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.

Sorry this was unintentionally ambiguous, I was catching up and only on page 4 when I wrote it.

That's the 15th time you've mentioned something that happened 10 years ago in a foreign country.

There is no trans ideology.

Come come now, you don't really mean that. I think you got a little carried away just at that point.

Of course there is an ideology. It starts with the mantra TWAW, and everything follows from that.

Edit: sorry, fat fingers added a kissing emoji. Unintended. 😁

Absolutely.

While I can empathise with the pain and struggle of any parent having to navigate a child believing they are trans, and potentially entering a world of transition with all the difficulties that can bring, I really can’t understand - or respect - how some of these parents can plead for empathy, understanding and exceptions for their own child, while seemingly having no empathy at all for other children, or their parents, who may be put at risk or disadvantaged by allowing males into female single-sex spaces and categories.

Yes, Transparent has posted about their female "son" before.

Quite simply, trans activists have been described as displaying cult like behaviour. So a little while later, they Darvo. It happens over and over again.

Flattery, I suppose.

For what its worth I dont think TWAW is a cult either. Some people within gender circles display group behaviour that includes some cultist markers- love bombing, othering, shunning of apostates, thought-terminating clichés that function as mantras, etc.

Group behaviour is not quite cult.behaviour though. Cults are more specific, as your OP alluded to.

Attempts at a nuanced position in between 'TW are Women' and 'TW are Men':

1. Sex is meaningless/old fashioned so I am not going to answer
2. Sex is a spectrum/fluid, so I am not going to answer
3. Sex is too complicated to understand, so I am not going to answer
4. Some TW, the right ones, are women, but some are men
5. Stop talking about genitals and pants
6. TWAM, but it is not polite to say it out loud, you should be kind and pretend TWAW
7. Third spaces make the whole point moot, so no need to answer
8. The words Woman and Man are sociological constructs, there have been PhDs on it, gender is what matters in society, so no need to answer
9. Some women can be violent like men, TW are nice and kind, so TWAW
10. Transmen are obviously not women, they can't go in the ladies toilets, so TW must be women

Obviously, for a really nuanced discussion, each of the above would need a whole paragraph, or a whole post, or a whole series of posts, to really go through all the ins and outs of the nuance.

This post, on the other hand is actually well said!

Sorry BackToLurk, I hope you didn't think I meant you in my earlier post!

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

Well yes. Normally cults encourage their members to cut off non-believers, not the other way round.

Many parents who’ve lost their children to cults spend years hoping and trying to break them free of the brainwashing, while their children refuse to interact, because they’ve been taught their parents are bad.

I haven’t cut them off. Contact is still open on my side. We don’t need to agree on everything, but I cannot lie to them and say I believe something I don’t. If I did, I would be a crappy mother and completely lacking in self respect.

I realise you can’t accept that we are correct as that would mean you’ve irretrievably damaged your child’s health by believing in pseudoscience, so your defence of transition is understandable, but your attack on me is way off mark.

Yes. The truth is you lost two of your children because of their beliefs.

Nope. Being decent to trans/nb people also means not following the transphobic guidance regarding single-sex facilities.

Guidance which also endangers cis gnc women.

Women have no safe spaces. Pretending public toilets are, is an insult to our intelligence.

And: please. I saw the reaction to the perfectly normal (in fact highly progressive) decency towards trans people. The highlighting of leave for trans-specific reasons, and other provisions.

Tell me then: do you boycott Nestlé? Fast fashion? Anyone not certified as Fair Trade?

Because that actually is consequential. Going postal at peanut butter companies for ignoring transphobic guidance is nothing like as impactful as refusing to give money to companies which exploit, enslave and force unwanted lifestyle changes (like aggressively promoting baby formula over breastmilk) on women.

But hey, you're a cult. You could be campaigning for access to toilets for girls in developing countries, instead you're here pretending a public space with cubicles is made unsafe by trans women.

Even though there are so few trans women. Even though it's massively affected the safety of gnc cis women.

