Is transgenderism a cult?
Growing up in the 1970s and 80s, it was hard to miss seeing things about cults on television. Charles Manson was a big deal, The Moonies with their mass weddings were regularly on the news, then Jonestown, of course. Cults were everywhere…
If you are of that generation, then you know that cults are a thing.
But what things are cults?
Everyone talks about a lot of things being a cult – Brexit, Trump, Corbyn, Bernie, men’s rights activism, incels, feminism, ’social justice activism’, ‘trans activism’ – but without perhaps understanding what that might actually mean. Cults can form around ANYTHING – religious cults, political cults, self-help cults, business cults, education cults, there is even a cult built around horse training apparently. The shared beliefs are not what makes a cult, it is the behaviour and the practice of ‘mind control’ that traps people into a cult.
Someone who believes that transwomen are women isn’t automatically in a cult, it is only when they exhibit certain behaviours, including trying to dictate others’ thoughts on the subject, that we can assume they are in a cult.
Traditionally, it has been assumed that a cult must have a charismatic leader under whose spell every cult member falls, or there might be a group of leaders or even a pyramid structure. In today’s cults, even those which appear to have a leader like Trump, Corbyn and Bernie, their leaders are not dictating behaviour and beliefs (well, maybe Trump is). Their followers are much more ’self—organising’ and pushing through their own ‘group norms’ that may or may not align with either Corbyn or Bernie. Lots of groups have “idols” or “saints” (e.g. Jordan Peterson) who are important to a smaller section of the overall group and have an attraction to ‘outsiders’, but again they don’t dictate behaviour – so an expert in ‘new religious movements’ or ‘high control groups’ (aka ‘cults’) might not consider them as manipulative groups. But if we look a little closer we might see a number of elements that could be considered to be ‘thought reform’ and ’totalistic’ thinking.
Robert Jay Lifton’s Eight Criteria For Thought Reform
Robert Jay Lifton’s Eight Criteria For Thought Reform are accepted by everyone as the process by which cults and harmful groups manipulate potential followers. The way cults *keep* their followers build on these eight criteria by becoming more extreme and restrictive.
Lifton’s Eight Criteria are listed below along with some examples of this behaviour. The examples are just examples. They are not exhaustive. You will have your own examples.
1. Milieu Control
Milieu Control is the control of communication with the ultimate result of controlling a person’s inner dialogue with themselves. All thoughts MUST follow the doctrine. There is often a sudden change of personality after one’s inner dialogue has changed. This is the ‘cult identity’- a second self that lives side by side with the prior self. The cult self is dominant and acts as if the prior self has been erased from history. The prior self is still there. It can be reached.
Examples:
- Deliberately withhold and distort information (e.g. “that’s Fake News”)
- Forbid you from speaking with ‘ex-members’ (e.g. ‘detransitioners’) and critics
- Discourage access to non-cult sources of information (e.g. no platforming; calls to defund/close down newspapers; Protesting or ‘banning’ research on Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria)
- Divide information into Insider vs. Outsider doctrine
- Sleep deprivation (e.g. being ‘too online’)
- Restrict or control sexuality (e.g. homophobia; calling lesbians ‘vagina fetishists’)
- Generate and use propaganda extensively (e.g. TERFs must die)
- Gaslight to make you doubt your own memory
- Encourage you to spy and report on others’ “misconduct” (e.g. call out culture)
2. Mystical Manipulation
Lifton defines Mystical Manipulation as ‘planned spontaneity’. This can include a leader who is seen as a ’saviour’ or a source of salvation or healing. It can also be assigning supernatural significance to things that otherwise are ‘normal’. This creates a feeling of ‘elitism’.
- ‘the right side of history’
- Being born with ‘a woman’s soul’ in a man’s body, rather than just having a personality that doesn’t totally fit society’s gendered expectations. ‘God created Woman within me’= I’ve been touched by God.
- ‘I am very complicated, more complicated than you/I am special/I am [insert name of obscure, made-up gender identity]’
- ‘The people on my side’ are THE ULTIMATE GOOD/God-like. We are perfect in every way.
