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General => Articles => Topic started by: Lil angel on November 09, 2026, 06:56:06 PM
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https://www.dailymail.com/crime-desk/article-16264405/The-Trans-death-cult-Zizians-associated-string-murders-suicides-compared-Manson-Family-reveal-shamefully-reluctant-report-truth.html
Inside America's mysterious, murderous trans death cult
By Christopher Stevens
Curtis Lind was a gentle hippie, one of the Californian old school: a former classical musician and a soft touch, who liked to adopt waifs and strays. On his patch of land in Vallejo, California, where he lived in a cluster of trailers 30 miles north of San Francisco, he took in cats, geese and people. He eventually paid for his kindness with his life. Lind was allegedly a victim of a transgender death cult known as the Zizians a group of obsessive vegans, anarchists and effective altruists who began in 2016 to turn their backs on their families, careers and studies to coalesce into a loose and ultimately dangerous commune. Now linked to a series of horrific murders and suicides across the United States and beyond, they have been compared to the infamous ‘Manson Family’ who terrorised California in the 1960s. This astonishing case has all the ingredients of a major international crime story yet America’s liberal press has been shamefully reluctant to report on it. Investigative reporter Andy Ngo, the world’s leading expert on the ‘cult’, believes the reason the story has stayed largely under the media radar across the Atlantic is frighteningly simple: for those on the Left who champion the trans agenda, the story is nothing less than ‘kryptonite’. But Lind’s murder ought to be repugnant to everyone, regardless of politics, and yet trans activists accused him of being transphobic. In 2017, he met a 23-year-old member of the Zizians called Jasper Danielson, who went by the name ‘Gwen’. They shared an interest in old boats, and the tolerant, easygoing Lind, then in his mid-70s, supported his new friend when he began transitioning. He even took Danielson to buy his first bra at a local Walmart. Lind was no more judgmental when Danielson introduced a few other transgender ‘friends’ and announced they needed somewhere to stay. Lind offered to let them rent trailers and space on his land in Vallejo, for the low price of $2,000 (£1,500) a month. The Zizians, who by then numbered around a dozen people all of whom were living in and around the Bay Area had money. Many had previously had impressive jobs in Silicon Valley. A future member would leave a lucrative career at a financial trading firm on Wall Street to join the cult. When police stopped Danielson’s car in 2020 and searched it on suspicion of drugs offences, they found nearly $20,000 (£15,000) in cash. (At least one of those taking advantage of Lind’s hospitality was also claiming Supplemental Security Income for an autism diagnosis.) But whatever their means, they didn’t pay Lind and they wouldn’t leave. Their leader, Ziz a trans-identified male whose real name was Jack Amadeus LaSota, who had long blond hair and wore a bra while shirtless on the property preached on his online blog that it was morally right to exploit and blackmail landlords: ‘It’s bad praxis to pay them rent.’ (‘Praxis’ is a Marxist term describing putting theoretical ideas into practice.) Most of the 'cult' members walked around topless or completely naked, though at the height of the Covid pandemic they wore gas masks. Almost all the Zizians were either trans-identified or called themselves ‘non-binary’. Several of the males had developed breasts after years of hormone treatment. By the end of 2022, Lind had lost patience with his eccentric tenants and was applying through the courts for eviction. But when he asked them to leave, one of the Zizian ‘transwomen’ Alexander Leatham, a former UC Berkley student described as a math ‘genius’ who had studied at University of California, Berkeley and went by the alias ‘Somni’ allegedly produced a knife. Lind asked him what he was going to do with the blade. Leatham responded only with a menacing smile. ‘I don’t see any knife,’ another Zizian told Lind.
Shaken by the encounter, Lind borrowed a pistol from another of his tenants and began carrying it in his coat pocket. After eviction notices were posted, the Zizians threw rocks at his trailer throughout the night. The next morning, November 13, 2022, one of the group, a female named Tessa Berns, called out to him that her trailer had a water leak. Lind bent over to check the valve, and was immediately ambushed by several 'cult' members. They smashed the 80-year-old over the head with a wooden block, gouged out his right eye, stabbed him repeatedly with kitchen knives and then ran him through with a samurai sword, the blade entering his back and exiting through his chest. 'It appears like they were trying to cut off my head,' Lind would later testify in court, referring to the deep lacerations around his neck
Incredibly, Lind managed to struggle to his feet and drew the pistol. Firing it wildly, he killed one of his assailants a trans-identified male and former Google engineer with Asperger’s syndrome called Amir 'Emma' Borhanian wounded a second and drove off the others. Then he staggered to a friend living in another trailer on his land and collapsed, gasping: ‘I’m dying.’
