The assassination of Charlie Kirk, connected to a suspect who is reportedly in a romantic relationship with a man who claims to identify as female, reignited concerns about increasing violence associated with transgender ideology. Kirk's murder follows the Covenant School shooting in Nashville in 2023 and the Annunciation Catholic Church shooting in Minneapolis last month, both of which were carried out by individuals who claimed to identify as trans.
Among those accused in this surge of violence is a crew of young, trans-identifying radicals from the Bay Area known as the Zizians, who have drawn particular attention from the authorities for their alleged string of deadly attacks.
The Zizians, dubbed a cult-like group that has been likened to a modern-day Manson family, have been implicated in a chilling series of killings: a Vermont Border Patrol agent gunned down during a traffic stop, a Pennsylvania couple found shot in their home with no signs of forced entry, and the stabbing of a California landlord scheduled to testify against group members.
Beyond the ominous headlines, their story reveals not a well-organized underground network but rather a disjointed group of tech-savvy youth who were drawn into progressive movements and ensnared by a toxic mix of gender dysphoria, artificial intelligencedoomsaying, radical veganism, and anarchism. These ideologies have directed their quest for logic and innovation down a path of isolation and increasing violence.
The birth of a fringe group
Before the group came to be known as the Zizians, its lead founding member, Jack "Ziz" LaSota, moved to San Francisco in 2016, with the aspiration of breaking into the Bay Area's tech startup scene. LaSota, a male who identifies as a woman, became deeply involved with the local rationalist movement, a philosophy that emphasizes the use of reason, logic, and evidence to understand the world and make informed decisions. LaSota's stated goal was to make a positive contribution to the tech industry by addressing the potential existential threat posed by artificial intelligence, a major concern for rationalists focused on "effective altruism," which stresses prioritizing actions that promote good.
However, LaSota encountered several issues after relocating to the Bay Area, the first of which was the high rental prices. Determined to address this problem, LaSota formulated a plan with Gwen Danielson that involved dodging exorbitant rent costs by living on boats with other rationalists. LaSota dubbed the communal living initiative the "Rationalist Fleet."
'Ziz planned to drive across the entire continental United States to murder me.'
LaSota's blog, Sinceriously — which has since been taken down, but mirrored and archived versions still exist — described Danielson as a "bigender" "trans woman."
At the time, LaSota was actively attending in-person meetups hosted by users of LessWrong.com, an online discussion board for rationalists. During one of those events, LaSota met Jacob Pekarek, also a "trans woman," who went by several names, including Jay Leo Winterford, Jane, and Fluttershy. Pekarek became involved in the boat venture, for a time living with LaSota and Danielson.
In 2017, the group invested in a tugboat, "The Caleb." They lived on it while it was illegally docked in Pillar Point Harbor, according to a lawsuit.
While the Rationalist Fleet aimed to address the lack of affordability of the Bay Area, both internal and external pressures soon began to fracture the group.
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Jack "Ziz" LaSota. Image source: Allegany County Sheriff’s OfficeClashes with the rationalists
Things for LaSota and the crew started to take a strange turn around 2019 amid growing friction between the group and the area's rationalist movement.
In November, LaSota staged a protest against the Center for Applied Rationality, a Berkeley-based nonprofit that hosts rationalist workshops. The organization was scheduled to host an alumni weekend retreat at the Westminster Woods camp along the Bohemian Highway in Sonoma County, but the gathering was interrupted by LaSota and several others — Danielson, Amir "Emma" Borhanian, and Alexander "Somni" Leatham — who showed up wearing Guy Fawkes masks and hooded black robes.
LaSota and the group claimed that CFAR had "betrayed us," going so far as to accuse members of the nonprofit of sexual misconduct against children. CFAR's leadership has repeatedly denied those claims. LaSota also argued that instead of forwarding the mission of protecting humanity from AI, CFAR was pushing its members to work on AI.
The protesters allegedly blockaded the entrance to the retreat with their vehicles, knowingly or unknowingly trapping inside a class of over two dozen elementary school children who had been attending a ropes course.
Law enforcement responded to the scene by deploying a SWAT team and a helicopter after receiving reports that one of the protesters may have had a gun. However, no firearm was found on the protesters. The group was arrested on suspicion of felony child endangerment, false imprisonment, conspiracy, resisting arrest, wearing a mask while committing a crime, and trespassing.
They each were released from jail after posting bail, and prosecutors dropped felony charges to misdemeanors.
