As you must know, this is happening at UUC institutions in many places, particularly on the woke West Coast. Long time members like you and Bruce are speaking up everywhere, but receiving the same sort of refusal to engage in an exchange of factual info (like the Cass report) and refusal to respond to specific concerns, as you and Bruce have experienced. Most of those who participate in UCC activities find it easier to go along with the gender ideology capture so as to preserve the social connections they value, even if they have personal reservations. This is happening in many social spheres. For example, here in Portland, very few lesbians are willing to reveal their disagreement with transgender ideology because they have seen that other lesbians who have done so have been attacked and kicked out of various lesbian meetup dot com groups. In 1970, I was a founder, along with two gay males, of Portland Gay Liberation, the first LGB activist group in Oregon. As recently as 2019, I was asked to speak at a celebration of of the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall protests, in recognition of all that I have done to lead the fight for homosexual rights over the intervening decades. But as soon as I expressed concerns about how lesbians were being harassed by men who claimed to be lesbians, I was CANCELLED! A plaque at the local Q Center, honoring my contributions to the LGB community, was summarily taken down by GLAPN (Gay & Lesbian Archives of the Pacific Northwest) and that organization has been renamed Oregon Queer History Collective. As we are seeing in many places, accurate history is being erased and rewritten to claim that transgender and queer people have always played a crucial role in gay history: "we are not – never have been – limited to the Gay and Lesbian portions of the LGBTQ2SIA+ community... https://www.glapn.org/
I honestly do not care that they took the plaque down, and that I am being written out of local lesbian and gay history. I started speaking up very publicly about five years ago, including testifying at the Oregon legislature against legislation that promoted "gender affirmation" harm to children, before three gay males on one legislative committee and one lesbian on another committee. I've seen screen shots of FB posts by these LG legislators condemning me.
Meanwhile, I know many lesbians and gay men who reject gender ideology and who are meeting socially under the radar of the people who have been captured. Some of us are working with Gays Against Groomers, WoLF and WDI-USA.
What I am trying to say is thank you for what you and Bruce have been trying to do. I have no idea how long it will take for the capture of UUC and other groups to be undone, but I believe there are many who have doubts, but who are not speaking up. Which is why it will remain important for those of us who are willing to speak up to do so.
I mention all of this because the UUC is just one of countless organizations which have been captured by TQ activists. I happen to be Jewish and here in Portland and elsewhere many Jewish congregations and organizations have also embraced transgender ideology. Again, I think MANY Jews have doubts about what is going on, but most people just go along to get along and not disrupt their longstanding social connections.
Thank you for your work for our LGB community and for your bravery in speaking up! My wife and I are with you! We are attending an upcoming event that will be happening not to far from you, to network with other women and talk about how to be more effective in our organizing against transgender ideology. There will be some really powerful speakers who are on the front lines of the fight to preserve the sex-based rights of women and girls and to protect children from sexist and dangerous medicalization that is being pushed by the trans lobby. Go check it out at wethewomen dot world (yes, that’s the right site :)
I suggest sending them printouts of the studies now revealing that 63% - 72% detransition rates of teens who identified as "trans" and did medical interventions after 5 years. These were statistically significant, records-based studies published in 2024. The whole of Europe is backtracking on "transitioning" of minors. Here's my video with some details:
I wouldn't claim anything definitive but in my mind Gnosis is a mystical connection to some aspect of reality that can be revealed to one's self, as a discovery or transcendence perhaps with the sense that the current world is mundane and fallen in contrast to the heavenly transcendent realm.
Heresy is the charge of subverting a religious doctrine and straying from the true path.
Here we might consider that heresy accusations might have a valid function in religious traditions. It is notable that this recent form of religion (UU) has been captured so readily, along with many more modern Protestant, evangelical derived offshoots... It seems to me that the human tendency to drift and confirm biases among a coterie can subvert a lineage over time.
Perhaps that is why there is a return to more conservative Catholic and Orthodox Christianities.
