How to indoctrinate someone into a cult in a few easy steps
Step 1) identify potential recruit - IE someone vulnerable. Common targets are children, people who’ve been rejected by peers or other communities, people who are lonely and lacking external support systems, etc. Those groups are more likely to be targeted but anyone in a sufficiently vulnerable place can be susceptible to this kind of indoctrination
why would a terf try to indoctrinate someone making a post that is literally advocating for trans inclusion? a couple reasons
OP is expression a genuine critique of the way cis centric feminism excludes and hurts trans people. But it also expresses 1) a feeling of isolation and 2) frustration with a group the cult opposes. both of these things can easily be used to manipulate ppl into joining the cult
Now obviously OP is clearly educated on the dog whistles used by terfs and know to tell them to fuck off, but the terf doesn't exactly know that when making their manipulative comments. when recruiting for a cult you might as well make an attempt to manipulate and recruit anyone who seems viable, the worst they can do is say no. and if they tell you to fuck off because they saw through your attempts at manipulation, then you can get yourself a nice screenshot of a "evil" trans person "rudely" replying to a "kind and helpful message". it's a win win and all that.
Step 2) the soft sell. you need to hook the possible recruit in. this can be done in many ways, maybe they draw you in with a promise of community or salvation, or you're convinced to go to a barbecue with a friend. they talk to you about the unfairness of society and offer you an answer to your problems.
the soft sell used above is an ideological sell, with a nice sprinkle of love bombing to seal the deal
"we know. we care." and "We do not expect you to be our human shield. In fact, we want to stand with you and take the blows with you," are both manipulative statements designed to pray on those feelings of loneliness. they imply protection, community, people who want you and care about you. why would anyone reject that?
"We would react with feminist analysis about how bio sex affects sex based oppression more than gender identity."
this is the soft sell of the ideology. they don't come out the gate calling trans people predators, they water down and soften the ideology into the most palatable form possible. terms like "feminist analysis" are carefully chosen to make the argument sound as academic and reasonable as possible.
"but its often difficult when there are people who think that being called female is an insult instead of a body type."
once again a soft sell, but this time instead of trying to make themselves seem academic the focus is on making the opposition look ridiculous. It implies trans people are ridiculous for not wanting to be referred to something as “simple” and “obvious” as a body type, while also flattening and oversimplifying the very complex topic of the spectrum of human sexes and genders. Basically it’s a very condescending straw man argument
It also paints trans ppl as misogynistic for thinking “that being called female is an insult”. Paint yourself as the desirable moral high ground vs their problematic ideals. Once again this is a strawman argument.
Both of these strawman are particularly infuriating bc none of this was even being discussed in the original post. They dragged their strawman into the conversation just to make themselves look better, but whatever
“but its often difficult when there are people who think that being called female is an insult”
I’ve already established how “ppl who think being called female is an insult” is just a shady dogwhistley way to demonize trans ppl. It’s like setting up your own scarecrow and giving it a MRA t shirt and a trans bracelet
But if you focus on the “but it’s often difficult” part, this is just an obvious attempt to shift the blame for your feelings onto trans people. This implies that there are people who want to protect you but they just can’t because those mean ole trannies won’t let them :((. Isn’t it so tragic?
In this one short paragraph this person is using multiple types of manipulation and is demonstrating a pretty textbook attempt to indoctrinate someone. I applaud their form it’s near perfect /sarcastic
Now obviously OP knows enough to shut this down, but let’s talk about what might happen if someone who didn't know how to do that was approached by a similar message
The soft sell doesn’t stop after the first interaction. that's just the litmus test to see if they'd be wasting their time on you or not. The point is to keep the conversation going and continuously manipulate them deeper and deeper into this worldview. The inductor will often try to take things to a private conversation, like going out for coffee or, more commonly online, taking things to DMs. This prevents any friends of the possible recruit or more knowledgeable tumblr users from poking holes in their logic or identifying their manipulative techniques. It’s also helpful to isolate the possible recruit as quickly as possible.
This leads pretty easily into the next few steps, step 3: the new worldview (tldr distort their worldview into one that suits your own needs), step 4: establishing the enemy(an enemy gives them something to oppose, to fear, to direct their anger towards, and a reason for you to ask them to stay so you can fight the enemy together), and step 5: the dear leader. From there you use step 6: peer pressure to prevent them from leaving, fueled by an unhealthy dose of love bombing and punishing dissent
the middle steps (3-5) don't have to be in that exact order and are usually involved in the early steps to indoctrinate, and then weaponized against ppl in the later steps to keep them from leaving or criticizing
and ah, yeah that's how to indoctrinate someone into a cult. You will note that intelligence has very little to do with protecting yourself from cults. the only thing that does work is understanding how they work and being able to recognize their tactics and dogwhistles
