Religion, Cult, Whatever…
Gender ideology is grounded in faith, not facts
One of the things that sets humans apart from other animals is our need to believe in something greater than ourselves. Every human society has its gods, idols or belief-based systems that were created to explain situations and events that defy our understanding of things. Clearly, this must fill some need in us that we find our capabilities lacking in some ways that causes us to require divine intervention.
Religions are many and varied; for us socialized in Global North nations, the three largest religions (as measured by self ID or participation) are Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Eastern cultures have given the world Buddhism and Hinduism. There are too many established religions to list here, but the basic structures are similar.
For most people, “religion” is an acceptable term, even if we don’t follow one. “Cult” on the other hand has a more pejorative ring to it and many cults exist outside of mainstream acceptance. Both religions and cults share many characteristics, but also have differences as well.
The essential difference between a religion and a cult is openness. Religious beliefs are published and freely available, normally in some sort of “holy” book, such as the Bible, Koran or Bhagavad Gita, etc. Accepting these beliefs and performing any required rituals is usually enough to be admitted into a membership role. There is usually some sort of hierarchy which is open to a (usually male) person who has undergone some sort of training or procedure that qualifies them as a spiritual leader for adherents. Most religions actively seek a mass following.
Cults, however, are different. They rely on special or secret knowledge which has been revealed only to the cult’s founder, which he (because it’s normally a man) can choose to reveal or not to his chosen acolytes. Cults are built on personal relationships between the founder/leader and followers. This also allows exploitation and domination of members by the founder and his associates.
Cults can burn out, like the infamous People’s Temple cult. Jim Jones’ personal paranoia led to the deaths of more than 900 Americans who had followed him to the jungles of Guyana and eventually died at his command. These deaths gave the world the phrase “drank the Kool-Aid” meaning to unquestioningly accept doing something which causes harm, after it was revealed that parents had intentionally poisoned this drink at Jones’ command to kill their children before themselves. (Of course, it goes without saying that all the cults built around suicide are self-limiting, but Jim Jones’ enterprise was not a suicide cult.)
Cults can evolve into religions in their own right, which is what Mormonism has done. From small, humble beginnings in 1830, what became known as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is now a global phenomenon and accepted as a religion.
Is sex allowed?
Nearly every religion has rules around sexual intercourse. Broadly speaking sex before marriage is a no, but sex within marriage is encouraged. Some religious leaders are expected to commit to celibacy (Catholic priests and Jain monks), but Protestant clergy can marry and in Islam, lifelong celibacy or monasticism is forbidden.
Of course, rules are not always followed and plenty of people have sex outside of marriage, and/or with others that they are not married to and in every possible circumstance. Even a vow to a believed in God is subject to human failings, which is painfully evident in every country with resident Catholic priests.
There are usually rules around same sex attracted intercourse too, but as with heterosexual relations, rules appear to be broken on a regular basis, with varying degrees of public toleration and opprobrium.
This should come as no surprise as all mammals have an innate sex drive and a craving for sexual gratification because this is how we all reproduce. Human mammals also have a need for emotional connection with others and a need for the comfort provided by attachment with another person.
It is so physiologically depleting for women to go through pregnancy, birth and lactation, and human infants take so long to mature, requiring a large investment of resources, in time and effort for both parents, that an entire constellation of neural correlates have evolved to ensure that reproduction is successful. Our hormonal systems are a complex system of intertwining interactions that affect our mate choice, our focus on preferred partners and engagement in positive social behaviors and sex specific parental duties that all work together to ensure the survival of the next generation of humans.
“No sex please - we’re British”
This was a long running comedy in British theatre (1971 - 1983), the joke being that sex is not a subject that is discussed in polite company. And it is obvious that different cultures and countries have widely differing attitudes to what is considered ‘decent’ to talk about, to broadcast and to teach children.
A favorite example of mine is embodied in the broadcast of the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show on February 1, 2004. The incident (referred to as a “wardrobe malfunction”) happened during Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake’s performance of “Rock Your Body,” when Timberlake accidentally tore Jackson’s costume, partially revealing her right breast. My favorite bit of reporting about this was done by the satirical journal The Onion which titled this as, “US Children Still Traumatized One Year After Seeing Partially Exposed Breast on TV”.
