Tell me you don't know what a cult is...

[Seethlaw]

... without telling me you don't know what a cult is.

I grew up in a cult-ish church. It had some very unpleasant aspects to it indeed. The very concept of the GC movement as a cult utterly baffles me, and irritates me quite a bit, I must admit.

Where is our Leader? Some say JKR is that, even though she obviously didn't create the movement, since she joined it after it already existed. Okay, but then where is the cult of personality? Where is the hanging onto her every word? Where is the compulsory study of her life? Where is the regular and compulsory show of support of her as our leader?

What are the specific beliefs that random people outside the movement don't believe? "Men can't become women and vice versa" is not such a belief, since loads of people who would never call themselves GC also believe it. So what are our specific beliefs?

What is the rite of entry into the movement? How does one know that they themselves or someone else is a member of the movement?

Where are the big gatherings where the leaders speak The Word? Where are the regular gatherings where the members reinforce each other's beliefs?

What are the demands made of the members? Where are the compulsory meetings? Where are the financial requirements? Where are the specific behaviours we have to adhere to?

Where are the punishments for leaving the group? How do you even know you've left at all? And where are the stories of abuse and control told by the former members?

I could go on forever.

Accusing GC people of belonging to a cult is just as ridiculous and offensive as claiming, for example, that there's a trans genocide going on. It's deliberately appropriating the real suffering of other people to make a completely false and unsupportable point because there's no actual valid point to make. It's utterly reprehensible and shameful.

I assume this is a spin off from the Other Cult One (which I've been studiously mostly avoiding)? Seeth, I think we sex-realist women have to be in a cult, because then what we say and believe in (the truth and reality) can be denigrated.

If we weren't in a cult, then everything we say would just be Truth and Reality, and they can't have that, can they?!

Well, I think the situation - as with so many situations - is nuanced.

My guess is most people calling the GC Cult a cult are referring to 'cultish' or 'cultlike' thinking and behaviour which, to be fair, is pretty spot on.
They could instead have called it the GC Tribe and had (largely) the same implication.

I don't think they are referring to the group as an actual, literal, cult as you describe it (but then, I suspect you know this already and are purposefully drawing a dramatic and fallacious comparison in the hope of deflecting further criticism from those who feel you belong to a cult).

As to the 'cult of personality', whilst it's clear there are many MNetters who slavishly and unthinking seem to deify JKR - judging by their clear posts - I don't think she - or anyone else - is the head of this particular cult; more likely, it's the GC ideology that is held up as the mantra and ruling law of the cult, rather than any individual.

I've seen cult mentioned many, many, many times over this area of MN - sometimes said with intelligent, reasonable sincerity, and sometimes just thrown out as a seeming insult - but the point is that, like it or not, there is a cultlike behavioural model that seems to dominate here, and that those who speak out against it, or call it out, are reacted to in ways I'd imagine a cult reacts to dissenting voices.

I think your last paragraph sums it up perfectly.

Can’t wait to see how the TRAs are going to respond to a Trans person who has some cult like experience growing up!

It happens on Reddit all the time - see the attached assumptions and subsequent accusations. It is logical fallacy stuff.

Gender critical people believe that

1. Your biology is fixed - well yes it is and yes we do

1. Your biology is simple - hmm, yes and no. Sex is complex but fundamental, and there are only two sexes; we are a gonochoric species

1. Your biology determines your social role and status - no. It affects it (the possibility of being pregnant is only available to women, women have been considered weaker in history, and so on). But Gender Critical people wouldn't ever say women must be subservient, or cannot be leaders, or whatever other bobbins that is in this person's head that leads in the next sentence to 'Nazism'

I noticed the TRA started using the words, cult and ideology of late.

They are so unoriginal that they nick every statement or words we use to turn it on to us.

"They are so unoriginal that they nick every statement or words we use to turn it on to us."

Entirely and wholly predictable in tribal warfare. 🙄

I haven't been following the other thread since it got derailed, but the title question, and the few "Yes, you are!" answers I did see, have kept eating at me, yes.