3. Demand for Purity
This calls for the radical separation of pure and impure, of good and evil, within a community and within oneself. Purification is a continuous process and is a source of guilt and shame (one is never pure enough). This requires ‘black and white thinking’ and dedication to ignoring ‘reality’.
- Corbyn|Bernie|Trump=good/literally anyone else=evil
- Brexit=good/Remain=evil; or vice versa
- men=good/women=evil; women=good/men=evil
- Trans=good/’Cis’=evil
- “[non-believers] are responsible for [terrible acts against believers]”
4. Cult of Confession
Confessing one’s ‘sins’ is a way to purification. This is often accompanied by self-criticism and criticism from peers. Albert Camus: ’I practice the profession of penitence, to be able to end up as a judge’ and ‘the more I accuse myself, the more I have a right to judge you.’
- Call out/cancel culture.
- Performatively ‘checking one’s privilege’ then attacking ‘enemies’.
- Woke white people who call out ‘white people’.
- Demanding one ‘disassociate’ from anyone who is ‘impure’ so you are not tainted with their impurities and need to ‘confess’ to rid yourself of them.
5. Sacred Science
The group’s doctrine is considered to be ‘science’ and ‘the ultimate truth’ and has existed for all time. This can offer security because it greatly simplifies the world.
- ‘Science says…’ and then repeating cult doctrine.
- “If you understand it, you’d agree with us”
- ‘Being on the right side of history.’
- Their “truth” is universal and they are somehow able to see into the future and know that it will one day be accepted by everyone on the planet.
- Saving/Transing the dead i.e. making people who existed in the past members of ‘the group’.
6. Loading the Language
A cult develops its own language such that those who adopt that language think in the manner defined by the cult. A greatly simplified language may seem cliche-ridden, but can have enormous appeal and psychological power in its simplification. The use of thought-terminating cliches in order to stop external and internal challenges to the doctrine. The use of jargon and cult-specific definitions of words.
- “Brexit means Brexit” or “Trans women are women” or “You are on the wrong side of history” (also see previous) are classic thought terminating cliches. They mean absolutely nothing and yet behave as if they are the final word on the subject.
- The words ‘Gender’ or ‘Trans’ act as a kind of ‘magic’ for many. The labels purify anyone who takes them on instantly signifying them as beyond criticism.
- The concept of ‘misgendering’ or ‘deadnaming’ (These are also induced phobias seen as challenges to the person’s very existence.). Using the ‘wrong’ pronoun is a magical act of violence which can literally, physically harm a person.
- Women are ‘pregnant people’, ‘vagina havers’ ‘bleeders’ etc You must use these words in order to respect ‘believers’. If you don’t, there will be some type of magical act of violence meted out to the ‘believer’.
7. Doctrine Over Person
One must only find truth within the doctrine and not within what one feels or experiences. Often the experience of the contradiction between one’s feelings and the doctrine creates a strong feeling of guilt. One is made to feel that doubts are reflections of one’s own evil.
- The idea that one has been ‘saved’ by their new belief: e.g. realising they are trans; ‘finding themselves’ in Jordan Peterson’s writing and NOTHING ELSE is accepted.
- The obsession with suicide (see: Jonestown; Heaven’s Gate etc. Trans activist doctrine teaches that one is only remaining alive (and not committing suicide) because they believe in the doctrine. For example: ‘suicide’ is used as a phobia which is used to ‘capture’ parents. Inducing phobias about leaving ‘the cult’ (e.g. they will go insane; they will commit suicide etc) can keep people inside a cult long after they have started questioning the doctrine or the behaviour of the group…
8. Dispensing of Existence
Being versus nothingness. ‘I believe, therefore I am.’ And the reverse is ‘Those who don’t believe should not exist’. Those who have not ‘seen the light’ are bound up with evil and do not have the right to exist.
- Any criticism of the doctrine is an act of violence enacted upon the believer’s very existence.
- ‘You do not have the right to debate my existence’
- The labels ‘Remoaners’, ‘Feminazis’, ‘TERFs’, ‘the 1%’, ‘the elite’, even ‘Nazis’ identify people as ‘legitimate targets of hate/violence’ who MUST be eliminated.
