@futurebird @cdarwin agree with you about questionable use of the word “savant,” but curious why you misgender the trans women to whom this term is being applied (calling them “white guys with long hair”)?

was it an intentional choice because you think they are inaccurately described as trans women by media in order to vilify trans people more broadly, or was it an oversight in your post, or something else?

@jgys @cdarwin

No, I was just going off of the leader. I didn't realize one of them was a girl. (I've only read a little about them TBH)

I could be wrong but it looks like that thing where everyone has to copy and look like the leader. *shudder*

@futurebird @cdarwin
The difference between a cult and a religion in my eyes is the ratio of size to intensity.

The Catholic Church is a belief system that millions of people adhere to apathetically.

Scientology is a belief system that a very small number of people adhere to intensely.

@negative12dollarbill @cdarwin

Religions aren't driven by cult personalities though people with such "needs" may use religion to gather people to dominate and exploit.

I don't think a cult even needs to be a religion, it's that pattern of people getting others to surround and serve them and it could have many pretexts.

Though often when. you look at what the leaders are getting out of it, it's always the same mundane stuff. Money, control and sex mostly.

@futurebird @cdarwin not just one of them, based on third paragraph:

“The neighbors — a group of computer savants and vegan activists committed to the study of human cognition, most of them trans women — moved box trucks on his land.”

It’s weird to consider the implications of cult behavior assimilation on gender, though. I’m inclined to presume that gender identity is entirely up to the individual, but if individuality is subverted, how do we make meaning of identity?

@futurebird @cdarwin regardless of that question, referring to them by their expressed gender identity is probably the right thing to do, because the alternative view—that gender identity is subject to some kind of individuality/authenticity test—could be used to invalidate any trans person’s gender identity.

@jgys @cdarwin

YIKES.

I didn't know any of them were trans. And it's very tiresome how if a criminal happens to be trans it becomes a big focus or something. So, I'm not interested in weighing in on that.

In fact, if I'd known that I might have said less about this altogether. (Though, it makes the whole use of "savant" even more stereotypical and obnoxious.)

@futurebird @cdarwin yeah, making the point that they’re ‘trans vegan savants’ really seems to be making a bogeyman of whole swaths of people who don’t fit hegemonic norms. the problem with these people is that they’re violent, and absent some kind of demonstrable causal link, their biographical details are irrelevant.

@jgys @cdarwin

I would think so. Are the articles misgendering any of them?

You know I'm glad you pointed this out. There was something *off* about the way this was being covered... something I couldn't put my finger on something "pathologizing" is the best word I can use to describe it. A kind of extra fuss without a clear reason. I'm suspecting it's coming from some desire to make the presence of trans women "significant" or use this stir up more hate. OK. Yeah. I see it NOW.

@jgys @cdarwin

Can we please just discuss the people who commit crimes normally and not try to make them into ... whatever this is?

As cults go, this one seemed pretty textbook and bad. People do this. Every kind of person you can imagine could end up in this kind of thing.

I think that's the other motivation to create fake distance when really this isn't anything new. It's just bad.