LET’S TALK ABOUT IT…
Are Schools Dropping Love Bombs?

Saying the word ‘cult’ to people may illicit images of zombie-like people bowing down to a Great Leader. This hyperbole is short-sighted, however, and we know that the dynamics of psychological control are nuanced, complicated, and understandable. Humans are undeniably attracted to cults, which has been famously observed with groups such as the Branch Davidians, the Manson Family, or Jim “Drink the Kool-Aid” Jones and his People’s Temple followers in Jonestown.

Cults can form around any type of activity—religious, political, business—and can be difficult to define. There is some agreement that cults operate with manipulation, using elements of thought reform to attract and retain people in the cult. So we became curious when we learned of parents, teachers, and other prominent figures declaring transgenderism as a cult. Could this be true, or is it an unfair swipe at those who simply promote the noble ideas of equality and kindness for stigmatized groups? We decided to look locally to see if there is anything to the claims of schools’ participation in promoting a transgender cult that we could find.

Recruiting the Vulnerable

The first thing we wondered is what type of people are psychologically susceptible to joining a cult. We learned that all of us have the capacity to be lured into cults, but that studies indicate that most people recruited into joining a cult do so during a time of extreme stress and emotional vulnerability. This vulnerability can come from a variety of causes including:

• a desire for belonging

• stress associated with adolescence

• broken or deteriorated family relationships

• unmanageable situational stress.

The recruit’s emotional vulnerability is manipulated and cult doctrine is provided as the resolution to their personal discomfort. The cult will take away your pain and make you feel good.

Interestingly, we were able to find evidence of transgenderism being provided as a path out of emotional distress in the recent public presentation of Poudre School District’s recent Resolution in Support of Pride Month, which you can watch HERE.

A Rocky Mountain High School rising senior who was described as being a trans boy (a biological girl who believes she is a boy) and using masculine pronouns, began by describing heartbreaking feelings of emotional distress upon her transition from middle school to high school.

The student clearly described emotional vulnerabilities which match those described above—broken relationships, the stress of adolescence, a desire for social acceptance. This vulnerable student would have also spent her crucial middle school years suffering from the emotionally damaging effects of PSD’s school closures and forced isolation of children during Covid lockdowns.

Love Bombs to Resolve the Hurt

To make a cult initiate feel welcome and good, cults will counter the mark’s vulnerable feelings with extreme love-bombing. The cult will work to create positive feelings in the initiate with effusive praise, flattery, and validation. We easily found evidence from the past few years of PSD leadership heaping praise upon student activists speaking on behalf of Pride Month and Transgender Day of Visibility Board of Education resolutions:

“I want you to know you are seen, heard, loved, valued and we need you here. We need you here in PSD. We need you to continue doing what you’re doing to advocate…holding us (PSD’s leadership) accountable…” -PSD BoE Director Kristen Draper, 2022

PSD students advocating for transgender recognition are demonstrably supported and encouraged by district leadership, as the resolutions have consistently been unanimously approved by the board of education.

Cult Indoctrination

Psychologist Robert Jay Lifton is a well-respected expert in the field of thought reform after he extensively studied brainwashing victims in Communist China during Mao’s Cultural Revolution. His findings were recorded in the book, “Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism”. Lifton documented several psychological themes common in thought reform or ideological coercion, including milieu control, demand for purity, sacred science and loading the language. We wondered if we could find evidence of these techniques in our local district as well.

Control the Environment & Communication

According to Lifton, one of the first features of cult brainwashing is to surround the initiate with only cult doctrine and eliminate any contact or communication with ideas which contradict cult beliefs. Again, we turned to PSD’s recent Pride Month Resolution seeking evidence. The student activist described the process she went through becoming increasingly surrounded with transgender ideology at Rocky Mountain High School. Having already confessed to emotional vulnerability, the student describes visiting one of the school counselors with confusion regarding gender identity. Per PSD policy and consistent with PSD’s educational programming, the counselor likely affirmed the student’s belief that she was born in the wrong body. 

In an act of deepening the student’s transgender identity, the counselor referred the student directly to the school’s transgender support group, where the student describes sitting back and listening to all the transgender-identifying teens had to say. “This helped me to self-reflect and better understand how I felt and how I saw myself.” The student describes becoming further enveloped in the ideology by also joining the RMHS Gender and Sexuality Alliance group. The trans-identifying student described deep participation in both of those groups for three years. From meetings with counselors and ideological clubs, this student was surrounded by the doctrine of transgenderism. In contrast, we could find no evidence or mention of anyone speaking to this student any ideas which would counter the transgender ideology. We wonder if anyone described to this student the significant psychological and physical dangers associated with transitioning or if the school ever provided the perspective of a detransitioner. It seems that the student’s environment included only transgender doctrine and no ideas which contradicted those beliefs.

Demand for Purity

Another important indicator of ideological totalism Lifton identified was the demand for purity. Believers are encouraged to believe the cult doctrine as pure and good, while any outside influence or opinion contrary to the doctrine is impure, evil, and unsafe. One’s commitment to the beliefs must constantly be in check and the believers must continue to create their pure ‘authentic’ selves. This mindset results in extreme black and white thinking in which nuance is not tolerated. 

