Who are the Zizians, and are they really a ‘transgender vegan murder cult’?

On Sunday (16 February), Ziz LaSota, the founder of an anarchist group called the Zizians, was detained by police in Maryland. The Zizians have been described as a “transgender vegan cult” by the right-wing media.

LaSota, 34, who according to her blog is a trans women, was arrested along with fellow Zizian Jamie Zajko, 32, in connection with the shooting US border patrol agent David Maland, in Vermont as well as other killings linked to the group that took place in Pennsylvania and California.

82-year-old Curtis Lind was stabbed to death outside his home in Vallejo, California last month. Maximilian Bentley Snyder, a 22-year-old data scientist who follows Zizian ideology, is charged with Lind’s murder.

The Zizians have strong links to Silicon Valley. LaSota, who has a Computer Science degree, moved down to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2016 because, in her words, it was “sort of [her] destiny”, after first completing a NASA internship. Many of her followers have a tech background, and have worked for companies like Google.

The weird, wild story of the Zizians has “upcoming Netflix documentary” written all over it. But what’s the truth behind the dramatic “transgender vegan cult” headlines? Let’s dig into the facts a bit more.

When were the Zizians founded?

After moving to Silicon Valley in 2016, Ziz LaSota became drawn to something called the “rationalist subculture”, many of whom believe that AI may soon attain godlike power and could destroy humanity.

The rationalists started out in email chatrooms in the late 1990s, then formed the core of their beliefs around a long series of blog posts written by American computer scientist Eliezer S. Yudkowsky in the early 2000s.

LaSota befriended another trans woman, Gwen Danielson, who – according to the Independent – believed every person has multiple personalities within themselves. The two friends became involved with a think tank called CFAR (the Center for Applied Rationality), though they later turned against it.

At the same time, LaSota was blogging intensely. She shared her values online, stating that she was both an anarchist and vegan. She was appalled that she lived in what she saw as a society of “flesh-eating monsters”, and that most rationalists undervalued non-human life. AI should also benefit animals, she wrote.

Her writings attracted like-minded people, many of whom described themselves as “trans leftists”.

In 2019, LaSota and three others (Gwen Danielson, Ziz LaSota’s friend Emma Borhanian, and a non-binary rationalist called Alexander Leatham, who also went by Somni) protested outside CFAR’s annual alumni retreat dressed in masks and dark hoods, alarming the attendees.

They were arrested, with LaSota claiming she was “tortured” in custody. The CFAR protest seemed to be the spark that lit the touchpaper of the Zizians as an organised group, so you could say they were ‘founded’ in 2019.

What crimes are the Zizians accused of?

Zizians update: it appears the landlord who was attacked and stabbed by Ziz followers back in 2022 was stabbed and killed by an unknown assailant last week. https://t.co/bQfldxnwVn

— St. Rev. Dr. Rev ⏭️☯️🏴😻 (@St_Rev) January 24, 2025

Not long after the protest, the group moved into a trailer yard in Vallejo owned by Curtis Lind. When the pandemic hit, California banned evictions. The Zizians stopped paying rent.

In a 2024 interview, Lind claimed that one of the group threatened him with a knife after he obtained a court judgement against them. Concerned about his safety, he then bought a gun.

Not long after that incident, Lind alleged that one of the tenants tricked him into bending down to turn off the water supply and then attacked him driving a samurai sword into his chest. “At that time I pulled out my pistol and started shooting,” he said. Emma Borhanian was shot and killed by Lind during the altercation. Lind survived, but lost an eye.

Two Zizians were charged with Borhanian’s murder: Sun Dao and Alexander ‘Somni’ Leatham – prosecutors stated that as Lind had fired in self-defence, his attackers were responsible for Borhanian’s death.

A non-binary Zizian named Jamie Zajko, who was arrested along with Ziz LaSota on Sunday, is also linked to two killings that took place in Philadelphia on New Year’s Eve 2022: Richard Zajko, 72, and his wife Rita Zajko, 69.

Early in January 2023, Pennsylvania police found the Zajkos – a wealthy couple – dead from gunshot wounds to the head. The investigation zeroed in on their child Jamie, who owned a handgun that uses the same type of ammunition. Jamie, who stands to inherit their estate, has denied any involvement in the deaths.

Then, in January 2025, and Lind was killed outside his trailer yard while waiting to testify in the case against Dao and Leatham. A GoFundMe page set up to support his widow states: “It is with deep heartache we announce the passing of Curtis Lind at the age of 82. On January 17th, 2025 Curtis was viciously attacked in front of his property in Vallejo, California, resulting in his death.”

It continues: “As some of you may know, Curtis was the victim of a previous unprovoked violent attack on November 13th, 2022 at the age of 80, by three young adults on his Vallejo property. He miraculously survived being stabbed multiple times, had a sword impaled through his chest and ultimately lost his right eye.”

Police quickly arrested Maximilian Snyder, a Zizian, who was in a relationship with another member of the group, Milo Youngblut – court records use their birth name, Teresa.

Milo Youngblut is also currently in custody, following the January 20 shooting of a US Border Agent.

The shooting happened after U.S. border agents stopped a pair of young people on the interstate. One was Milo Youngblut (known in court records as Teresa), who had been reported missing by their parents one year ago. The other person in the car was Ophelia Bauckholt (also known as Felix), a former coding gold medalist originally from Germany.

Prosecutors allege that Youngblut got out of their car and opened fire without provocation, starting a shoot-out that killed both Bauckholt and a Border Patrol agent named David Maland. It’s believed that police suspect Jamie Zajko of buying the handguns used by Youngblut and Bauckholt.

In short, all of these alleged crimes form an incredibly tangled web which prosecutors will no doubt have to spend a great deal of time attempting to unravel.

Did Ziz LaSota fake her own death?

Adding an additional twist to an already very twisty tale in the Zizian saga are reports that Ziz LaSota faked her death in a “boating accident.”

A 2022 online obituary states: “Jack Amadeus LaSota left our lives but not our hearts on Aug. 19 after a boating accident. Loving adventure, friends and family, music, blueberries, biking, computer games and animals, you are missed.”

ABC reports that court records show Jack “Ziz” LaSota was declared legally dead by her family in 2022, who believed she fell into the San Francisco Bay.

So, are they a vegan transgender cult?

At the moment, all we know is that Ziz LaSota appears to be leader of a “cult-like” group of anarchist computer scientists called the Zizians. We know that LaSota is vegan, and trans, but we can’t say for sure how many of the other members are both vegan and transgender.

However, “cult-like group of anarchist computer scientists whose leader is vegan and transgender” doesn’t make for quite as lively a headline as “vegan transgender cult”, hence the use of that term.

The full truth behind the story of the Zizians is yet to come out, and no doubt more wild facts will emerge in time. We’ll certainly be following the case very closely, as will the Netflix documentarians.