I'm sorry to hear about what happened to you and Bruce at the hands of the "kind" Unitarians. You certainly made every effort to explain your reasoning, and I hope some of the things you said landed with them (or at least with some of them), even if they cannot admit it yet. I hope that someday members of this group will come back to you two and say, "You were right. We should have listened to you. I'm sorry that we kicked you out instead."
I grew up UU, going to Seabeck. I understand on a visceral level what it means to be kicked out of Elliot. The Unitarians have been infected by a parasite ideology and completely taken over. It's heartbreaking. I'm so sorry for your loss.
I posted essentially the same thing on Bruce's essay today, so please excuse the repetition, but different people may read this one.
Kudos to you and Bruce for fighting the good fight. It is very sad that the Unitarian Universalists, with their long-held reputation for being open minded and engaged in the search for truth as among their highest values, have succumbed to rank dogmatism for the sake of political alignment with the "woke." Evidence doesn't matter to them. A free exchange of ideas, open discussion and debate in a search for truth doesn't matter to them. All that matters to them is fealty to this new warped version of "liberalism."
My wife and I had a similar longstanding affiliation with our local Fellowship. We were both longtime members of the choir and, like Bruce, I wrote and produced several comedy skits for our annual fundraisers. We attended all manner of social events there. But after Trump was elected and wokeness, in all of its manifestations, took hold, the Fellowship became progressively more insufferable, with the dogma being relentlessly shoved down our throats until we couldn't stomach it anymore.
Unlike you, we took the path of least resistance and just left. We could have put up a fight, but it was obvious to us that the overwhelming majority of the congregation had bought into the gender identity cult and related dogmas hook, line and sinker, and we determined that we had better ways of spending our time, fighting on fronts other than that one. Your experience helps confirm that, even if we had fought for a more tolerant and evidence-based approach to these issues, the result almost certainly would have been the same.
Trying to fight directly within a group is not working. At least not yet. Instead, we can all support the work of groups like SEGM https://segm.org/ and also Democrats for An Informed Approach to Gender DIAG https://www.di-ag.org/ Since right now the establishment Democratic Party is a main driver of gender ideology and harmful government action, I hope you will all read about DIAG and at least signup to get its newsletter.
Hi Holly, I agree that supporting SEGM and other good groups is a good thing to do. And I continue to work behind the scenes to foment a movement capable of demanding system change, leaving the two party corporacracy (and its roots in how things are set up) behind.....so humanity can finally use the power that has always been ours for the taking. We decided to stand up and speak in this social group, because it has meant so much to us personally, even though we had few illusions as to likely outcomes. Sometimes, one needs to fight for a community one has loved, forthrightly speaking to people we've loved, giving them a chance to hear something beyond the warped narrative all around them....even if that community will likely disappoint. ....while, of course, focusing on bigger picture organizing as a priority. Warm regards, Carol
Thank you for your bravery and for speaking up. It’s absolutely the right thing to do,
And it cost you a lot but at least you have your integrity and you know you did everything you could do o being the truth to these folks who have been captured by your the trans cult.
My wife and I are attending an upcoming event SOON that will be happening near the CA/OR border, to network with other women and talk about how to be more effective in our organizing against transgender ideology. There will be some really powerful speakers who are on the front lines of the fight to preserve the sex-based rights of women and girls and to protect children from sexist and dangerous medicalization that is being pushed by the trans lobby. Please check it out at wethewomen dot world (yes, that’s the right site :)
I think it is very important for us to speak up in the various communities that we have been a part of. People need to know that there are people they know who are not silently submitting to the authoritarian woke powers that be.
I am sorry this happened to you. My mom wrote a polite and thoughtful and heartfelt resignation letter explaining her discomfort with all the genderism being enforced at her UU Church. She had been a member for years and years, it was the church in which my father’s memorial service was held, they had been active and generous congregants.
The minister never even responded to acknowledge my mom’s letter. Nothing. Dead silence to a senior who was genuinely distressed and feeling a powerful loss. Not even goodbye we will miss you.
"They say we made people “unsafe.” We supposedly “harmed” trans and nonbinary people, and then we refused to sign a document admitting guilt and agreeing to restrictions on our speech."
The hypocrisy is that these SCT Safe Community Team people will take out these extreme measures against any people who scrutinise 'trans' or 'CRT', but never for people who have disabilities.
