A radical cult, a string of brutal killings, bizarre ideological beliefs, and alleged plots to murder witnesses — the Zizians sound like something out of a horror film.
But according to the author of "The Zizians: Inside a Trans Death Cult," the group is very real.
“On the surface, you’d think that the media would go absolutely crazy over this. You have a cult group that’s been linked to eight violent deaths across the United States and abroad. As part of the story, there are also suicides, violent attacks, cover-ups, fake deaths, money, vengeance, and yet this story was kryptonite to the legacy mainstream media for one very important reason,” author Andy Ngo explains.
“Trans ideology was very central to how this group was radicalized, and the people who joined were trans-identifying,” he says.
Ngo tells Gonzales that he began investigating the cult after hearing that a U.S. Border Patrol agent had died in a shooting incident in Vermont near the Canadian border.
When he learned the shooters were transgender, he dug deeper — especially being aware that the media would not.
“We saw how Canadian officials earlier this year really downplayed the trans aspect to the mass shooting that happened in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia. So two people were alleged to be involved in that deadly ambush shooting, and both of them happened to identify as trans,” Ngo tells Gonzales.
“I kept digging and finding there’s more to this story than isolated incidents of homicides here and there across the U.S. And then once I actually found the writings of the cult leader, Jack "Ziz" LaSota, I was like this story has to be told,” he says.
Ngo describes the “Zizians” as “big AI doomer-type people” with “origins in Silicon Valley.”
“And a lot of their answers for how to improve society, maximize good, wasn’t actually about improving the welfare of humans at all,” he explains, but rather, they would study “how to improve the welfare of shrimps and insects.”
“So the Zizian ideology actually at its core, they’re militant extremist vegans, and they developed a belief system that was misanthropic, antihuman,” he says.
The Zizians also believed “it was completely fair game to kill people who eat meat.”
“And then on top of that, they pulled in radical trans ideology about being born in the wrong body and that if you go against them, you’re a transphobe,” Ngo explains.
Those in the group were “charged over the years in different jurisdictions,” and as the cases were ongoing, they “allegedly planned to assassinate one of the key witnesses” in an attempted murder trial.
“And one of them allegedly did it. There’s been a suspect arrested in the assassination of an 82-year-old man in Vallejo, California, last year. So the acts of violence that they enacted on their victims allegedly is very brutal,” Ngo tells Gonzales.
“I mean, using samurai swords, knives, hollow-point round execution type stuff to the head,” he continues.
The group also left behind secretive writings, where Ngo discovered that ”very central” to their worldview was a “sense of persecution.”
“Everybody’s a transphobe, society’s transphobic. We’re victims of a trans genocide,” he explains.
“And so, while Zizians indeed are an extreme radical example, you do see these parallels also in mainstream trans and left-wing movements in groups,” he says, noting that these transgenders are all on cross-sex hormones, which “people don’t like talking about.”
“In this book, I seek to answer what’s been the academic scientific research on how cross-sex hormone use affects mood and temperament and aggression. And actually, there is some research,” he adds.
Want more from Sara Gonzales?
To enjoy more of Sara's no-holds-barred takes on news and culture, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.