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.).

Thanks so much, ILike. I will have to watch that later to remind myself of their points.

Very well put.

And to zoom out a little on this point, we also apparently didn’t antipicate that we might need rules that explicitly preclude convicted terrorists from running for election but here we are.

I feel for the poor chap - Eric Firkins, a British citizen who was kidnapped and held hostage in order to bargain for the release of said convicted terrorist from prison. Four other tourists were murdered in the attack.

He faces the prospect of the guy who instigated his ordeal and the murders of British citizens being elected to a position of power in Birmingham. He evaded punishment for his crime. It appears that those currently in power hold us in contempt and are enabling more likeminded people.

This is exactly it. A cult of the individual. You are who you say you are, what other people see matters not. So of course there is no Grand Poobah of GI. They can all be individual leaders of their own worlds. My brother is a classic NPD; he isn't trans because he wants to follow a great leader. He is the important one, everything centers him and the belief he has that he is a woman. In fact having a leader would diminish the importance of him.

So it's a cult, but with a sprinkling of differences because reasons.

Do you know, that is exactly what Germaine Greer said in a radio interview (maybe 5 years ago?)
"They want to be women, only better".

Lots of the concepts from Second Wave Feminists had good intentions, but have had horrible unintended consequences for women and society:

• Intersectionality, or overlapping systems of oppression, has morphed into the ‘concept creep’ with the use of the word ‘oppression’ being used to describe discrimination. That’s led to the TRA claim that their TWAW movement is a civil rights movement!
• The concept of the oppressor and the oppressed, framing it in terms of something specific to a particular group in society. With the spread of women’s studies in university departments, the concept was generalised as a way of describing virtually all relationships in society and giving permission to label anyone you disagree with as an “oppressor” or bigot or fascist.
• Viewing gender as a social construct in order to argue that biological differences should not lead to different treatment in society, such as lower status, lower salaries, and fewer opportunities for promotion. This has been bastardised into the shitshow we currently have over anyone who “feels like a woman” is one.
• Considering the personal is political, which although initially was focused only on women, the idea of ‘individual experience’ as a foundation for understanding society within the social sciences and humanities spread alongside the theories of postmodern philosophers, and with the rise of neoliberalism. It’s legitimised a market-driven focus on individualism, personal responsibility, and consumer choice, turning it into a justification for individual pursuits rather than one in which we act within and with consideration for our community or society. It’s also introduced the idea of “relative truth”.
• Bodily autonomy was promoted as an individual's asserted ‘right’ to decide on their own body without coercion, violence, or external interference. This includes choices concerning health care, reproduction, sexuality, and personal integrity. This has led to an abdication of any responsibility we might have to a greater society as a result of our personal actions.
• Substantive equality or equity advocated for equal opportunities by using the state to reduce socioeconomic disparities in wealth, income, and access to essential services such as education and healthcare through taxation and legislation. Instead, it has become a “victimhood Olympics” in which groups and individuals are claiming moral status through narratives of trauma and injury, often assigning blame to others to secure recognition, resources, or political advantage.

It is what Keffles said too:
“Being a trans woman isn't about trying to imitate women. It's about trying to be better than women.”
He would know.

ETA- this was a reply to knittedsloth.

I completely disregard Lifton's study, which has led to the now-discredited belief that people who join what you're calling cults have all be "brainwashed". In my PhD research of the exit narratives of the memoirs of people who have left such institutions, those who claimed they had been hoodwinked or brainwashed into joining were seeking almost any means to “prove” their own innocence and the institution’s culpability rather than accept any sort of responsibility for their decision to join. The more honest memoirs came from a more reflective position, where the ex-member was looking to examine how the person they now perceived themselves to be had had that experience. In my opinion, when the authors’ intention was to remonstrate with or repudiate the former institution, or, to lay blame by "airing psychic damage”, the memoirs were less effective, and spoke to a narrower audience, than those which were self-interrogative. Those memoirs which sought to portray life within a total institution as complex, perhaps even exploring how people did the wrong things for the right reasons, were more compelling than those that adopted a dichotomous adversarial approach.

When anyone says 'MN is just another cult about this and we should respect other people's beliefs' I'd ask them to consider the following.

