina that punctuates history.

where until recent history it was just TIMS mostly not women.

As a person who was involved in the trot left in the eighties i recognise the groups such as bash back as purely anarchistic.

The hard trot left has become post modernist and buys in to the bullshit. The working class agenda left the revolutionary movement very long ago.

I think CRT and GI walk hand in hand.

The hard left has always been cult like as is gender ideology.

I think that @SylvanMoon 's information is enlightening
I think the absence of a cult leader is kind of definitive- it doesn't really make sense to describe transactivism as a cult but the psychological mechanisms that are cult-like are easy to see.

It's group think. Which I think has mostly been used (as a concept) to describe how groups can fail catastrophically in their allocated task. Although transactivism doesn't have an allocated task (that is agreed on, that they are all acting towards). I imagine someone, somewhere has looked at what can challenge group think, and it would be interesting to apply that to transactivism.

Indeed. One of the reasons that calling trans activism 'progressive' is so ludicrous. Aside from misogyny, capitalism is one of the pillars keeping this going.

I have read that Martine Rothblatt is the closest that gender ideology gets to having a 'cult leader'. Of course, the implication is that GI is just part of a greater move towards transhumanism.

There are people with a lot of power and/or money who are not well known to the general public who are moving 'behind the scenes'. The capture of institutions, the money made by drug/medical companies, etc.

This is interesting, because I was brought up in a cult-like background, and I have noted a lot of parallels between cults and trans-exclusionary feminism (aka 'gender critical' feminism). Threads like this one on MN reinforce the cult mentality.

Male exclusionary feminism.

Because if your priority for feminism is the inclusion of men, you're not a feminist. You're a male rights activist.

Got to centre those men, right?

What exactly are you talking about?

Please explain further.

Being gender critical means that someone rejects gendered stereotypes (eg, girls like pink and baking, boys like blue and engineering) and says that boys/girls can like any colour or enjoy any activity they like.

If you are talking about the position that mammals can't change sex, well, that is just material reality. This is completely demonstrable, and it would go on being true even if every single person on the planet didn't believe in it.

I have often thought that gender identity ideology is a kind of modern gnostic belief.

DARVO and projection. As predicted.

It's extraordinary isn't it?

These people want women to have nothing for themselves. Not even a movement set up to promote their own rights.

The misogyny in this world is so deep rooted and ugly. I honestly had no idea how bad it was until the 'men can be women' brigade showed up 🙄

To be precise, in the so-called 'gender critical' movement I have seen:

• a rigid belief set and dogma, refusing to add nuance to concepts such as 'biology'
• adherents saying that if other women (or men) don't agree with them, those people cannot possibly be feminists. You're only a feminist if you embrace a gender-critical ideology.
• terms such as 'peaked' to indicate people being converted to the movement. This sounds very evangelical.
• people within the community 'othering' those who disagree with them. You're either in or out, there is no middle ground and no room for debate.
• scaremongering. Calling people who disagree TRAs and lumping them together regardless of what their specific views may be. Jumping on stories of trans women criminals and saying that they represent the category of trans women as a whole.

All that is just off the top of my head, but yes, it's very similar to the fundamentalist evangelical Christianity I grew up with. And I find it repugnant.

I know that not all self-identified 'gender critical' feminists are like this, but on MN, many of them are.

I'm a transinclusive feminist and many years of seeing these MN threads have resulted in making me even more trans-friendly. I'm not going back to the cultish thinking of my childhood.

But each to their own.

I am a male-exclusionary feminist. Because feminism has to centre females. For what it's worth, I'm definitely not part of a cult 😀.

The term had been modified maybe, by the time I heard it in the mid-90s from older transitioning trans women online. Women were always referred to as "GGs" or "genetic girls."

And I hope 'gender critical' feminists recognise that they have some awkward bedfellows, namely Trump and many other right-wing authoritarian leaders across the world.

"refusing to add nuance to concepts such as 'biology'"

Do tell what that nuance would be @cassandre

Oh here we go 🙄

I'm sure I share many beliefs with Trump. That water is wet. That grass is green. That gravity exists. That the world is round.

Should we just throw those out too because Trump agrees?

Honestly, not enough eye rolls in the world for this kind of nonsense.

Nah, at the times the line was anything but clear.

I had a post zapped which talked about how distressed a family was at the transition of a daughter. I had the temerity to refer to an unidentifiable young adult as 'she', i.e. per her natal sex.

And boom, post gone. I was aware that 'misgendering' was regarded as capital crime by TRAs, but I wasn't aware that it was a zappable offence on MN.

Jumping on stories of trans women criminals and saying that they represent the category of trans women as a whole.

Evidence please @cassandre

Who cares.

Knowing that human beings cannot change sex is something that is a normal thing for people of all - or no - political persuasions to understand. It is demonstrably true, like gravity.

I am not a fan of Lysenkoism. People die when you 'bend' science to fit politics.

I'm a feminist who disagrees with gender-critical feminism. Is your ideological framework too narrow to acknowledge that there are different schools of thought within feminism (just as there are different schools of thought within Christianity)? Or are you going to tell me I'm not a feminist?

If so, you're cultivating a cult mindset.

• a rigid belief set and dogma, refusing to add nuance to concepts such as 'biology'

The very fact that you have to put speech marks round 'biology' says it all really. Biology is not dogma

• adherents saying that if other women (or men) don't agree with them, those people cannot possibly be feminists. You're only a feminist if you embrace a gender-critical ideology.

Centring men is the very opposite of feminism. Obviously.

• terms such as 'peaked' to indicate people being converted to the movement. This sounds very evangelical.

In what sense is having a word for understanding what is going on 'evangelical'?

• people within the community 'othering' those who disagree with them. You're either in or out, there is no middle ground and no room for debate.

Well there is no middle ground on whether humans can change sex. Either they can or they can't. Which is it, do you think?

The point is that you can't be a feminist if you put men's desires above women's rights and needs. Only the most bigoted misogynist would fail to see that

Coughs. I don't think you want to go down that route given the proliferation of (to put it mildly) creepy fuckers on your male pandering side.

Creepy bedfellows indeed.

It's ironic how all the responses so far are just reinforcing my point that on MN, trans-exclusionary feminists have a binary mindset: one based on dogma.