Anyway, I'm off. Have fun raging because an Aldi in Norwich has a non-binary person on the biscuit counter, or whatever the next fake panic is.

This exactly. It's pure DARVO, and the less attention paid to it the better. Let's just let the visiting Redditors debate each other.

But the reaction here is telling, with so many good women earnestly searching their souls. I can't imagine similar self-reflection over in that place.

Letting transwomen - ie males- info female single sex spaces endangers female children.

Don’t you care about them?

For those asking about what I meant about not doing nuanced anymore because it's like talking to a brick wall, this is my they.

My experience (i am in London) is that a bunch of men who are playing around with gender norms thinks they can get whatever they like. Rather than trying to blend in they go out in one of two ways - the hyper sexualised hooker look or the mash up of say a tartan skirt with doc martens, a beard with a slash of lipstick, plus breasts of course.

I find them all intimidating, pushing boundaries because they want to. No one thinks they are women.

Do you ever see these men? Do you genuinely think my daughters should have to put up with them in a tiny area with cubicles at the back of a pub?

@PriOn1 I realise you can’t accept that we are correct as that would mean you’ve irretrievably damaged your child’s health by believing in pseudoscience, so your defence of transition is understandable, but your attack on me is way off mark.

Yes, that is what I am taking away from this thread. A burst of anger from several posters, directed at women, which is actually a howl of anguish for the mistakes that have been made by so many activists, parents and 'allies' in the trans non-community. Not a cult, a mass delusion that has gone terribly, terribly wrong for everyone involved.

However people who haven't gone down a time suck of internet forums, twitter etc aren't dogmatic that every trans person is AGP ...

This was from a post of yours. I made this very point, that I don't believe all "trans women" are sexually motivated, today. I think it's unhelpful when people make such sweeping generalisations; on the other hand, as I think Ereshkigangcleg pointed out, some "trans women" most certainly are sexually motivated, and it is entirely reasonable to point out their creepy behaviour, particularly in the context of women's spaces and who should be considered to have a right of entry.

Men (and I am one) should all keep out of women's spaces where there is a reason to do so, such as women's dignity when in a state of full or partial undress, or where they are dealing with menstruation, or for safeguarding reasons, or simply (as with Girlguiding or the WI) an organisation has been set up for women. It is perfectly reasonable to expect me to respect women's spaces, and I can see no good reason to give men who claim to be women a pass into them, as they are still men. I gave up being offended at being left out decades ago. Men have plenty of things that are for us, and we don't need to grab women's things as well.

This is a bait and switch.

Starts off talking about 'single sex' spaces which are legal and a necessary provision in H&S at work law, then switches in the next sentence to 'Safe' spaces, which do not exist.

And yes I've boybotted Nestle for around 30 years.

Just caught up. I am disgusted on your behalf @PriOn1

Such a horrible, smug self righteous way for a poster to say that to you.

What does one of our cult leaders say (Helen J) the parents who willingly trans their children, will be the ones who never give up their position, like the Japanese soldier.

I don't care if i am told i am a transphobe, in a cult, brainwashed, lacking in nuance, in a minority blah blah blah.

I really do not care what TRA’s think. I care if they attack others.

Yes. They knew my beliefs for a long time and we still got along fine. Then their beliefs became more extreme and they were taught that mine were bad and that if I wouldn’t comply, then I should be cut off. It’s desperately painful, but I can’t see any easy way to resolve it.

I am incredibly thankful that, even though both of them are in groups that were identified as massively over represented in youth gender clinics, at least I taught them to love themselves as they are, so neither has ever (as far as I am aware) questioned their own sex. I wasn’t a perfect mother, but I did get some things right.

Thank you. Fortunately there aren’t many things that could hurt more than what’s already happened. I would rather be in my position than in the position of having to defend myself because I’d transitioned my child.

Absolutely right. The self righteousness!

Lots of detransitioners say all they wanted was for a parent to say 'no'.

@PriOn1 - Hang in there, as they get older they may come to see how utterly ridiculous GI is, and they'll remember you did everything you could to save them from themselves. ✊