Tribe-Hoppers: The Illusion of Ideological Escape

I am a gay man and a gender-critical activist working with an organization called the LGB Courage Coalition, where my focus has been advocating against the medical transition of minors. My public “coming out” in the gender critical space was an essay titled Being LGBT Without the Community, published in The Black Sheep. In that essay, I described the disconnect I felt from the “LGBT community” and the hostility I encountered from members of that group for expressing dissenting views on topics such as gender ideology. Phrases like “you’re a pick-me” and “you have internalized homophobia” were common responses from members of the community any time I dared to even question the tenets of gender ideology. It became clear that certain viewpoints were completely off-limits within this supposedly open-minded, kind, and accepting “community.” What began as a personal reflection quickly drew me deeper into the gender critical movement, where I found others who shared similar criticisms of what they saw as ideological conformity within LGBT spaces.

At first, discovering the gender critical space felt like a departure from that environment and a move toward a community that valued skepticism and independence. Groups such as the self-described “LGB without the T” gays positioned themselves as dissenters, not only rejecting gender ideology but also what they saw as the groupthink and moral enforcement of mainstream LGBT culture. But as I spent more time with these people, I noticed that while the specific beliefs and goals differed from the LGBTQIA+ group, the underlying social dynamics of the group felt surprisingly familiar. Agreement was rewarded, dissent was discouraged, and going off script could quickly change one’s status within the group.

I got involved in gender critical activism to protect children and women from gender ideology, not to find a new friend group, so realizing this new “community” wasn’t exactly what I had hoped it would be wasn’t devastating for me. But it did get me thinking more about a phenomenon I call “tribe-hopping.” It’s something I have observed frequently over the last decade, especially as most of our conversations and debates about political and social topics now happen on social media. People leave one group in the name of rejecting conformity, only to find themselves in another group that enforces its own version of orthodoxy. The group slogans change, the symbols change, and the enemy group changes, but the groupthink and rules of belonging are practically identical. Loyalty is signaled through repetition of agreed-upon talking points, while any disagreement is framed as betrayal.

I observed and encountered this firsthand in conversations with other “gay not queer” men, particularly around topics that challenge widely accepted narratives. For example, a discussion a gender critical friend of mine tried to have about the “born this way” framework- an idea that has played a central role in shaping public understanding of homosexuality- revealed what could and could not be questioned. While a small number of gay men were open to exploring nuance, the majority reacted as though even raising the topic threatened the legitimacy of their identity. What was intended as a good-faith conversation instead led to verbal attacks. Ironically, the men most angry used the exact same lines that the LGBTQIA+ crowd uses when someone asks the wrong questions- “you just have internalized homophobia.”

I received the same types of responses when I raised questions about certain aspects of gay male culture that I believe are worth examining critically. Issues like excessive drug use, the overemphasis on muscularity and physical appearance, hyper-sexuality, cruising, and open relationships were, in my opinion, legitimate topics deserving of serious reflection. My intention was not to judge anyone, but to have a serious conversation about how these parts of gay culture might negatively effect both internal well-being and external perception over time. Yet even amongst a group that supposedly prided themselves on challenging orthodoxies, these discussions were off limits. Again, I received responses that were identical to what gender ideologues had once said to me- “you’re siding with our oppressor.”

It became clear that aside from the topic of transgenderism, there was actually very little difference between the “LGBT community” and the “LGB community.” Both maintained informal rules about what could be said, both used social pressure to enforce those rules, and both treated certain foundational beliefs as sacred and beyond scrutiny. In both spaces, the nonconformity of my physical presentation was celebrated, but my ideological nonconformity was forbidden.

Of course, this tribal behavior is not unique to debates within the LGBT world. It can also be frequently seen in the broader cultural divide between left-leaning and right-leaning groups. Over the past decade I’ve seen numerous people make their “why I left the left” announcements, usually citing their frustrations with “woke” culture as their reason for leaving. Yet almost every time, these people immediately join the opposing tribe. A rainbow flag is replaced with an American flag, a red MAGA hat suddenly appears in their profile pictures, and they begin using terms like “based” to show everyone which group they’re now in. Usually, they end up behaving in the same way they criticized their former tribe for behaving in- expecting members of their group to have rigid beliefs and engaging in cancel culture when someone dissents. What appears to be a clash of opposing political ideologies really seems to just show a shared human tendency.

That tendency is the desire for belonging. Humans are social creatures, and the need for connection, recognition, and shared purpose is powerful. But when that need goes unexamined, it can lead people to simply substitute one rigid framework for another and mistake a change in affiliation for genuine independence of thought. The result is a cycle in which people hop from one tribe to another, encountering the same problems under different group names.

Recognizing this cycle does not require rejecting community altogether. Instead, I think we should reconsider what “community” should be. A group built solely around a single shared characteristic like sexuality or agreement on a single topic like gender ideology is too fragile to support genuine diversity of thought. Meaningful connection is possible only when individuality is truly accepted. This does not mean a complete absence of values, but rather a willingness to hold them without turning them into litmus tests for inclusion.

Leaving one tribe is not enough to achieve independence of thought. Without making a conscious effort to resist the pull of conformity, the same group dynamics will continue to reappear in new forms. The challenge is not just to choose better groups, but to rethink the role that groups play in shaping the way we think in the first place.