All four of the people arrested as part of Ziz’s protest were transgender women (the fifth was let go without charges). This is far from coincidence as Ziz seems to go out of her way to target transgender people. In terms of cult indoctrination such folks are an excellent fit. They’re often:
Financially vulnerable.
Newly out transgender people are especially likely to already be estranged from friends or family.
It is common for them to lack stable housing.
Many traditional social services (illegally) reject them for cultural or religious reasons (e.g., Christian homeless shelters).
Intolerant attitudes among the underclass hit twice: they can’t rely on strangers for help and being transgender often makes them a target for violence; making them outcasts even among outcasts.
Already creating a new identity.
During transition people change their name. This creates an opportunity for Ziz to insert themselves into a recruits ongoing transition. By showing them their “double personhood” as they’re abandoning an old identity it’s possible to convince recruits to adopt a Zizian name (e.g., left hemisphere / right hemisphere) as their new social identity.
As the name implies transition is a time of transition; old patterns and habits tend to fall away. People who have spent years repressing important parts of themselves suddenly have the opportunity to completely change their social presentation. This does not always mean someone wants to play the same role as before but a different gender. With the radical changes that can accompany transition come strong opportunities for radicalization.
All of these factors combine to make Ziz, themselves a transgender woman, more credible to recruits than she might otherwise be. A privileged cis person with close family and stable housing might reject boat housing out of hand: “I don’t know, that sounds iffy to me”. For someone facing mortal danger after their rude ejection into the underclass it’s an easier pill to swallow: “It can’t be worse than sleeping on the street right?”
Another important concept Ziz uses to manipulate people is the idea of being “bigender”. Ziz claims that each hemisphere has a gender and that fairly often people have opposing gender identities between hemispheres. This provides a convenient basis for her to undermine the identity of people she’s recruiting. If the target is cis, tell them their other half is trans, if the target is trans tell them their other half is cis. It’s a similar disorienting trick to the idea of single and double good. If the target identifies as good tell them their other half is irredeemably evil, if they identify amorally insist that half of them is a saint. The pattern is to take aspects of folks identities that they’re invested in and disrupt them by creating a domain of self which Ziz (and only Ziz) has knowledge about so the target is forced to trust their interpretation.
Regarding your point about being bigender, I recall that Suri Dao, as I knew them on Tumblr around 2016-2019-ish, identified as bigender, and indeed it was the first time I’d ever heard of the term or concept. I’m not sure I’ve heard anyone else describe themself that way since, and I never really understood the concept then as Dao tried to explain it or since then either. (The closest I can approximate it to a gender identity I do kind of understand is “genderfluid”.) I don’t think Dao ever mentioned the hemispheric stuff in connection to it. Is/was this a widespread gender identity among rationalists or even in the wider population that I’ve been ignorant of? Or is it mainly a concept found among those who subscribe to Ziz’s ideas?
Thanks! That’s both a more coherent explanation of the term than I’ve seen, and solid evidence (even mentioning studies from 2016) that it’s quite independent from Zizianism. Kind of dumb that I didn’t just Google it or Wikipedia it in the first place, in place of my last comment.
From zizians.info:
Regarding your point about being bigender, I recall that Suri Dao, as I knew them on Tumblr around 2016-2019-ish, identified as bigender, and indeed it was the first time I’d ever heard of the term or concept. I’m not sure I’ve heard anyone else describe themself that way since, and I never really understood the concept then as Dao tried to explain it or since then either. (The closest I can approximate it to a gender identity I do kind of understand is “genderfluid”.) I don’t think Dao ever mentioned the hemispheric stuff in connection to it. Is/was this a widespread gender identity among rationalists or even in the wider population that I’ve been ignorant of? Or is it mainly a concept found among those who subscribe to Ziz’s ideas?
It’s not unique to Zizians or some slightly broader rationalist circle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-binary_gender#Bigender
Thanks! That’s both a more coherent explanation of the term than I’ve seen, and solid evidence (even mentioning studies from 2016) that it’s quite independent from Zizianism. Kind of dumb that I didn’t just Google it or Wikipedia it in the first place, in place of my last comment.