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.

If my post was full of strawmen, it shouldn't be hard to actually quote one and explain where it's wrong, rather than making broad assertions without a single example. The fact that you're lumping all "GC beliefs and behaviours" in with the specific HC behaviours I was describing, when I was quite explicit that GC beliefs in themselves aren't what I was talking about, is interesting. Talking about online group behaviour doesn't equal critiquing the entirety of believing people can't change sex and women need SSS.

I'd say we do see nuanced views TBH. There are several posters - don't ask me to name them, I'm not committing them to memory - who post considered responses on a range of subjects that fall under the umbrella of GC views.

moderate, or exhausted members stop speaking up to avoid hostility, purity testing, or endless debates

What about "I just don't care to share my many moderate opinions about stuff I'm feeling, well, moderate about?" By definition, I'm only going to share my passionate opinions about stuff I'm passionate about. The rest I can't be bothered to type out. I can totally imagine that some other people don't share their own moderate opinions because of the reasons you gave, but in my case and undoubtedly many others (because I'm really not that special), it's just a matter of "Can't be arsed, because don't care enough", nothing more.

Case in point: I didn't even open the thread about the latest boycott, so I'm certainly not going to comment on it.

Tbh, I think this is simply just the nature of online debate.
Very few people are actually interested in having their views challenged, or sometimes even explained - I've said this a lot before, but I first came here hoping a TRA could explain what they believed, what they thought was the difference between women and men, and how that squared with sexism and homophobia suggested by the notion of gendered souls etc (lazy phrasing but I'm not really interested in getting into it here).

There have been a couple of people willing to try and articulate their views... and OP (who doesn't believe that but has tried admirably to describe their body dysmorphia), but hardly anyone with those beliefs cares about engaging or responding to questions as asked and not re-worded!

And I feel I've learned enough and tend to dip back in on certain types of thread. And yet we still have people who don't understand when you talk about gender id as distinct from sex, etc, so it does get a bit exhausting when everyone's coming from different places in what they know or falling for troll posts.

So the people that were reading nuanced views, that tired them out and the people that stopped being nuanced?

Genuinely confused as to what point you are trying to make.

What is this HC you keep referring to?

Please could the posters who have descended to criticise FWR explain why they care so much that in their humble opinions “the loudest” posters on FWR aren’t “nuanced” enough? What’s it to you? Who literally gives a single fuck? Point to a single online space of the same format as FWR where most people are “nuanced” and aren’t “loud”. There’s this bizarre notion, repeatedly, on these threads that “everyone is talking” about what GC women on Mumsnet say and how we say it. No, TRAs and the TRA adjacent do.

But you are the one positioning people here as ‘anti trans cult’ extremists, and claiming when people push back that they are ‘behaving just as I’d expect in a cult’. Not those exact words but that exact sentiment.

I’m just reminding you that IF this were a cult, it would be an anti man cult.

I think she means people have got tired of explaining reality etc and have become less “nuanced” over time.

I do think this is one of the problems of forum posting - I think they were picking up on a post by me but if you're not following every sub-discussion it's easy to lose the thread and not pick up the actual meaning!

HC? I assumed this was just a typo for GC.

No it’s repeated, I assume something to do with cults.

What about "I just don't care to share my many moderate opinions about stuff I'm feeling, well, moderate about?" By definition, I'm only going to share my passionate opinions about stuff I'm passionate about. The rest I can't be bothered to type out.

Yes, exactly, so people pointing to specific threads about boycotts or whatever and concluding that because GC posters have posted on there, that means all GC posters on the board hold the same views, is erroneous.

(I know you're not disagreeing, I'm just trying to clarify my original point that was mocked by that other poster!)

Genuinely confused as to what point you are trying to make.

Cos my point is nuanced.

Point to a single online space of the same format as FWR where most people are “nuanced” and aren’t “loud”.