- Detransitioners/people who regret transition do not exist or they were never really trans in the first place.
There are several other people who have studied cults and worked out how people fall into this way of thinking.
Margaret Thaler Singer’s 6 Criteria For Thought Reform
- Keep the person unaware of what is going on and the changes taking place.
- Control the person’s time and, if possible, physical environment.
- Create a sense of powerlessness, covert fear, and dependency.
- Suppress much of the person’s old behaviour and attitudes.
- Instill new behaviour and attitudes.
- Put forth a closed system of logic; allow no real input or criticism
The tactics of a thought-reform program are organised to:
- Destabilise a person’s sense of self (this is why ‘identity’ is so important to ‘believers’)
- Get the person to drastically reinterpret his or her life’s history and radically alter his or her worldview and accept a new version of reality and causality (‘This new person’ was who I was all along)
- Develop in the person a dependence on the organisation, and thereby turn the person into a deployable agent of the organisation. (See Lifton’s Eight Criteria)
Stephen Hassan’s BITE Model
Behaviour Control
- Robert Jay Lifton’s ‘Milieu Control’- control your environment, who you associate with
- Dependence and obedience – living only by ‘the doctrine’
- Restrict or control sexuality – (calling lesbians bigots or ‘vagina fetishists’)
- Sleep deprivation (addiction to the internet/online groups/chats)
This facilitates the creation of ‘a cult self’- this is a second self that lives side by side with the prior self. The cult self is dominant and acts as if the prior self has been erased from history. The believer ‘pretends’ that their previous self never existed (the fear of ‘Deadnaming’ comes from this).
Information Control
- Deliberately withhold and distort information
- Forbid you from speaking with ‘ex-members’ and critics
- Discourage access to non-cult sources of information
- Divide information into Insider vs. Outsider doctrine
- Generate and use propaganda extensively
- Use information gained in confession sessions against you
- Gaslight to make you doubt your own memory
- Require you to report thoughts, feelings, & activities to superiors
- Encourage you to spy and report on others’ “misconduct”
- Harassing, abusing, attacking anyone who disagrees or is considered to be ‘the enemy’.
Thought control
- Instil Black vs. White, Us vs. Them, & Good vs. Evil thinking
- Change your identity, possibly even your name
- Use loaded language and cliches to stop complex thought
- Induce hypnotic or trance states to indoctrinate
- Teach thought-stopping techniques to prevent critical thoughts
- Allow only positive thoughts (about ‘the cult’)
- Reject rational analysis, critical thinking, & doubt
Emotional Control
- Instil irrational fears (phobias) of questioning or leaving the group
- Label some emotions as evil, worldly, sinful, or wrong
- Teach emotion-stopping techniques to prevent anger
- Promote feelings of guilt, shame, & unworthiness
- Shower you with praise and attention (“love bombing”)
- Threaten your friends and family
- Shun you if you disobey or disbelieve
- Teach that there is no happiness or peace outside the group
In Conclusion…
Now that you know a bit more about this stuff, use it to check your own thoughts about whatever groups you belong to. It doesn’t matter whether they consider themselves to be ‘scientific’ or not. The thinking often goes ‘My side are the good guys and science is a good thing, so everything the good guys think must be science’…
If you think people in your group are beyond criticism or are ‘always right’, then you might want to re-read this again.
If you think people NOT in your group are ‘always wrong’, then you might want to re-read this again.
If your thinking goes ‘[X group] is bad. [X group] is always wrong. Everything [X group] thinks is wrong therefore anyone who says one thing that [X group] members has said MUST be a member of [X group] and are therefore my enemy.’ Remind yourself that [X group] also believes ‘the Earth is round’ or ‘evolution is real’ or other things that you believe, too. Everything isn’t black and white.
If your thinking goes ‘[X person] said/believes something I disagree with, therefore their life must be ruined/they must lose their job’ ask yourself why you think their words or beliefs have some kind of ‘evil power’, why do you think they are a kind of ‘black magic’ that must be eradicated by your ‘white magic’?
Do you think EVERYONE needs to think exactly like you and then the world will be perfect? Read this again.
Further information:
In January 2022, The State Media produced this highly recommended video: