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.
I am a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany ,and I find the gender ideology very reminiscent of what happened in Germany , where truth was sacrificed to ideology. Perhaps I’m overreacting, but I find the takeover of the gender cult absolutely frightening!
So many people have to bow down to their lies , and if you don’t go along, you will lose your job .If women try to speak, they are vilified or physically assaulted! The parallels are frightening .
I’m a Jewish lesbian who came out over 50 years ago. Men calling themselves lesbians and demanding access to lesbian spaces (and bodies) started in the mid-70s. The most infuriating aspect of this trend when it started was the passive way most lesbians reacted to it. I understood it, in a way, because back then homophobia was serious business. It wrecked people’s lives. So we wanted to be nice and kind. You know, do unto others…and anyway, he was just one guy. What harm could he do?
But I was not on board with admitting heterosexual male transvestites to our groups and I fought against it. I was overruled by a huge majority. The lesbians felt sorry for this dude. He looked so ridiculous in his “lady costume”. Who could take him seriously?
Well, that was then. This man went on to become a trans activist, a pioneer in invading lesbian spaces with the cooperation of lesbians, some of whom went on to transition themselves.
Thank you, Holly, for fighting the good fight. Like you, I’m aligned with WoLF and WDI, and I encourage anyone, female or male, who knows the difference between males and females and cares about the rights of children, women, gays and lesbians, to participate at any level of activism they’re comfortable with.
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 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.
Husk på hvem som finansierer transideologien. Det er ren mafia. De bruker alle midler og metoder og den amerikanske psykologforeningen er innvolvert ,Amnesty, FN bruker dette språket og der er det aktivister som jobba med Yagyokartaerklæringen finansiert av John Stryker osv osv. Tidl ansatt i FN initeerte gruppen som laget en erklrøing som de ikke har klart å få inn i FN HUmanRights konvensjonen pga uredelige metoder. Disse metodene er de samme overalt med de samme skjellsordene og ligner på diktaturets metoder.
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 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.
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.
The essential act of gnosis ("knowing") is the psychological splitting of the self -- soul from body -- and the rest of the world into good and evil spheres, with apocalypse as the only acceptable resolution. Gnostic heresies have led to some of the most brutal episodes in medieval European history, such as the Albigensian Crusade. The religious pendulum has swung away from institutions (churchs) and towards individual intuition for a while now. A liberal institution like UU has no chance.
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.
"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."
I thought I had picked up a Solzhenitsyn novel...! Though more of an East German feel perhaps...
Thanks for your courage - it must have been an ordeal despite your shared resolution if it involved close personal relationships.
I don't know if this is consolation and excuse the glibness but you did document an actual treasure trove of the transition of a church to a cult, actual live historiography of the brain washing, fascist totalitarian control combined with a school camp type drama...
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.
Why would you even want to go to a place that is a duplicate of the Chinese Cultural Revolution ? When I read this I was alternately laughing at the self- congratulatory comments of these utterly ridiculous people, and furious that they are getting away with this! How authoritarian can you get! Mao would be proud as would Stalin! I would have sent them a message that they are way off course, that they would fit right in with any authoritarian regime ! Utterly pathetic and disgusting people!
Ye, you need to apologize on blended knees , because you tell the truth , which they twist , meanwhile indoctrinating children with lies ( Hitler knew when to get the children , too,) . And meanwhile they think they’re so so “ kind” while they twist the knives further in!
I absolutely hate them, and I think you’re lucky not to be with such intolerant, stupid, and manipulative jerks!
You’ll find another summer place where you don’t have to use false pronouns, where you don’t have to apologize for telling the truth!
It’s not authoritarian if you opt-in. Comparing religions (which one chooses…at least once they become of age) to governments (to which one is involuntarily beholden) is a non-sequitur.
Yes, private organizations get to exclude whomever. But it is important to note the take-over of social organizations underway all around us via gender identity ideology. When so many people and places that individuals depend upon for friendship and support join in unison in automatically canceling anyone who questions an ideology being aggressively promoted by government agencies (schools, Biden Executive Orders, etc.), it is cause for concern.
In our case, individuals demanding or docilely accepting expulsion of former friends have been inculcated into the Gender Cult via "education" at schools...either as students or as teachers who were "educated" via trainings. Others have been trained to view gender critics as exile-worthy evil people by mainstream media's consistent one-sided coverage of this issue, and by its failure to even report at all about all sorts of important things like attacks on gender critics, males winning high school girls track events, the WPATH Files, the Cass Review, etc. The most efficient form of authoritarianism and oppression is when powerful forces get private organizations and individuals to promote their narrative without realizing they've been manipulated.
I am fully immersed in and well-versed in all of this. I am RABIDLY gender critical. And I take the hits for it willingly. I also avoid organizations which actively state their inclusive position on the matter. I don’t intentionally go round poking the bear as it were then cry victim when the bear pokes back. That’s just as nonsensical as an autogynephillic tranny with a beard wearing a shit dress and lipstick gets the boot from women’s single-sex spaces then cries victim for getting clocked.
The community we were part of was NOT into gender ideology when we joined. It has come up only recently, and this is the year where the organization has opted to move into full-blown promotion of gender ideology. We opted to object forthrightly and in respectful conversations with individuals, upon which we were targeted with complaints which triggered the Orwellian process described in the article. I'm curious as to why, in this and other comments, you want to treat our healthy expression of concern within a community we have loved as something unhealthy or shameful. Your comments remind me distinctly of the DARVO delved out by trans rights activists.
Carol, you have over two years’ worth of gender critical posts on this Substack (every word of which I agree with wholeheartedly, btw). There is no denying you are (rightly) exceedingly passionate about the inherent harms of gender woo. But the problem is you don’t get to take those opinions and facts into an organization like UU and expect everyone there to nod and smile. Just as you surely wouldn’t start shit talking about the inherent harms of Islam or Christianity. Just as you wouldn’t join a Catholic church and demand they change their proscriptions on divorce. Just as a gay person wouldn’t join the Westboro Baptist Church. Surely you recognize the lunacy in all those scenarios? There’s no difference.
There is nothing about the creed of the community we were part of that made acceptance of gender ideology a given. There are lots of atheists (including us), strong support for gay rights and women's rights (which as you know are undermined by gender ideology), etc etc etc. Of course, we "get to share" our opinions and facts, even though you oddly claim that we don't. Of course we didn't expect everyone to nod and smile, given the broader take-down of "progressive" groups by gender ideology. The organization was/is at a point of deciding its direction, and it was important to speak up which we did politely and forthrightly. I continue to find your intense interest in casting me and Bruce as "offenders" quite odd.
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!
I am a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany ,and I find the gender ideology very reminiscent of what happened in Germany , where truth was sacrificed to ideology. Perhaps I’m overreacting, but I find the takeover of the gender cult absolutely frightening!
So many people have to bow down to their lies , and if you don’t go along, you will lose your job .If women try to speak, they are vilified or physically assaulted! The parallels are frightening .
Of course you’re not overreacting. You know better than anyone where ideological cults inevitably lead.
Bullying, ostracizing, threatening peoples’ livelihoods and physical safety, are reliable methods of coercion and always have been.
Ideological cults both reflect and fuel humankind’s most evil trait: the capacity for scapegoating invigorated by groupthink.
det er fascisme
I’m a Jewish lesbian who came out over 50 years ago. Men calling themselves lesbians and demanding access to lesbian spaces (and bodies) started in the mid-70s. The most infuriating aspect of this trend when it started was the passive way most lesbians reacted to it. I understood it, in a way, because back then homophobia was serious business. It wrecked people’s lives. So we wanted to be nice and kind. You know, do unto others…and anyway, he was just one guy. What harm could he do?
But I was not on board with admitting heterosexual male transvestites to our groups and I fought against it. I was overruled by a huge majority. The lesbians felt sorry for this dude. He looked so ridiculous in his “lady costume”. Who could take him seriously?
Well, that was then. This man went on to become a trans activist, a pioneer in invading lesbian spaces with the cooperation of lesbians, some of whom went on to transition themselves.
Thank you, Holly, for fighting the good fight. Like you, I’m aligned with WoLF and WDI, and I encourage anyone, female or male, who knows the difference between males and females and cares about the rights of children, women, gays and lesbians, to participate at any level of activism they’re comfortable with.
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.
Good for you , but be careful!
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 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.
Husk på hvem som finansierer transideologien. Det er ren mafia. De bruker alle midler og metoder og den amerikanske psykologforeningen er innvolvert ,Amnesty, FN bruker dette språket og der er det aktivister som jobba med Yagyokartaerklæringen finansiert av John Stryker osv osv. Tidl ansatt i FN initeerte gruppen som laget en erklrøing som de ikke har klart å få inn i FN HUmanRights konvensjonen pga uredelige metoder. Disse metodene er de samme overalt med de samme skjellsordene og ligner på diktaturets metoder.
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 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"
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.
You mean because people in love with words & their own egos refuse to use plain language accessible to everyone?
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.
The essential act of gnosis ("knowing") is the psychological splitting of the self -- soul from body -- and the rest of the world into good and evil spheres, with apocalypse as the only acceptable resolution. Gnostic heresies have led to some of the most brutal episodes in medieval European history, such as the Albigensian Crusade. The religious pendulum has swung away from institutions (churchs) and towards individual intuition for a while now. A liberal institution like UU has no chance.