I would bet you good money that this team has never advocated for people with disabilities whose vulnerabilities and suffrage supercede that of able-bodied able-minded ethnic or 'trans' individuals.
And whilst these people profess to care that 'trans' can be hurt and/or commit suicide because of people not being 100% accepting, they don't care to act to ensure that people with disabilities have this level of affirmation and acceptance from people.
🙏💯 as an autistic (now elderly) it chills me to the bone how few acknowledge the special needs of autistic kids and how we are some of the major victims of the transsexual movement.
As a young woman I was sucked into a cult that so powerfully bent my mind I gave them my newborn baby to be raised by cult members. I still live with levels of grief and regret 44 years later for the consequences bought upon myself and my child that is daily exacerbated by watching the success of trans ideology to capture the whole of society and to ruin so many lives. Hundreds of thousands will live the consequences of cult indoctrination and the choices made into old age, just as I do.
The Church of Genderology brooks no dissent. You have been subject to the Gender Inquisition and found wanting. At least the Inquisitors aren’t burning heretics at the stake … yet. Here’s hoping the Gender Inquisition doesn’t last for three centuries like the Spanish one did.
Even before I had gotten to the bottom of the essay and saw your Venn diagram T-shirts, I was formulating this thought: there are those who think Orwell or Huxley predicted the current situation, but your story is downright Kafkaesque. What a mess.
I’m truly sorry this happened to you and Bruce, Carol. To lose a whole community like that must be devastating. Thank you for always speaking up and living by your principles, no matter the cost.
As you must know, this is happening at UUC institutions in many places, particularly on the woke West Coast. Long time members like you and Bruce are speaking up everywhere, but receiving the same sort of refusal to engage in an exchange of factual info (like the Cass report) and refusal to respond to specific concerns, as you and Bruce have experienced. Most of those who participate in UCC activities find it easier to go along with the gender ideology capture so as to preserve the social connections they value, even if they have personal reservations. This is happening in many social spheres. For example, here in Portland, very few lesbians are willing to reveal their disagreement with transgender ideology because they have seen that other lesbians who have done so have been attacked and kicked out of various lesbian meetup dot com groups. In 1970, I was a founder, along with two gay males, of Portland Gay Liberation, the first LGB activist group in Oregon. As recently as 2019, I was asked to speak at a celebration of of the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall protests, in recognition of all that I have done to lead the fight for homosexual rights over the intervening decades. But as soon as I expressed concerns about how lesbians were being harassed by men who claimed to be lesbians, I was CANCELLED! A plaque at the local Q Center, honoring my contributions to the LGB community, was summarily taken down by GLAPN (Gay & Lesbian Archives of the Pacific Northwest) and that organization has been renamed Oregon Queer History Collective. As we are seeing in many places, accurate history is being erased and rewritten to claim that transgender and queer people have always played a crucial role in gay history: "we are not – never have been – limited to the Gay and Lesbian portions of the LGBTQ2SIA+ community... https://www.glapn.org/
I honestly do not care that they took the plaque down, and that I am being written out of local lesbian and gay history. I started speaking up very publicly about five years ago, including testifying at the Oregon legislature against legislation that promoted "gender affirmation" harm to children, before three gay males on one legislative committee and one lesbian on another committee. I've seen screen shots of FB posts by these LG legislators condemning me.
Meanwhile, I know many lesbians and gay men who reject gender ideology and who are meeting socially under the radar of the people who have been captured. Some of us are working with Gays Against Groomers, WoLF and WDI-USA.
What I am trying to say is thank you for what you and Bruce have been trying to do. I have no idea how long it will take for the capture of UUC and other groups to be undone, but I believe there are many who have doubts, but who are not speaking up. Which is why it will remain important for those of us who are willing to speak up to do so.
I mention all of this because the UUC is just one of countless organizations which have been captured by TQ activists. I happen to be Jewish and here in Portland and elsewhere many Jewish congregations and organizations have also embraced transgender ideology. Again, I think MANY Jews have doubts about what is going on, but most people just go along to get along and not disrupt their longstanding social connections.