Clearly this was too much for those living “in the land of the free, and the home of the brave”. Unlike say, Sweden, which has depicted bodies and the reality of sex in its films since the early 1950s. Hand in hand with their more realistically open attitude to discussing sex, Sweden has one of the lowest teen pregnancy rates in the world, while the USA with its ‘just say no’ abstinence messaging has one of the highest rates.
For what should be obvious reasons, very few religious sects have totally banned sex among members, married or not. Not only is this not appealing to most adults, but it also relies on proselytizing outsiders into joining to maintain a population of believers. Without the addition of children, it is nearly impossible to grow a movement.
The Shakers tried this; it didn’t work
Those who came to be called the Shakers, were originally derived from a small branch of English Quakers, who arrived in colonial north America in 1774 in the person of Ann Lee who had been a textile worker in Manchester. “Mother Ann” had a troubled marriage and four difficult pregnancies that resulted in four babies who all died while young.
After her death in 1784, the leadership was taken over by Elder Joseph Meacham and Eldress Lucy Wright, who worked out the distinctive pattern of Shaker social organization, which consisted of celibate communities of men and women living together in dormitory-style houses and holding all property in common.
From the first Shaker community, established at New Lebanon, New York, in 1787, the movement spread and by 1826, 18 Shaker villages had been set up in eight states. Shaker teaching emphasized simplicity, celibacy, and work. Shakers were admired for their model farms, their orderly and prosperous communities and their fair dealings with those who did not share their beliefs.
As of 2022, there were only two living Shakers, from a peak of 5000. Although no working Shaker villages or communities exist now, most Americans will recognize that name because it is still attached to a distinctive style of architecture, furniture, and handicraft. Shaker style furniture is still being made as it is so popular, with a simple and clean esthetic.
A message which could be taken from the Shakers is ‘no children, no future’. Because for all of their many virtues, the strictly enforced celibacy was clearly not a draw card for many.
The Skoptsy - taking celibacy to the next level!
The Skoptsy (in Russian Скопцы, which is derived from the Russian word for eunuch or castrate), emerged in the late 18th century out of the Spiritual Christianity movement in the Russian empire. By the early 20th century, it could claim up to a million members despite continual persecution by both the imperial government and the Soviet regime that overthrew the monarchy.
The hallmark of their members were the brutal scars their bodies carried. For men, castration; for women double mastectomies. The reason for this was to control the “sexual lust” that all humans acquire during adolescence. They believed that these procedures eradicated the original sin of Adam and Eve and that human genitals were the mark of Cain, so the only way to live a pure life was to remove these. In their belief system, they taught that after Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden the halves of forbidden fruit were grafted onto their bodies in the form of breasts and testicles, so removing these returned people to a state of grace with God.
Remember that all of these procedures were done without any anesthesia.
Sometimes only the nipples, rather than the whole breast were removed from women, but additionally some women also had their labia minora and clitoris excised as well.
Men were subjected to the “fiery baptism” of one of two kinds of castration: the "lesser seal" and the "greater seal". The “lesser seal” only removed the testicles, while the “greater seal” was the removal of both penis and testicles. The scrotum was also twisted as this destroyed the seminal vesicles, which halted semen production. Only later were these removed using knives or razors; originally, they were performed using a red-hot iron. (A hot iron was still used to cauterize the wounds created by using knives or razors.)
The public ostracism and governmental persecution of the Skoptsy ensured group cohesion and cooperation. The sect provided for each other because there was no way to leave; the physical scars their bodies carried meant that they were easily identified outside of their own communities so had to cooperate to survive.
To increase their membership, they recruited children. Parents were impressed with the appearance of virtue among members so gave up their children who were then deliberately and permanently separated from their families. The boys were castrated, but the girls were left till puberty before they were mutilated, I’m assuming because until puberty there were no breasts to excise.
The other source of new followers were criminals on the run, who would be provided with new identities and group safety for the price of castration.
One of their ritual celebrations consisted of the men dressing in women’s clothes and dunce caps parading through their local villages. It was considered a step towards sainthood for men to parody women in a degrading fashion. This voluntary socially lowering performance that downgraded their status (to that of women) was proving themselves worthy to God.