If you have an impossible belief it remains an impossible belief. Reality will get you in the end.

The same goes for sex - there will always be situations where it absolutely matters. You can't just decide it never matters and it's a social construct anymore than you can decide you believe you can fly.

I believe I can fly? Reality says splat.

The wall of reality doesn't change.

MN recognises this.

The comments on this Reddit thread are pretty mindblowing.

archive.ph/gWM2I

Such an important post. Look at the appalling publicity today the govt have for inexplicably delaying the EHRC guidance. Evidently lying when saying they support the law and trying everything they can to continue allowing men to breach women's boundaries.

This was simple yet - so extreme is the power trans lobbyists have that all over the media today they are being openly accused of being incompetent, liars and failing to safeguard women and girls.

It was so simple but they couldn't make themselves do it.

I'd suggest a big part of the problem is that activists have gamed politics' own processes. Govt doesn't mind manipulation, obfuscation and selective understanding of 'truth' because those tools are useful to them.

If it worked for 'gender' it will sure as fuck be used for other causes/purposes.

I think you're right about those parallels @Mauvemayhem. In my PhD research I found loads of similarities within some of the New Religious Movements of the 1970s, and more established fundamental/evangelical religious institutions and covenanted religious communities, as well as several radical left political organisations'

And the next important thing to consider is how to guard against cultist behaviour and totalitarianism gaining too much influence.

Of course freedom of speech, thought, belief and expression is fundamental.

Second is robust critical thinking and discourse.

I suggest academia needs to self interrogate far more.

The Internet and its propensity to create bubbles and echo chambers needs attention.

Ask questions, keep asking questions. If youre not allowed to ask questions this is a red flag.

Apply safeguarding lessons with rigour. Unfortunately these become hollow virtually as soon as written; it must be a constant and continually process.

No more 'safe spaces' in education, where that actually means that no one can challenge anything, play Devil's advocate or go against the correct views.

This isn't what 'safe' means.

It should be that students are able to debate anything, get things wrong, try again, practice analytical skills, develop critical thinking, strongman an opinion they don't hold, etc.

I understood the original meaning of 'safe space' actually was somewhere where difficult or challenging views could be aired and discussed without censure.

Yes, it's been completely motte-and-bailey'd.

Good luck with the contraceptive effect of "biological sex is a belief" and "I feel like a male"

And the next important thing to consider is how to guard against cultist behaviour and totalitarianism gaining too much influence.

I think elected officials, political parties, public intuitions, such as the NHS etc, governments of any level, talking heads, influencers, people in general should be challenged when they express an opinion that seems counterfactual, the onus is on them to prove what they say is valid not on others to prove what they say is invalid.
No more free passes, no more 'agree to disagree', no more letting them hide behind insult's and made up words ending in' phobia'. They need to justify what the say and if they can't they need to be told, ever so diplomatically, they're talking through there rear ends.

Operation Let Them Speak, should now morph into Operations Now They Listen. They had they're say now it's our turn.

Ok. Sounds like white people appropriated Intersectionality in a way that led to it being easier to dismiss the concept of White Feninism and the issue with racism in Feminism generally. That is why we still have the issue of mainstream feminism being unattractive, irrelevant and even harmful to non-white women and often lead by racist white women

There was a point where strong, different, gender-non-conforming or 'wise' women were 'witches', 'scolds', 'unnatural'. Now we're 'racists', 'bigots', 'right-wing-adjacent'. Plus ca change.

The second wave of feminism fell to bits as did spare rib, over the whole hierarchy of oppression and intersectionality arguments, and about Zionism.

As I recall.

@GlovedhandsCecilia And you make massive sweeping statements about white feminist racists being a thing.

Certainly when I think they 'nuked the fridge'.

That whole argument is like an internal dialogue within Intersectionality itself. The base line of which is that 'White Feminism' is a thing, and that it oppresses 'women of colour', and whatever anyone says to the contrary, or whatever other perspective is put forward is all a false flag or evidence of false consciousness.

The article of faith is that women of colour are oppressed by white women and everything will be bent towards confirming that. This is itself all very racist in my view. Make everything about race and positioning 'white women' as oppressors.

Why all the white t shirts? That whole thing looked weird. And was their humming to disrupt speakers?