I wonder which particular cult made this. I'm gonna guess it was the Mormons. I suffered through a JW childhood in the long ago, and this doesn't seem like their style.
HA no. I was there, it was... Well differently bad, maybe less in aggregate. Cultural attitudes really took a HARD turn when 9/11 happened, and the government abused it just about as hard as they could think of. President Obama did try to bring back some of that 90s optimism, but then along came Trump and ground it into dust.
As an outsider I can say that I didn't even know that was a trans reference. I hadn't linked their trans status with the joke because that's not my arena and there's zero context clues. So I read it literally.
Sounds familiar. I think I saw him in Skyrim a few times.