Thanks so much for the comment and for all you've been doing, Holly!
Thank you for your work for our LGB community and for your bravery in speaking up! My wife and I are with you! We are attending an upcoming event that will be happening not to far from you, to network with other women and talk about how to be more effective in our organizing against transgender ideology. There will be some really powerful speakers who are on the front lines of the fight to preserve the sex-based rights of women and girls and to protect children from sexist and dangerous medicalization that is being pushed by the trans lobby. Go check it out at wethewomen dot world (yes, that’s the right site :)
Hi Rachel, can you email me at caroldansereau@substack.com to give me the link for that site. I'm doing something wrong trying to find it. Thanks.
They are basically accusing you of Spectral Harm.
"She's a witch, Harry".
I suggest sending them printouts of the studies now revealing that 63% - 72% detransition rates of teens who identified as "trans" and did medical interventions after 5 years. These were statistically significant, records-based studies published in 2024. The whole of Europe is backtracking on "transitioning" of minors. Here's my video with some details:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HusJ8ybBElQ&t=7s
I'm sorry your church has been taken over by a gnostic heresy.
Yeah not very many people know what that means.
That's why gnostic heresies keep coming back around.
I wouldn't claim anything definitive but in my mind Gnosis is a mystical connection to some aspect of reality that can be revealed to one's self, as a discovery or transcendence perhaps with the sense that the current world is mundane and fallen in contrast to the heavenly transcendent realm.
Heresy is the charge of subverting a religious doctrine and straying from the true path.
Here we might consider that heresy accusations might have a valid function in religious traditions. It is notable that this recent form of religion (UU) has been captured so readily, along with many more modern Protestant, evangelical derived offshoots... It seems to me that the human tendency to drift and confirm biases among a coterie can subvert a lineage over time.
Perhaps that is why there is a return to more conservative Catholic and Orthodox Christianities.
I'm sorry to hear about what happened to you and Bruce at the hands of the "kind" Unitarians. You certainly made every effort to explain your reasoning, and I hope some of the things you said landed with them (or at least with some of them), even if they cannot admit it yet. I hope that someday members of this group will come back to you two and say, "You were right. We should have listened to you. I'm sorry that we kicked you out instead."
I grew up UU, going to Seabeck. I understand on a visceral level what it means to be kicked out of Elliot. The Unitarians have been infected by a parasite ideology and completely taken over. It's heartbreaking. I'm so sorry for your loss.
I posted essentially the same thing on Bruce's essay today, so please excuse the repetition, but different people may read this one.
Kudos to you and Bruce for fighting the good fight. It is very sad that the Unitarian Universalists, with their long-held reputation for being open minded and engaged in the search for truth as among their highest values, have succumbed to rank dogmatism for the sake of political alignment with the "woke." Evidence doesn't matter to them. A free exchange of ideas, open discussion and debate in a search for truth doesn't matter to them. All that matters to them is fealty to this new warped version of "liberalism."
My wife and I had a similar longstanding affiliation with our local Fellowship. We were both longtime members of the choir and, like Bruce, I wrote and produced several comedy skits for our annual fundraisers. We attended all manner of social events there. But after Trump was elected and wokeness, in all of its manifestations, took hold, the Fellowship became progressively more insufferable, with the dogma being relentlessly shoved down our throats until we couldn't stomach it anymore.
Unlike you, we took the path of least resistance and just left. We could have put up a fight, but it was obvious to us that the overwhelming majority of the congregation had bought into the gender identity cult and related dogmas hook, line and sinker, and we determined that we had better ways of spending our time, fighting on fronts other than that one. Your experience helps confirm that, even if we had fought for a more tolerant and evidence-based approach to these issues, the result almost certainly would have been the same.
Trying to fight directly within a group is not working. At least not yet. Instead, we can all support the work of groups like SEGM https://segm.org/ and also Democrats for An Informed Approach to Gender DIAG https://www.di-ag.org/ Since right now the establishment Democratic Party is a main driver of gender ideology and harmful government action, I hope you will all read about DIAG and at least signup to get its newsletter.