Carol & Bruce,
I am so sorry that you were excommunicated for being skeptical of the Gender Religion (cult).
Thank you for speaking up!
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.
"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?
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.
My heart is with both of you!
I thought I had picked up a Solzhenitsyn novel...! Though more of an East German feel perhaps...
Thanks for your courage - it must have been an ordeal despite your shared resolution if it involved close personal relationships.
I don't know if this is consolation and excuse the glibness but you did document an actual treasure trove of the transition of a church to a cult, actual live historiography of the brain washing, fascist totalitarian control combined with a school camp type drama...
Absolutely! And terrifyingly so!
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.
Why would you even want to go to a place that is a duplicate of the Chinese Cultural Revolution ? When I read this I was alternately laughing at the self- congratulatory comments of these utterly ridiculous people, and furious that they are getting away with this! How authoritarian can you get! Mao would be proud as would Stalin! I would have sent them a message that they are way off course, that they would fit right in with any authoritarian regime ! Utterly pathetic and disgusting people!
Ye, you need to apologize on blended knees , because you tell the truth , which they twist , meanwhile indoctrinating children with lies ( Hitler knew when to get the children , too,) . And meanwhile they think they’re so so “ kind” while they twist the knives further in!
I absolutely hate them, and I think you’re lucky not to be with such intolerant, stupid, and manipulative jerks!
You’ll find another summer place where you don’t have to use false pronouns, where you don’t have to apologize for telling the truth!
It’s not authoritarian if you opt-in. Comparing religions (which one chooses…at least once they become of age) to governments (to which one is involuntarily beholden) is a non-sequitur.
Yes, private organizations get to exclude whomever. But it is important to note the take-over of social organizations underway all around us via gender identity ideology. When so many people and places that individuals depend upon for friendship and support join in unison in automatically canceling anyone who questions an ideology being aggressively promoted by government agencies (schools, Biden Executive Orders, etc.), it is cause for concern.
In our case, individuals demanding or docilely accepting expulsion of former friends have been inculcated into the Gender Cult via "education" at schools...either as students or as teachers who were "educated" via trainings. Others have been trained to view gender critics as exile-worthy evil people by mainstream media's consistent one-sided coverage of this issue, and by its failure to even report at all about all sorts of important things like attacks on gender critics, males winning high school girls track events, the WPATH Files, the Cass Review, etc. The most efficient form of authoritarianism and oppression is when powerful forces get private organizations and individuals to promote their narrative without realizing they've been manipulated.
It’s frightening actually!
I am fully immersed in and well-versed in all of this. I am RABIDLY gender critical. And I take the hits for it willingly. I also avoid organizations which actively state their inclusive position on the matter. I don’t intentionally go round poking the bear as it were then cry victim when the bear pokes back. That’s just as nonsensical as an autogynephillic tranny with a beard wearing a shit dress and lipstick gets the boot from women’s single-sex spaces then cries victim for getting clocked.
The community we were part of was NOT into gender ideology when we joined. It has come up only recently, and this is the year where the organization has opted to move into full-blown promotion of gender ideology. We opted to object forthrightly and in respectful conversations with individuals, upon which we were targeted with complaints which triggered the Orwellian process described in the article. I'm curious as to why, in this and other comments, you want to treat our healthy expression of concern within a community we have loved as something unhealthy or shameful. Your comments remind me distinctly of the DARVO delved out by trans rights activists.
Because you ARE the offender(s)!!
Carol, you have over two years’ worth of gender critical posts on this Substack (every word of which I agree with wholeheartedly, btw). There is no denying you are (rightly) exceedingly passionate about the inherent harms of gender woo. But the problem is you don’t get to take those opinions and facts into an organization like UU and expect everyone there to nod and smile. Just as you surely wouldn’t start shit talking about the inherent harms of Islam or Christianity. Just as you wouldn’t join a Catholic church and demand they change their proscriptions on divorce. Just as a gay person wouldn’t join the Westboro Baptist Church. Surely you recognize the lunacy in all those scenarios? There’s no difference.
There is nothing about the creed of the community we were part of that made acceptance of gender ideology a given. There are lots of atheists (including us), strong support for gay rights and women's rights (which as you know are undermined by gender ideology), etc etc etc. Of course, we "get to share" our opinions and facts, even though you oddly claim that we don't. Of course we didn't expect everyone to nod and smile, given the broader take-down of "progressive" groups by gender ideology. The organization was/is at a point of deciding its direction, and it was important to speak up which we did politely and forthrightly. I continue to find your intense interest in casting me and Bruce as "offenders" quite odd.