The group later filed a civil rights complaint against Sonoma County authorities, claiming that officers had subjected them to excessive force and "sexual assault and battery" by ignoring their requests to be searched by female officers instead of male officers. The complaint further alleged that, while incarcerated, their clothing was "forcibly stripped off their bodies" and officers "crowded around to look at the Claimants' genitals and naked bodies." They claimed they were "tortured" and "woken whenever they started to fall asleep … and were kept naked and cold for days."
Court proceedings in the cases slowed to a crawl during COVID.
The protest not only led to legal battles but also deepened the group's alienation from the rationalist community, pushing them toward more extreme ideologies.
Spiraling ideologies and isolation
Following the protest, the group was ultimately banned from LessWrong.com and CFAR meetups.
For the last several years, Danielson had also been experimenting with a sleep technique LaSota described as "partial sleep" or "unihemispheric sleep," which supposedly lets "parts of your brain do REM sleep without the rest."
LaSota built on Danielson's sleep practices, creating the concept that people are made up of two hemispheres and each hemisphere can be either "good" or "nongood." Those with two good hemispheres are considered "double good"; those with one, "single good"; and those with none, "nongood." LaSota noted that "double good" is "far less common than single good."
"This means that they cannot have fusion concerning good, only treaties, and will tend to take actions where the two sets of concerns seem to overlap, with infinitely recursive mutually-warped epistemics," LaSota wrote, describing the concept of "single good."
The group's living situation also began to change.
Curtis Lind, an 82-year-old man who was living on his boat, reportedly befriended the group. In early 2020, Lind, who owned property in Vallejo, California, allowed some of the friends — including Borhanian and Leatham — to live in box trucks and RVs on his land.
The crew abandoned "The Caleb" in 2022, allowing it to sink in the harbor.
It was around this time that things appeared to go off the rails completely for the group of friends.
Michelle "Jamie" Zajko, who was living in Vermont, claimed publicly in February 2022 that LaSota had made death threats against Zajko. LaSota allegedly demanded that Zajko kill Alice Monday, Zajko's romantic partner, and provide photographic proof.
"And if I didn't do it," Zajko wrote in a blog post, "Ziz planned to drive across the entire continental United States to murder me."
LaSota's Sinceriously blog posts had become progressively more bitter and aggressive over the years, even calling for "airlock[ing]," a term used to mean killing, certain types of people. The friends' comments on LaSota's blog further revealed the extent of the group's fractures and ongoing disagreements.
After Danielson failed to show up at a court hearing related to the protest incident, the defense attorney asked for a stay in the case in August 2022, stating that he believed Danielson had committed suicide.
That same month, reports surfaced that LaSota had also died. The Coast Guard received a call from a relative who claimed LaSota had fallen overboard while boating in San Francisco Bay. After the Coast Guard concluded an 18-hour search, LaSota was presumed dead.
At this point, it seemed that the group had largely fallen apart, with Danielson and LaSota both presumed dead and two other individuals tied to their clique — Chris "Maia" Pasek and Pekarek — having reportedly committed suicide in 2018 and 2021, respectively.
RELATED: Police nab suspected leader of trans murder cult linked to Border Patrol agent's killing
Michelle "Jamie" Zajko. Image source: Allegany County Sheriff’s OfficeFaked deaths and violent retaliation
Amid the COVID-19 lockdowns, California implemented an eviction moratorium that allowed those living on Lind's property, including Borhanian and Leatham, to avoid paying rent. The state extended this moratorium for more than two years, with it officially coming to an end in late June 2022.
After they still failed to pay rent, Lind moved to evict the friends by scheduling a date with the sheriff's office.
With the eviction date looming, Lind claimed one of the friends, Suri Dao, asked him on November 13 to inspect a leaky outdoor water tap. During the visit, Lind stated that he blacked out and woke up to find several individuals standing over him as he was covered in stab wounds.
Lind pulled out his gun to defend himself, and that is when Leatham stabbed him with a samurai sword, he claimed. Lind opened fire, killing Borhanian and wounding Leatham.
Lind, somehow, survived the alleged attack — this time.
When police arrived on the scene, they arrested Dao and transported Leatham and Lind to the hospital. A blonde friend who identified as "Julia Dawson" was taken to the station for questioning, then transferred to the hospital after appearing to suffer from a medical emergency. Dawson quietly left the hospital, evading further interaction with law enforcement.
Authorities later confirmed that "Dawson" was a false identity, and the individual who had been living with Borhanian and Leatham was, in fact, the previously thought deceased LaSota.