Hi Holly, I agree that supporting SEGM and other good groups is a good thing to do. And I continue to work behind the scenes to foment a movement capable of demanding system change, leaving the two party corporacracy (and its roots in how things are set up) behind.....so humanity can finally use the power that has always been ours for the taking. We decided to stand up and speak in this social group, because it has meant so much to us personally, even though we had few illusions as to likely outcomes. Sometimes, one needs to fight for a community one has loved, forthrightly speaking to people we've loved, giving them a chance to hear something beyond the warped narrative all around them....even if that community will likely disappoint. ....while, of course, focusing on bigger picture organizing as a priority. Warm regards, Carol
Thank you for your bravery and for speaking up. It’s absolutely the right thing to do,
And it cost you a lot but at least you have your integrity and you know you did everything you could do o being the truth to these folks who have been captured by your the trans cult.
My wife and I are attending an upcoming event SOON that will be happening near the CA/OR border, to network with other women and talk about how to be more effective in our organizing against transgender ideology. There will be some really powerful speakers who are on the front lines of the fight to preserve the sex-based rights of women and girls and to protect children from sexist and dangerous medicalization that is being pushed by the trans lobby. Please check it out at wethewomen dot world (yes, that’s the right site :)
I think it is very important for us to speak up in the various communities that we have been a part of. People need to know that there are people they know who are not silently submitting to the authoritarian woke powers that be.
I am sorry this happened to you. My mom wrote a polite and thoughtful and heartfelt resignation letter explaining her discomfort with all the genderism being enforced at her UU Church. She had been a member for years and years, it was the church in which my father’s memorial service was held, they had been active and generous congregants.
The minister never even responded to acknowledge my mom’s letter. Nothing. Dead silence to a senior who was genuinely distressed and feeling a powerful loss. Not even goodbye we will miss you.
Nothing.
UU membership committee? Is that you?
You're really giving a great example of what people mean when they say "Be Kind"
Carol & Bruce,
I am so sorry that you were excommunicated for being skeptical of the Gender Religion (cult).
Thank you for speaking up!
"They say we made people “unsafe.” We supposedly “harmed” trans and nonbinary people, and then we refused to sign a document admitting guilt and agreeing to restrictions on our speech."
So...magic words, then?
My heart is with both of you!
The hypocrisy is that these SCT Safe Community Team people will take out these extreme measures against any people who scrutinise 'trans' or 'CRT', but never for people who have disabilities.
I would bet you good money that this team has never advocated for people with disabilities whose vulnerabilities and suffrage supercede that of able-bodied able-minded ethnic or 'trans' individuals.
And whilst these people profess to care that 'trans' can be hurt and/or commit suicide because of people not being 100% accepting, they don't care to act to ensure that people with disabilities have this level of affirmation and acceptance from people.
🙏💯 as an autistic (now elderly) it chills me to the bone how few acknowledge the special needs of autistic kids and how we are some of the major victims of the transsexual movement.
As a young woman I was sucked into a cult that so powerfully bent my mind I gave them my newborn baby to be raised by cult members. I still live with levels of grief and regret 44 years later for the consequences bought upon myself and my child that is daily exacerbated by watching the success of trans ideology to capture the whole of society and to ruin so many lives. Hundreds of thousands will live the consequences of cult indoctrination and the choices made into old age, just as I do.
I’m really sorry to hear that 😞
The Church of Genderology brooks no dissent. You have been subject to the Gender Inquisition and found wanting. At least the Inquisitors aren’t burning heretics at the stake … yet. Here’s hoping the Gender Inquisition doesn’t last for three centuries like the Spanish one did.
I am a longtime UU, in NY, not yet open about my “gender heresy”—but your example is giving me ideas. And courage.
Huge thanks to you and Bruce for documenting all of it so well.
Even before I had gotten to the bottom of the essay and saw your Venn diagram T-shirts, I was formulating this thought: there are those who think Orwell or Huxley predicted the current situation, but your story is downright Kafkaesque. What a mess.
I’m truly sorry this happened to you and Bruce, Carol. To lose a whole community like that must be devastating. Thank you for always speaking up and living by your principles, no matter the cost.