10 Ways Gender Ideology Resembles a Cult

A comparison between the understood methods by which cults operate and the spread of gender ideology draws unavoidable parallels.

What is a cult? One definition is “a new religion.” But not every cult is religious: there are political and therapy cults too. I researched the Ramtha cult while getting my MPA at The Evergreen State College, comparing JZ Knight’s move to Yelm, WA with the case of Antelope, OR, where Rajneesh lived in the 80s. I have read extensively about Mormons and Scientology.

The internet changed how cults work. Q-Anon has shown how they may now function with no known leader, no sign of self-enrichment and an ever-shifting message. The transgender cult works the same way, and in twenty years has captured the American medical and legal establishment, silenced dissent and redefined the meaning of a simple word like “woman.”

Here are 10 ways that transgender ideology exhibits cult behavior:

1. SENSE OF BELONGING. The transgender cult offers a sense of belonging, reinforced by beliefs that set them apart from society (Babylon). Cult members are “different,” the chosen ones. Heretics are deemed The Other and demonized. In this case, the struggle against “cis-gendered heteronormativity” gives members an out-group to hate. Onward transgender soldiers.
2. SPECIALIZED LINGO. Cults have a coded language that sets them apart. Scientology has Engrams, Thetans, going clear and Sea Org. Transgender ideology has words like neutrois, demiboy, cisgender and TERF, all of them invented by academics in Queer Studies, it seems. It’s a giant red flag when commonly understood words like “woman” start to lose their meaning.
3. SOCIAL ISOLATION. Cults separate the new member from their family and friends, isolating them from their support systems to better indoctrinate them. Confused teenagers are recruited and groomed online by transgender vloggers and influencers touting the trans lifestyle, urging kids to reject their transphobic parents in favor a new “glitter family.”
4. FAITH-BASED DOCTRINE. Cults require their members to take a leap of faith and believe in something unbelievable. This is central to the mind-control that occurs later. If you can divorce the member from reality, gaslighting them into submission with the recitation of “truisms” learned by rote, they become more easily controlled, more suggestible to direction.
   Science denial prevails in a cult. Liberals seems particularly blind to this inconsistency in transgender ideology. The Woke Left will trash the GOP for ignoring the science around evolution and the climate, but looks the other way when gender activists throw out the science of human biology in favor of unproven assertions like “transwomen are women.”
   There were no new scientific breakthroughs that located the source of gender in the brain. Trans activists insist gender ID should be self-reporting; that we should each decide what our identity is. While that’s affirming, it’s hardly scientific. It’s an easy opt-in that proves nothing beyond someone’s desire to be different. JZ Knight says she’s Ramtha, but do we believe her?
5. PROFITEERING. This is where the cult-meter goes off the scale. This is also the piece that makes sense of this new craze. As Jennifer Bilek has documented, the transgender industry is generating enormous profits for Big Pharma and the doctors who participate. They have created a new class of patients who will need hormones and surgeries for their entire lives.
   The organizations promoting this ideology are funded by billionaires heavily invested in pharmaceuticals and AI. Transgenderism is the narrow end of a wedge in a corporate-driven campaign to open new markets in which the human body is the next frontier. It’s a postmodern philosophy that promises bodily transcendence while preying on people’s body-image issues.
6. VICTIM NARRATIVE. Mormon founder Joseph Smith was killed by a mob in 1844 before the group settled in Utah. Trans activists use intersectional arguments to place themselves at the pinnacle of victimhood, but rarely acknowledge how they voluntarily opt into a category they claim oppresses them, nor look at the social privilege that allows them to do so.
   A much-quoted “statistic” about trans youth suicide rates is debunked here.
7. LEADERSHIP. Like Q-Anon, the gender cult has no charismatic leader. Today’s cults recruit online, reaching lonely vulnerable people with vague promises of meaning and redemption, using the viral nature of the internet to spread their ideas. Twitter and TikTok are the new pulpits for this doctrine, and a generation of influencers are busy spreading the word.
   While there’s no L. Ron Hubbard or JZ Knight to point to, the movement has not been shy about using celebrities like Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner to promote their cause. But behind these ideologies and paid spokesmodels can be felt the social force that stands to benefit — fascism, in the case of Q-Anon, Big Pharma and patriarchy in the case of the gender cult.
   Using the psychological techniques of the cult leader and amplifying them via internet technology, the medical and pharmaceutical industries profit from the spiritual despair of the traumatized masses, who seek their own obliteration through drugs and surgery. Tech giants like Amazon and Facebook control the conversation by banning gender-critical thought.
8. MORAL CERTAINTY. Cults have an inability or unwillingness to debate their ideas. Members rush to moral judgement against those who doubt their creed with a self-righteous belief in the justness of their cause. Trans activists have successfully de-platformed prominent feminists, who have also received death, bomb, and rape threats.
9. RITES OF INITIATION. The initiate in a new cult must show allegiance with a sacrifice that demonstrates their commitment. The affirmative model of diagnosing gender dysphoria is a pipeline leading kids straight to physical “transitioning.” The psycho-physical scars incurred by giving teenagers double mastectomies, hormones and puberty blockers are still unknown.
10. PREDATORY RELATION WITH OTHER ORGANIZATIONS. A cult will hitch up to someone else’s wagon if they think that will grow the flock. The Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) is famous for creating coalitions where they can recruit members. Similarly, some gays and lesbians feel transgender activists have hijacked the LGB movement with their TQIA+.

Are you part of this cult? Let’s check. Do you believe that men can have vaginas, and that women can have penises? Are transwomen at the center of your feminism? Do you ever use the word “performative?” Do you want to punch TERFs? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may wish to seek a deprogramming clinic. Good luck breaking free! #peaktrans