This weird saga was first noted here in the Pit thread Evil MFers in the News. A shootout in Vermont turned out to be connected to a radically vegan cult of trans women that splintered from a rationalist movement and is linked to a series of murders. The founder of the cult is one Ziz, wanted by the cops and currently at large, having unsuccessfully faked her own death.
I’ve been hearing about it for a week or so, and have similar feelings because of the rationalist connection. Turns out it’s a good thing most people don’t take their beliefs to their logical conclusion.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again- You Can’t Trust Vegans!
I have eaten a vegan meal once or twice. That food was given me to free at Rathayatra, The Festival Of Chariots. What group organized that event and provided free food? The International Society For Krishna Consciousness AKA The Hari Krishnas!
The Cult Awareness Network used to have a wonderful website. IIRC They were bought by Scientology who shut down the site and all their other activities.
While I fully know various flavors of politically motivated individuals will emphasis the whole trans and vegan thing, IMHO it’s just another evil cult lead by a (presumably) charismatic leader. So more of the actually rather uncommon manias that sweep up individuals to the degree of direct violence.
Rather than our much more common evil charismatic evil cult leaders who manage to convince their followers to enable much more passive/indirect violence. Or the recent USAian anomaly who combines the worst of both.
Yeah. Charisma and mental illness. From what I’ve heard, veganism/animal welfare was pretty core to their beliefs, being trans was just something they had in common.
On a more serious note- Any group that does not specifically exclude mentall illness will include some individuals who are mentally ill. The document Johanna linked to lists some reasons why trans women were easy prey for Ziz. They had often been kicked out of the social and familial support system they need. They have been fired and/or thrown out of the place they used to live. They are experimenting with a new identity, new ways of thinking and new habits.
When I needed to transition, 20 years ago, I fell in with a freewheeling band of queer hippie Witches whose favorite saying is “You are your own authority.” It was fun and liberatory and loving. It was the perfect supportive social milieu and did me worlds of good. Anti-authoritarian Witch camps up in the hills in summer, lots of drumming, dancing, and good vibes. Nobody exerting any control or coercion over anyone else. One of the best things I ever did.
It’s not a mental illness as such, but rationalism in general is particularly appealing to us autists, and a rationalist cult probably more so. Autism also contributes to social isolation, of course.
I really can’t understand parents who don’t support their kids, even if they don’t approve of what they are doing. I can’t imagine cutting my child off for anything short of committing an extremely grave crime. With friends, I guess it’s likely to change the friendship, since men and women often relate to each other differently. But if it’s your friend, wouldn’t you want to support them anyway? I will never understand people, never.
I think it’s one of the most evil things anyone can do to their kid. To be clear, I’m not talking about enabling (which is bad), I mean like leaving your kid alone, with no resources, because you’re a bigot or you can’t handle yourself with them or something.
It happened a lot to my friends in high school. At one point one of my friends’ Mom told him, “I wish you had killed someone” rather than be gay. And of course my own Mom tried to throw me out of the house more times than I can count because she couldn’t emotionally cope with a child with ADHD, so yeah, my sympathy for aggrieved parents dries up there. We’ve wondered at times if our son was going to be ready or able to live independently at various stages, I have no idea, but eventually I realized I don’t actually care that much because he’s awesome and if he needs to live with me forever, I will be glad to have him.
Unfortunately a lot of homeless people are teens and a lot of homeless teens are LGBTQ or neurodiverse, and then, like, what options do you have left? Cults, for all their drawbacks, are notoriously welcoming places! (Not saying this justifies murder.)
Serious question - do you think this can be done to equal effect through online communities? There’s a great subreddit that your post reminded me of, called r/witchesvspatriarchy. It seems to capture the kind of vibe you’re describing.
I’m asking because young people are extremely online these days, and something like that might be all they have. And while my instinct is to say, “That’s not as a good as face to face interaction,” I have no idea whether that’s actually true for a technology native. And if the option is either online or nothing, well, obviously online is better. But is it sufficient?
We often talk about being in bubbles online, but forget we’re in bubbles offline, too. Stuff like this is totally outside my experience; it’s something I’ve seen on TV, rather than knowing anyone it’s happened to. Some people were worried about telling their parents, sure, but not to this degree. I live in a world where pretty much everyone, if not accepting, is at least not violently rejecting. And it’s a lot more real when someone tells you about it personally.
How is your son doing, by the way? Has he started school yet?
Most cults just harm their members, I guess - this one has two suicides associated with it, as well as the murders. Two of the murder victims were parents of one of the cult members (I don’t think we know exactly who killed them yet), and she described them as abusive starting from when she was young. I haven’t heard anything about the backgrounds of any other members.
Honestly, I think we’re moving further away from that as a society, with the rise of social media and decline of ‘third spaces’. Not helped at all by Covid isolation.
I think following witchesvspatriarchy sounds like a fine idea. The bunch I hung out with is called the Reclaiming tradition of Witchcraft, which is inherently feminist.
What I meant above by a “new way of going criminally insane,” I was referring to their technique of splitting the body in half neurologically. It sounds like one of the worst ways to treat your nervous system. It’s the opposite of yoga (which always focuses on balancing and integrating both sides equally). I can only think that the result of Zizian practice has got to be the opposite of health. It’s such an ugly thing to do to oneself, the only comparable practices I can think of are those of MK-ULTRA and torturers. Intentionally disintegrating the nervous system.
I had assumed the whole ‘unihemispheric sleep’ thing was bullshit and they were just inducing sleep deprivation in themselves/each other (which is harmful all by itself and would leave them more vulnerable to cult indoctrination). But apparently there is some evidence the two halves of the brain can be in different stages of sleep naturally:
Specifically, the left hemisphere was in a lighter stage of sleep than the right, and showed a greater response to external stimuli, during the first sleep in a new location.
It doesn’t mean the technique they were using did anything other than make people sleep-deprived and suggestible, but it would be nice to see a proper study on it (done safely, obviously).
It sounds like Ziz was trying to induce dissociation in her followers, and trans people would be probably particularly vulnerable since dysphoria can lead to this anyway. It’s a pretty horrible thing to do.