The transgender movement - a cult hiding behind a rainbow flag
The entire transgender belief system is sham, wrapped up in a myth and decorated with lots of sparkly glitter and unicorn stickers. The claim that there have “always” been transgender people is a historical invention.
A belief in transgenderism is wholly reliant on faith; there is no empirical evidence that any human has ever been “born in the wrong body” or that such a thing is even possible.
There is no such thing as a transgender child; there is just a child with an immature brain and not much life experience, making it easy for an adult to mold and rewire a child’s thinking to match some desired result.
We are not born with an innate “gender identity”, we are born with one of two sexed bodies that will mark our destiny for our entire life course. No one can “feel like a woman” (or a man) just, well just because they say so. I’m a woman and I have no idea what this could possibly mean. If I’m not having a particularly good day, would I feel differently if I were experiencing this as a man? Who knows? Are there only two “feeling” states, male and female? That sounds pretty limited to me!
We are all the products of our environments, for better or worse and the trans movement creates an environment that is chaotic, destructive and harmful for everyone it touches.
Before the trans juggernaut took off, the largest group of “trans” people were middle aged men who liked to dress up in women’s clothing. Why did I put quote marks around “trans” here? Because these men are acting out a sexual paraphilia, commonly referred to as Autogynephilia (AGP). For these men, trans is a cover story for their sexual preferences that require them to “be” women, which is an unachievable goal. Clearly many of these men talk themselves into believing that by growing their hair, putting on some makeup and wearing women’s clothing they are transformed, but their male anger is on full display when women refuse to go along with their performance.
Now, vastly outnumbering adult men, the percentage of children (and overwhelmingly natal girls) adopting a trans or nonbinary (sic) identity is creating a veritable tsunami of irreversible harms.
“We’re coming for your children!”
As noted, a few paragraphs ago, besides taking in criminals on the run, the main way that the Skoptsy cult grew was through the acquisition of other people’s children as they had rendered themselves functionally infertile through castration. Additionally, even if women were allowed break their vows of celibacy to have children with those outside their faith, most babies would have died anyway as there would have been no way to feed them after double mastectomies.
This should sound a bit familiar because the current trans lobby is doing exactly the same thing now.
Last June in the Pride parade that took place in New York City, the marchers shouted, “We’re here, we’re queer, we’re coming for your children!” The truth of this should be apparent to all parents who have children enrolled in school as gender ideology is being skillfully woven through every aspect of the modern, Western curriculum.
In today’s world, waiting until school appears to be way too late; the indoctrination starts at the picture book stage.
A quick Google search comes up with hundreds of choices of propaganda, here is a typical example. Of course, the very basis of most of these books are an adult fantasy writ large, but this is not a ‘play pretend’ situation; these people are deadly serious in their attempts to capture your children for themselves and their mission.
Learning from the experts; the Nazis knew what they were doing
Us gender critical types are always being told we are Nazis, by those who’ve never opened a history book. “Nazi” is just one of those handy dandy throw away slurs designed to shut down the opposition. I’ve already written about the misuse of this word here, but I couldn’t resist returning to them as they are a treasure trove of the parallel universe being created by gender woo believers right now.
Adolph may not have been the military genius he considered himself to be, but boy did that man understand the power of propaganda and social control.
Beginning in the 1920s, youth were a focus for the Nazi message. In January 1933 the Hitler Youth (for boys only; girls joined the League of German Girls) had around 100,000 members, but by the end of that year more than 2,000,000 boys had joined up. By 1937 the membership had increased to 5.4 million boys and in 1939 membership became mandatory and all competing youth organizations, such as the Boy Scouts were prohibited from operating in Germany.
Remembering that all Jewish and other “undesirables” were swiftly purged from the teaching profession by 1933, the remaining teachers provided enthusiastic support for National Socialism; in fact, at 97% membership, teachers had the highest percentage of Party membership of all the professional groups in Germany.
In 1933, a new law was passed that made it mandatory to report on anyone who spoke out in any way against the party, its leaders, or the government. This included family members, which would have had a chilling effect on dinner time conversations because Hitler Youth were instructed that their duty was to the Fatherland, not to their families.