I think we sex-realist women have to be in a cult, because then what we say and believe in (the truth and reality) can be denigrated.

Thing is, we could just... have a wrong opinion, couldn't we? Plenty of people have wrong opinions without being in cults! Hell, there even exists plenty of churches which disagree with each other about what they consider to be issues relating to eternal salvation, without any of them accusing the others of being cults. By comparison, sex realism in this life is quite the detail.

You are absolutely right.

A classic of cults is encouraging isolation of members from family and previous friends. GC does not do this. Some trans movements sadly do.

Tithing to the leader as an act of spiritual/moral cleansing. Nope. JKR has never asked us to give her a penny. She is the giver. Stonewall on the other hand...

Agressive enforcement of beliefs that have no foundatio0n in fact. No... But...

My guess is most people calling the GC Cult a cult are referring to 'cultish' or 'cultlike' thinking and behaviour which, to be fair, is pretty spot on.

But what cultish or cultlike thinking and behaviour?? That's the whole point of my post: what is that behaviour we're supposedly exhibiting? How does it manifest itself?

I don't think they are referring to the group as an actual, literal, cult as you describe it (but then, I suspect you know this already and are purposefully drawing a dramatic and fallacious comparison in the hope of deflecting further criticism from those who feel you belong to a cult).

If you're going to tell someone who grew up in an actual cultlike church, that they've fallen into another cultlike group, then you better be prepared for them to ask for the receipts, because they know very deep inside what an actual "cultlike group" looks like - and the GC movement absolutely isn't one.

I don't think it's any more 'cultish', probably far less so in fact, than for example supporting a football club. No one ever suggests football fans are in a cult or 'cultlike'. In fact, on occasion the ability of football fandom to create cohesion or bring people together is praised.

Like all these absolutist terms, by all means think critically about where it might apply, but I think it devalues it to apply it to things it clearly doesn't describe well.

We've just had 40 pages debating this utter nonsense. Did we really need another thread? 🙄

I rarely go on Reddit - not just Trans Reddit, but Reddit as a whole. I can't breathe there. The way some posts are downvoted to oblivion simply for going against the popular opinion on the sub is outright triggering to me.

I've tried looking at Trans Reddit a few times. The amount of ridiculously false assertions about both being trans and being GC was way too much to handle.

Obviously the OP feels so, or they wouldn't have posted it. If you've an issue with that, you need to take it up with the OP, or step away for your own sanity... here be dragons!

Thanks for starting this thread (and for all that you've contributed to this board, and for being such a great interview subject). In answer to @GreyskySexRealistskyon the associated thread I started on cults – I just like asking questions!

Attached are a few interesting photos from last month's trans pride march in London, which I attended.

An excellent parallel.

As I referenced in my post, perhaps the term "tribal" is more accurate than "cult", but then human beings are naturally social animals - and societal collaboration generally exists for the betterment of all - so at what point does membership of a tribe (and, by extension, tribalistic thinking) become an issue?
The answer, obviously, is when it's turned against another tribe, or those who support it.

If my opening post wasn't clear enough, whilst I've seen this particular area (and only this particular area) very commonly referred to as the echo-chamber of a cult, it's not a view I personally adhere to.
There is "cultlike" (or "tribalistic" if you prefer) thinking here, sure, but that will arguably exist in any group. Even, to come full circle, football fandom!

Indeed.

I've been in both the trans community and the GC community. If I had to describe one as cult-like, it would be the one where I was literally told that I was wrong for feeling the way I did. Not thinking - that I would have no problem with. But feeling: I was literally wrong for feeling the way I did about being trans. That was very brutal, especially in the context of a mutual support group! I could get support - but only if I said and did and felt and thought the right way. Hmm...

By contrast, I've been challenged about what I think here, but GC people have never told me that I don't or shouldn't feel what I feel. On the contrary, people here have been curious about what I feel, and have encouraged me to explore those feelings.

I clearly labelled my thread. You didn't have to click on it.