If anything, as I've already mentioned in some other thread, I'm still surprised at how open FWR is to opinions that are not in line with the "loudest" voices. I've been on a lot of forums over the last 30 years, and I've extremely rarely come across a place as accepting of both outright opposing views, and also just more moderate views. And those other places were not even about anything remotely as important as the proper safeguarding of women and children in real life.

High Control, if I'm not mistaken.

There were various assertions about what all GC people in these cultish online spaces believed - (that all trans people are AGP & anyone who has a different view is a TRA etc.) There was nonsense about discussing peaking was some rite of initiation. It's just silly when we are in a debate against a group who genuinely do try to suppress and punish dissent, often with violence, to try and liken GC camaraderie to a cult.

Exactly. I just read it as a massive DARVO.

You...lost two of your kids because of your beliefs and still refuse to see you're in a cult?

Guess you're replying to someone whose beliefs were more important than their actual trans child, but even so.

This is where the prosecution rests. Anyone who denies their child comfort, respect and a listening ear is being abusive.

Parenting isn't an equal relationship. We are uniquely positioned to hurt our children, and exploiting that power is - well, abuse.

I'm negotiating my way through with adult children at the moment. We don't always agree, and I'm often forced to keep quiet when they're being thoughtless, because I don't want a row. I them raise it when things are calmer, me very much included, and we move on. This is especially true when you have adhd and autism in the family.

But I've had a child come out to me. I saw the vulnerability and pain in his eyes, how terrified he was of rejection. In accepting and supporting him, I rejected and neutralised that power. I allowed him to explain to me how he felt, and didn't impose my own views. We negotiate the world together now. Not perfectly, but together. I have no desire to even hold that power again.

A doomsday cult (which is what 'gender criticism' really is, forever prophesising an End Of Trans Days which will never, ever come) is no substitute for a child's love.

I guess some parents value control and obedience over respect, loyalty and love, but still. Isn't being loved better than holding out for some fictional day when they'll apologise and recant?

You can't love someone you can't trust. You need to go back before irreparable damage is done.

Please, consider going cold turkey on transphobia for a bit. Find something else to do. Without the constant reinforcement, you may find yourself craving some positive company instead. Hate is such a dead end, and it will not bring you happiness.

The cult surely, is the one that encourages young people to reject family in favour of strangers who tell them lies.

It’s kind of textbook isn’t it @PrizedPickledPopcorn

A threat that hangs over parents who don’t comply. You can see why some go along with it and then come up with ways to justify that.

I read those sentences as specifically making the opposite point - that this was a subset of GC posters and there are lot of people with GC views who don't act like this.

"Many many people don't believe it's possible to change sex and there is where GC beliefs are based on reality. However people who haven't gone down a time suck of internet forums, twitter etc"....

One of us has misunderstood!

Edit - i read it as "however, these are people who haven't...." etc.
To which I countered that many have gone down the rabbitholes and still think different things, agree with some and not others and they probably don't bother to post about the things they don't believe.

Someone said: Why don't we see those more nuanced views expressed as much, and why do people run out of energy to share them?

You replied: Because it's been like talking to a brick wall, unless you tell them exactly what they want to hear, they don't listen, nuanced is wasted on them, just like facts, logic and common sense is.
I personal don't see there's any need for 'nuanced', it's pretty straight forward women need single sex spaces and men need to stay out of them.

I asked who 'them' was

and your response is: 'Them' would be the people the nuanced views were directed at, the ones that tired people out so much, people stopped being nuanced in their views because it was like talking to a brick wall.

So we still do not know who 'them is'. Are you saying TRAs were being nuanced and talking to the wall so much that they stopped being nuanced? If no, which nuanced views are being so misunderstood? If they are misunderstood by so many people, it is really the fault of ALL the readers that they, the nuancers, cannot make any sense whatsoever?

I read it as a bit of both.
Simultaneously saying GC views aren't always like this, but in many GC spaces, (MN? X?) they usually are.
But I would say the 1st point undermines the whole idea that GC views are cult like.