We found several examples of this good versus evil way of thinking in PSD’s public meetings, as well.

• Student presenters consistently stated that teachers who affirm students in their perceived identities and who use the child’s preferred pronouns and name make students feel connected and improve their mental health.

• “I just want our staff to know that supportive educators save lives end of sentence. Supportive educators save lives…knowing that LGBTQ allies exist at schools creates a more welcoming safe and environment for students to learn…so if you get nothing else out of this I want staff to remember supportive Educators save lives.” -PSD Board of Education Vice President Kristen Draper, March 2023

• “Local governments across the nation are trying to eradicate us from public life! They're trying to stop us from being safe! They're trying to stop us from being ourselves! I speak for my comrades who cannot! I have friends…whose right to be existing is taken away!” -PSD Rocky Mountain High School non-binary student activist, March 2023

• “It's terrifying…to walk out in public and know there may be people who want to hurt you…we live in a world where harm comes the greatest to those who are different.” -PSD Futures Lab student, June 2023

• “School can be the only place students go to get support. This is why the social aspect of gender affirming care which is honoring students’ names and pronouns, providing support and inclusivity and allowing them to express themselves is so important.” -PSD Futures Lab student, June 2023

• “It can be a little uncomfortable for people that are well-meaning yet fairly ignorant about these issues and so I appreciate you highlighting uh what you did so that we can all try to be better.” -PSD Board of Education Director Nate Donovan

• “I know how scary it is right now um…[to] watch the Nightly News um read the paper, hear the hateful rhetoric that is just about everywhere…this is about our children's lives and about their safety!” -PSD Board of Education Director Kristen Draper

• “…stories about accepting parents…parents who do not restrict their children from gender affirming care like binders or bras…or in some older cases starting gender affirming hormones. These stories often don't happen nearly enough…and many transgender people…have been denied the same basic necessities for so long by their own supposed caregivers. I myself am a rare example…whose parents let them start testosterone at age 15…I feel like the luckiest kid in the world to have parents who listen to me.”

• “We can realize…that for many transgender kids school is their escape …it is commonly a place a kid would rather be than at home.” -PSD Rocky Mountain High School student, March 2023

So are parents who describe transgenderism as a cult correct? We don’t profess to be experts on cult behavior, but we undeniably found evidence that supports some of the key aspects of cult behavior: preying on the emotionally vulnerable, control of information in the environment, and love-bombing. We also found the story of a former political cult member and her thoughtful analysis of gender ideology as a cult compelling. Read it for yourself HERE.

Cults rely on strict black and white thinking and believe members of their group are beyond criticism. For cult members, everyone must think exactly as they do, so the world may be perfected. Consider the cult indoctrination process and watch the most recent PSD Pride Month resolution presentation and evaluate for yourself whether you think these presentations and leadership responses demonstrate an organization in which differing opinions are welcome and evaluated, or are they indicative of a system which perpetuates an idea that everyone must believe the same things.

TRENDING CONVERSATIONS
Is This the Proper Role of the Federal Government?

This week, Vice President Kamala Harris lit up the internet with her promotion and embrace of drag queens and men presenting themselves as tall, bearded women. Regardless of one’s personal feelings regarding Pride Month, is it the proper function of the executive branch of the federal government to embrace a man dressed as a scantily clad mockery of a woman, while promoting the idea that Americans should be involved in a ‘fight’ and that LGB children should be afraid of who they are?

WHY WAS I NEVER TOLD?
Assimilation by Education and Hard Work

Booker T. Washington grew up as a slave, was freed during the Civil War and was one of the key voices during the confusing time of Reconstruction. However, few have a deep knowledge of Washington and know how greatly he impacted the lives of newly freed slaves after the Civil War. Washington gave the newly freed slaves a place to learn in Tuskegee, Alabama called the Tuskegee Institute. Booker and his students built their school from the ground up physically and financially. Washington and his students made and sold their own bricks to fund the creation of the Institute. Washington and his students tried three times to make a working kiln to make their bricks in before finally succeeding. It was expensive to make a kiln, so Washington pawned his watch, one of his most prized possessions, to pay for the final working kiln. Washington and his students also had to cut down trees to build their schoolhouse. The students struggled to understand how chopping down trees would help educate them. Washington explained to them that the ability to work hard and do a task well was more valuable than the knowledge gained from books. Washington taught the students at the Tuskegee Institute not only how to read and write, but he also taught them how to provide for their families and be valuable members of society by working hard and always doing a job well. 

DINNER TABLE DISCUSSION
Goodness or Happiness?

Should people seek to be good or should people seek personal happiness? Or is it that happiness is the result of living a life directed at the pursuit of the virtuous and the good?

JOIN THE CONVERSATION:

☑️ CONSIDER a world with a perfect environment, no wars, zero unemployment, no class distinctions, and everyone in solidarity. Read the communists’ simple plan for making that happen HERE.

☑️ LEARN fun outdoor activities such as spin fishing, fly fishing, archery, and trap shooting at Fort Collins’ non-profit Colorado Youth Outdoors. View their extensive list of classes and activities HERE.

☑️ ATTEND the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism’s free Evolution of Pride month webinar and learn more about the event’s history. Zoom meeting Tuesday, June 25th 6-7pm EST. Confidential registration HERE.