But despite a shattered skull and more than 50 knife wounds, he survived. Police arrived and arrested Leatham, Berns and several others. Lind's friends later discovered a hatchet, a large container and several bottles of lye, a highly corrosive liquid, and surmised that the gang planned to dissolve Lind’s body after murdering him. Years later, Leatham and Berns still haven’t faced trial for the alleged attempted murder. Lind, then in his 80s, was a shaky witness at the time, unable to remember some details of the attack, but his injuries told their own story. Tragically, that was not the end of his association with the Zizians. In January last year, Lind and his neighbours noticed a man hanging around the trailers wearing black. One afternoon, as Lind got out of his car, the stranger leapt out from the shadows and stabbed him repeatedly before knocking him to the ground, pulling back his head and slitting his throat. As Lind bled out, the attacker skipped and danced over him, before escaping on a bicycle. A 22-year-old Zizian who was completely unknown before the attack named Maximilian Snyder was charged with the murder. No trial date has yet been set after 22 months. It’s an extraordinary story. Yet, incredibly, whenever news of the 'cult' was reported (often minimising the trans element), much of the Left’s sympathy lay with the Zizians. Amir ‘Emma’ Borhanian, who was shot dead by Lind as he defended himself during the first attack, was beatified by the trans community and celebrated as a ‘martyr in the struggle against transphobic violence’.
A fundraising campaign that raised more than $20,000 (£15,000) released a statement that said: ‘Emma was shot in the chest and killed. She was living in a community of friends.’
Despicably, Borhanian was even named as a victim in an official resolution adopted by Democrats in the US Senate, denouncing ‘an epidemic of violence against transgender people’.
An online X account belonging to a Zizian associate counted the days since Borhanian had died, with the chilling promise: ‘I will never let this go, not until actual justice has been done.’ When Lind was killed, an anonymous poster announced: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we got him.’
Yet, as Andy Ngo points out in his superb book, The Zizians: Inside A Trans Death Cult, the liberal media in the US seemed aghast at the idea of connecting the murders with a hard line trans movement. Journalists are actively discouraged from telling complete stories that might reflect badly on trans people, he says. The style-book for the leading news organisation the Associated Press, for instance, now ‘directs journalists to use subjects’ preferred pronouns in transgender-related coverage’, he says, ‘and to avoid references to “biological sex” or prior legal names, as well as limiting use of the word “female”. The style book notes that the word “female” can be seen as emphasising biology and may “carry misogynistic tones”.’
Ngo cites recent headlines, such as one from the BBC in March 2023: ‘Halifax woman jailed after stabbing and tying up victim.’ Another comes from The New York Times in March 2022: ‘She killed two women. At 83, she is charged with dismembering a third.’
Headlines such as these, Ngo says, imply a sharp rise in violent crimes committed by women. In fact, in both these instances and many others, the assailants were highly disturbed males who had latterly chosen to ‘identify’ as women. This muddied trend in journalism has not developed by accident, Ngo insists. It is part of a deliberate attempt to impose cultural change by the radical Left. ‘For example, people are less likely to oppose males competing in female sports, if what they read and hear describes those individuals simply as “women” and “girls” being treated unfairly,’ he writes. ‘Similarly, people are less likely to challenge misinformation or pseudoscience when it is presented through softened euphemisms, such as “born in the wrong body”. Confusion breeds compliance.’
Ngo has good reason to be alarmed by the sinister tactics of hardline trans activists. In June 2019, after years of reporting on Left-wing extremist groups, he was viciously beaten by a mob of black-clad thugs and left with a bleed on the brain in Portland, Oregon. He spent six months in therapy for cognitive, physical and speech impairments. After tracking down his assailants using his journalistic skills, he brought a lawsuit against six for assault, battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Half of his attackers identified as trans and Ngo, who happens to be gay, began to understand how and why so many people on the violent fringes of the Left were also fanatical trans activists. According to data from the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law, about 0.5 percent of American adults identify as trans. But Ngo estimates that, during the months of rioting in his home city of Portland during the Black Lives Matter unrest in 2020, between 15 and 20 per cent of people suspected of violence ‘did not identify with their biological sex’.