Other regimes, some still in operation have used similar techniques to destroy families and stifle parents’ influences on their children. A short list includes Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, the Kims of North Korea, and Islamic terrorist groups such as ISIS and Al Queda.
Same technique, same results
Lest you think that your family bonds are so strong that your kids can resist everything, I have news. They aren’t and you can’t. In fact, one article entitled “How do I protect my kids at school? How can I prevent them from receiving messages about gender ideology?” gives as it’s short answer: “You can’t.” It goes on to describe mitigating techniques that may help, but looking at these this appears to be a full-time job.
This leaked report from the Californian Teacher’s Association also describes a conference specifically designed to advise teachers on best practices for subverting parents, conservative communities and school principals on issues of gender identity and sexual orientation.
So, those “queer” shouters at that Pride parade? They don’t need to come for your children because you are sending them straight into the arms of adults planning to cause them harm.
Under the guise of “protecting” children, teachers are transitioning children at school, with complete secrecy using methods such as double roll call lists, storing “gender affirming” clothing at school and hiding the existence of LGBTQI+ clubs under cutesy names like “You do you”.
This case was typical of a growing number of lawsuits now emerging. These parents in Florida, USA are suing the school district after their 12-year-old daughter attempted suicide at school twice. Prior to her first attempt, her parents had no knowledge that she was having weekly meetings with the school guidance counsellor, who was promoting the notion she was really a boy. Others at school were using male pronouns for her at the counselor's suggestion. Her parents hadn’t a clue that any of this was going on behind their backs.
This mother is suing her 14-year-old daughter’s school for secretly socially transitioning her, including a social worker who gave her a breast binder without her parent’s knowledge or permission. Chest binding is dangerous and can cause permanent damage, especially if it is used regularly during puberty.
Some school districts are more up front in this fight for their interpretation of children’s wellbeing and just state flat out that parents have no right to know about what is happening with their own children.
This attitude would have been considered ridiculous only ten years ago. Who better than parents (who have literally invested everything, including their own bodies in the case of mothers) are going to love and care for children?
There are well-established precedents in US constitutional law recognizing respect for parental rights as essential to freedom and limited government. The US Supreme Court, drawing on the common-law tradition, has explicitly recognized that parents have fundamental natural rights and obligations to control the care, custody, and education of their children. Parents are getting increasingly upset at the usurping of their rights in regard to their children’s upbringing.
State sponsored harm?
At this point, approximately 19 of the 50 states in the USA have designated themselves to be so-called “sanctuary states” for children identifying as trans. This is a direct result of an increasing number of other states that have banned procedures and “treatments” for gender affirming (sic) care for children. Once children turn 18, they are considered to be legal adults and can do what they like, without needing permission from parents or guardians.
To date, I have not found any information about what will happen as the court cases against clinics, doctors and even parents start to pile up. Who will pay for lives shortened, fertility destroyed and ruined sex lives? The state of origin who started that nine-year-old on puberty blockers or the state that “rescued” the 13-year-old who moved there as their home state outlawed “gender affirming” care (which should more accurately be called sex-trait modification procedures). At this point “follow the money” means that everyone other than the patient benefits: Big Pharma, medical corporations, insurance companies, doctors and clinics.
Once detransitioners start to win, and the payouts begin, there will be a shift in thinking.
Gender ideology is just a new iteration on the Skoptsy self-harm strategy.
To believe you are something you are not and can never be is delusional thinking. Delusional thinking in any other circumstances would necessitate treatment, in an attempt to restore reality. I cannot find even one example of a treatment plan for an anorexic adolescent that “affirms” their belief that they are so fat that not eating and continuing to lose weight is the way forward.
Yet, even if a very young child muses about their sex (or enjoys gender role play that is assigned to the opposite sex), in the current climate some adult will be only too happy to lie to them about the life selections that are available for them to choose from.
The results of this are all around us now: prepubescent children “coming out” as “pansexual”, “asexual”, “genderqueer”, “two-spirit” or anyone of literally hundreds of variations on this theme. Until recently, children showing knowledge of sexual behavior beyond their developmental age and or using sexual themes in artwork, stories, play etc. were considered to be signs of sexual abuse by adults, but now this is encouraged and celebrated as exploring a (non-existent) gender identity.