The alleged attack on Lind was only the beginning of a wave of violence that extended beyond California.
More senseless killings
In early January 2023, authorities discovered Zajko's parents, Richard and Rita, dead from gunshot wounds in their Pennsylvania home.
Law enforcement noted no signs of a break-in, concluding that the killer must have been someone the couple knew.
'We are seeing all across the country an increase in violence from the transgender community and those that are obsessed with breaking out of gender norms and sexual norms.'
Several days later, police detained Zajko, who was staying in a hotel room in Pennsylvania after attending a graveside ceremony. While being apprehended by authorities, Zajko requested that the hotel's lobby attendants inform Daniel Blank, another friend of the group who was also staying in the hotel, of the arrest.
Police obtained a warrant to enter Blank's hotel room, where they say they discovered him hiding in the bathroom with LaSota.
Zajko and Blank were already released by the time authorities allegedly recovered Zajko's Smith & Wesson 9mm and five boxes of ammunition hidden in a cloth bag in Blank's hotel room.
RELATED: If radical Islam was terror, why isn’t transgender extremism?
Daniel Blank. Image source: Allegany County Sheriff’s OfficeThe group of friends, now widely referred to as the Zizians, seemed to lie low for a couple of years amid ongoing investigations until January 2025, when Lind, who was scheduled to testify against the Zizians accused of attacking him a few years earlier, was found stabbed to death on his property in California.
Maximilian Snyder, another individual tied to the Zizians, was arrested and accused of the murder. Prosecutors alleged that Snyder had killed Lind to prevent him from testifying against Leatham and Dao.
Days later, two other Zizians were wrapped up in yet another tragic and senseless killing.
A Vermont Border Patrol agent, David "Chris" Maland, 44, was performing a vehicle stop on January 20 when vehicle occupants Teresa "Milo" Youngblut and Felix "Ophelia" Bauckholt opened fire. The exchange of gunfire resulted in the deaths of Maland and Bauckholt, a German national.
Authorities recovered multiple guns, ammunition, cell phones, laptops, and tactical gear inside the suspects' vehicle. They noted that some of the cell phones were wrapped in foil. It is unclear why the suspects were in the area. However, when previously stopped by authorities, they claimed they were looking at real estate.
Zajko allegedly purchased the guns in Youngblut and Bauckholt's possession. Further tying the incident to the Zizians, Youngblut and Snyder had previously applied for a marriage license.
Where are they now?
In February 2025, Danielson's father told the New York Post that Danielson had not committed suicide and was still alive and in hiding from the "dangerous" Zizians.
"She checks in regularly and I heard from her very recently, but she's not ready to come out of hiding just yet," Brett Danielson stated.
He noted that the Zizians' "political ideology was that killing animals is just as violent as killing people, and therefore everybody is guilty of violence."
"And that probably led some of them to a self-justification for their own propensity for violence," he concluded.
LaSota, Zajko, and Blank are currently being held without bond at the Allegany County Jail, facing trespassing, obstruction of justice, weapons violations, drug possession, and felony drug-trafficking charges. LaSota was also federally charged with possessing firearms and ammunition as a fugitive.
No charges have been filed in response to the killing of Zajko's parents.
Youngblut is currently in federal custody, facing a four-count superseding indictment for the murder of Maland, the assault of two other Border Patrol agents with a deadly weapon, and firearms offenses.
Dao and Leatham are in custody, facing aggravated mayhem and murder charges. Leatham is also facing charges for allegedly trying to escape from jail.
Snyder is in custody, facing murder charges for the death of Lind.
An increase in violence
The killings allegedly linked to the Zizians appear to stem from personal disputes or impulsive actions taken in moments of panic, rather than organized efforts. However, the possibility of future shifts in their behavior remains, as the number of active Zizians and those influenced by their ideologies is unknown.
"We are seeing all across the country an increase in violence from the transgender community and those that are obsessed with breaking out of gender norms and sexual norms. It's growing out of hand," Terry Schilling with the American Principles Project told Blaze News. "The internet is fueling it at an incredible rate, and it's one of the main reasons why American Principles Project has decided to focus so heavily on protecting children online from these dangerous social media sites that warp these kids' brains and turn them into absolute monsters."
The Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told Blaze News, "DHS works diligently with law enforcement partners to keep our nation's communities safe from ideologically driven violent extremists."
The FBI declined to comment. Attorneys for LaSota and Zajko did not respond to a request for comment.
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