The discovery led him to later investigate the alleged trans killings tied to the secretive Zizians. At first there were just a few of them, all highly educated and with a background in computer science. They were led by LaSota, a former Google software engineer from Alaska, who had interned at Nasa. Then their numbers grew. LaSota took the name Ziz from a disturbing online fantasy series called Worm about a teenage girl who controls insects with her mind; the rambling stories run to more than 1.6million words. Ziz, explains Ngo, is ‘a winged female monster that poses as benevolent while plotting humanity’s destruction’. The creature used psychological manipulation to turn people into violent, homicidal walking time bombs. All of the 'cult' members took bizarre new names, but Jasper 'Gwen' Danielson, the first recruit, insisted that ‘she’ could not only switch gender, but also be non-human. Other Zizians followed suit: one, Jacob Pekarek, took the name ‘Fluttershy’ and claimed this true identity was a character from the US franchise My Little Pony. At first, the Zizians were simply harmless oddballs. They lived on boat or in trucks, debating endlessly about ‘rationalism’, a philosophical cul-de-sac that contends all the world’s problems could be solved if everyone ignored emotions and made decisions based solely on logic. A ragbag of 'genius' transgender misfits began to tag along, looking for somewhere to live, something to believe or someone to follow. ‘Reject morality,’ Ziz taught them, as more people were drawn in. ‘Never do the right thing because it’s the right thing. Never even think that concept or ask that question unless it’s to model what others will think.’
Ziz was also fixated with AI and the concept of the ‘Singleton’, a mega-intelligence able to control all life in a new world order. He insisted that the brains of ‘transgender women’ were uniquely suited to understanding the new technology. And could be key to ‘saving the world’. But his most disturbing and dangerous idea, worked out with Jasper Danielson, aka Gwen, was that the two halves of every human brain are violently opposed. Sometimes one half is female, the other is male – or one good and one evil. One side blocks the other’s thoughts. Sometimes, according to Ziz, ‘they desire to kill each other’.
According to this deranged theory, only the highest and most enlightened individuals have two good halves, working in harmony. Naturally, Ziz was one of those sacred few. In order to disentangle the two halves, Ziz ordered followers to practise ‘debucketing’ a form of sleep deprivation framed as psychological 'technology'. They lay with one eye open and the other closed. They may have 'slept' standing up. This was supposed to allow one side of the brain to rest while the other was able to think without interference. Critics say it amounted to torture and sleep deprivation and made cult members permanently dissociated. Ultimately, debucketing was supposed to make Zizians immortal through the future super-intelligent AI. The bitter irony is that, as the 'cult' spiralled, it left a trail of death including of its own members. Pekarek died by suicide in 2021. So did another of Ziz’s earliest followers, Krzysztof Pasek, who threw himself off a building in Poland after convincing himself that the Zizian experiments showed he was 'evil'. And, as we know, gentle Curtis Lind shot Amir Borhanian in self-defence and was then murdered. Another Zizian, a trans ‘non-binary’ vegan named Michelle Zajko, was charged this summer for allegedly shooting and killing her wealthy parents in Pennsylvania in 2022. She is awaiting extradition. Prosecutors said she 'did not act alone'.
And a US Border Patrol agent, David Maland, was killed in a shoot-out after flagging down two Zizians in Vermont in January 2025 during a stop. One of the pair, a trans-identified German male born Felix Bauckholt, was also killed in the gunfire. The other, 22-year-old Teresa Youngblut, faces charges for the alleged murder of a federal officer. And what of the 'cult' leader? Ziz faked his own death in a ‘boating accident’ in 2022 and published his own obituary online. A year later, he was arrested in Pennsylvania in connection with the killings of Michelle Zajko’s parents and eventually released on bail after five months in custody. He was on the run until February last year, when he was arrested in Maryland. He was later federally charged with ‘being a fugitive from justice in possession of firearms and ammunition’.
His trial is expected next year although his lawyer is now seeking his pretrial release, arguing that he has already spent about as long in custody as the maximum sentence he could face if convicted. A judge could let him go.
The Zizians: Inside A Trans Death Cult, by Andy Ngo, is published by Center Street