There are literally hundreds of books in print that use the fiction of chosen sex change, presenting this as fact. Google “trans tween books” and prepare to be amazed. This is science fiction, but children are literal creatures and the line between reality and fantasy is obliterated in these stories.
Cutting off bits of healthy tissue in an effort to please some god or belief system is not a strategy for long term success in life.
Trans is just the new Skoptsy cult
Comparisons between the Skoptsy cult and transgenderism are easy to make. Both are authoritarian groups or relationships where deception, recruitment, and mind control are used to keep people dependent and obedient. Part of the evidence for this can be found in the stories of detransitioners where those who now realize that their mental health problems were not solved by taking on an opposite sex identity talk about their many regrets over lost forever functioning of their no longer healthy bodies. They also find that the miraculous support and special attention awarded to them by taking on a trans identity has vanished faster than a Popsicle in the Sahara.
The Skoptsy cult relied on the recruitment of other people’s children to bolster their numbers, much like the trans lobby’s strategy is co-opting children straight from schools, thus bypassing any pesky parents. Members of the Skoptsy cult were voluntarily mutilated and celibate; children who take puberty blockers, followed by cross sex hormones are all rendered infertile because they are sterilized. Like the Skoptsy, they are incapable of any sort of pleasurable adult sex life and are anorgasmic.
The Skoptsy wrecked their bodies as a homage to their version of God, in a quest for purity. Transgendered people have different motivations depending on their ages and circumstances, but their quests are no more likely to be fulfilled than anyone else’s. Young girls cannot escape our hyper-sexualized world by pretending to be men, middle aged men cannot become women (or breastfeed a baby or get period pains) and no one can abandon a same sex attraction by converting to a synthetic sex identity that is on the other side of our mammalian binary sex category.
A parent’s job is to keep children safe, in every sense
Children will thrive in an atmosphere of safety because this gives their brains the space to mature emotionally and intellectually. Children raised in a physically or emotionally unsafe environment are always diverted from developing some of the higher order skills that are employed by successful adults because they spend the majority of their time in survival mode. A positive sense of self, as well as the ability to cope with stressful situations, temper emotional arousal, overcome fears, and accept disappointments and frustrations are developed gradually over the long arc of childhood; they don’t magically appear on the day of your 18th birthday.
This is also the reason we have legislation that contains age restrictions that keep children safe from their own poorer decision-making skills. A 14-year-old girl is not considered competent to give her consent to sexual intercourse with a 40-year-old man, so he can be charged with rape even if she maintains this was consensual.
In an earlier post I talked about the work of Donald Winnicott, who was responsible for a revolutionary understanding of child development and the paradigm of the mother/child couple. Through his research, he demonstrated that a child’s sense of self starts with the relationship between a baby and his/her mother. Looking at the fate of “trans children”, the damage being done to immature brains is obvious. Since changing one’s sex is impossible, any parent who affirms a sex that their child is not, is neglecting a child’s true self, while valorizing a false self.
How can a child have faith in a parent who only supports an imaginary state and not the child who stands before them?
Just because someone believes it, it isn’t always true
Gender ideology is grounded in faith, because it doesn’t have anything else going for it. There are no facts pointing towards humans having a “gendered soul” or any possibility that anyone has ever been born in the wrong body. Like those who believe in intelligent design, rather than in the theory of evolution, we are free to believe whatever we wish to believe.
What we are not free to do, is to cause harm to vulnerable people or to compel and coerce others to utilize a belief system they do not share or agree with. The WPATH (World Professional Association for Transgender Health) Standards of Care is not a modern-day holy book that supplies us with a path to a healthy and fulfilled life, it is a manual of self-harming strategies.
Thank you for presenting detailed research on historical cults like the Skoptsy, which makes the parallels with the gender ideology cult so very clear.
Lucy, you have made a brilliant connection between historical "amnesia" and a movement that aims to silence the voices of scientific discourse. One of the dangers of accepting uninformed perspectives as true is that we would never be able to leave chaos behind, and emerge as a better society.
One of the greatest challenges of our time is to protect nature; and nature is so obviously under attack on all fronts. How indefensible it is to leave mothers, babies, children of all ages at the mercy of a cult.
Thank you for speaking up!