Those are some... uncomfortable signs to look at. I'd have NOT felt good if I'd participated in this march, to say the least. The last thing I need is to be reminded of the teachings and phrases of the church I escaped. I can't imagine that I'm the only one with religious trauma in the trans community, so really, those placards are not the best idea at all.

My guess is most people calling the GC Cult a cult are referring to 'cultish' or 'cultlike' thinking and behaviour which, to be fair, is pretty spot on.

But what cultish or cultlike thinking and behaviour?? That's the whole point of my post: what is that behaviour we're supposedly exhibiting? How does it manifest itself?

Fair question, and one I don't personally have the answer to (perhaps we can get some of the people who are referring to this as a cult into this thread to comment; so long as MNHQ don't ban all their posts and accounts, which seems to have happened in other threads).

My own view is that there is a pervading attitude among many, not all, of the more - shall we say, refreshingly vocal? - regulars here that GC ideology is the one, true God belief and that anything which opposes it must be - must be - attacked and torn down.

We see this when a few - very brave in my view, given where they are - people dare to suggest that perhaps trans-women and those that support them aren't quite the behorned devils some people here take them to be.
Such posts are routinely followed by a very few well-thought out responses, then a wave of replies that range from rigid, immutable thinking all the way to outright attacks and whataboutisms (often descending into comparisons with Reddit that some people here have a weird obsession with).
Honestly, it's little wonder people are slow and cautious to post anything that might be seen as dissenting against the cult/tribe/group <delete as appropriate>.

Whether people are correct to view the group who call themselves GC sex-realists as a cult is, honestly, a question we need to put to those people who use the "cult" label. But, again, I strongly suspect that MNHQ are so quick with the ban-hammer that such accounts don't last long. A little like Reddit, in a way...

Hmmm... whilst it is interesting and horrifying in equal measure to see signs like that, I do think we need to be careful not to fall into the trap of judging an entire group by the actions of a few.

And for the TRAs present - if there are any - that absolutely goes both ways. The extreme views of some GC people do not equate to the views of all GC people as a collective.

"We see this when a few - very brave in my view, given where they are - people dare to suggest that perhaps trans-women and those that support them aren't quite the behorned devils some people here take them to be."

Excuse me, @KinderOfKinder ?
Could you perhaps dial down the hyperbole a little?
It doesn't reflect well on the argument you're trying to make.
No one has likened TW to behorned devils, jeez.
We just don't want male people taking women's stuff.
People are welcome to explain convincingly why they think that should happen.

It would be more accurate to say that groups of people coalesce around an idea - or a football club - and that is the thing they have in common. To expect them to agree or have other things in common would be ridiculous. Although we see TRAs frequently trying to say "so and so believes men are not women, they also believe A, therefore all you women who believe men are not women must also believe A". It's the TRAs who need to believe that there is 'cultlike' behaviour. As then it can be dismissed and not engaged with. It may just be a lot of women who happen to agree about one thing. No one, suggests that, as a whole, socialists, or conservatives, or Christians, or vegans are members of a cult or are cultlike unless they are attempting to discredit them. And they may loosely be described as 'a tribe', but even then it doesn't follow that they are 'tribal'.

And like football fans (members of the same 'tribe) we all also have a range of views within our shared interest or belief. "Tuchel should not have taken Jordan Henderson/Henderson was key to player morale".

So, when presented with a lengthy post your response was to rigidly fixate on one fragment of one sentence and to take what was, I think, very clearly an expression as literal, and then react to that, and then suggest it didn't reflect well on me?

Well, that does rather underpin one of my points; that many posters here frequently get the wrong end of the proverbial stick and, if I may extend the metaphor, doggedly pursue it whilst missing the entire point of the original post. 🙄

Well, they've got to be able to rubbish - and therefore dismiss - our arguments somehow.

"Shut up bigot" didn't work, and neither did attempts to argue because their arguments fell apart at the first application of fact or reason. So the wholly inaccurate "You're a cult" is pretty much all they've got left.

Just as an interesting aside, do we collectively feel that TRAs are a "cult", or have "cultlike" behavioural models?

Genuine question.