Vegans, Anarchists, Murderers: Who Are the Zizians and What Do They Want?

If you think that all vegans are for peace, happiness and harmony with nature, then you don’t know the history of the Zizians. This American sect consists mainly of educated people working in the IT sector. The group members give up meat and strive for harmony with the world around them. At the same time, they do not consider human life to be something particularly valuable. The FBI is currently investigating the top figures of this cult, accused of a series of brutal murders.

The Zizians emerged in the 2010s among young intellectuals in Silicon Valley. At first, they described themselves as vegans who defended animal rights and opposed artificial intelligence, seeing it as a danger to humanity. Very little is known about their activities. They have always avoided publicity, and after the arrests of members of the group began, federal authorities took control of the situation, maintaining an information blockade.

Zizianism was founded by a transgender woman named Jack “Ziz” Lasota. She was born in Alaska in the early 1990s under a different name, but realized she was transgender as a teenager. Lasota attracted followers through a dark online blog. Her writings mixed radical veganism, anarchism, and anti-capitalism.

Jack LaSota started her blog under the nickname "Ziz" more than ten years ago. During this time, her audience has grown to several dozen people who were united by similar views and ideas. At the initial stage, Ziz was a member of the Center for Applied Rationality (CFAR), but later became disillusioned with this organization and began to actively speak out against it.

Ziz graduated from the University of Alaska Fairbanks in 2013. After graduating, Lasota worked for several large companies, including NASA. She devoted her free time to her online resource, where she gathered a group of like-minded people. It included vegans with radical views, anarchists, and outright extremists.

The views of Ziz and her friends were strange and did not fit in with the ideas of veganism. The community discussed the ideas of the superiority of some people over others, as well as the right to kill. They added psychedelics and modern technologies to this. Thus, a certain concept was born, in which there was a place for the theory of the superman, cruel pragmatism and veganism.

In one of her posts, Ziz wrote:

Also, shortly before her first arrest, Lasota wrote the following on her blog:

Ziz lived in a rented apartment with her partner Gwen Danielson in California. But then they decided that spending money on rent was not sustainable and began living on old ships at the pier. Having saved up some money, Ziz and Gwen bought a diesel tugboat, the Caleb, which was about 70 years old. This is how the idea for the Rationalist Fleet came about.

The tugboat in San Francisco Bay had gathered a peculiar group. In addition to Ziz and Gwen, the group included Emma Borhanian, a former Google engineer, UCLA math student Alex Leatham, as well as Michelle Zayko, Alisa Monday, Daniel Blank, and Suri Dao. All shared the radical views of the movement’s founder.

The community members wore only black clothing and called themselves "vegan Sith" and "vegan anarcho-transhumanists." They had several conflicts with the coast guard over the tug's dilapidated condition. The vessel's tanks contained 11 tons of diesel fuel, which leaked into the sea through cracks in the metal. These conflicts led to loud protests by the inhabitants of the tug, which had to be broken up by the police.

The Zizian ideologist was arrested in 2019 during another protest, but was soon released on bail. Lasota was ordered to appear at court hearings, but she went on the run. In 2022, the court issued a ruling on Lasota's arrest in the case of mass riots. The suspect's lawyer responded by stating that Ziz was dead. According to him, she died during a boat trip in San Francisco Bay, and her body was never found. Gwen Danielson also disappeared without a trace along with her.

Since there was no news about Ziz for a long time, many believed she was dead. In her homeland, Alaska, an obituary was even published. It described Lasota as a person who “valued friends and family, loved music, blueberries, cycling, computer games, and caring for animals.” The obituary created an image of an ordinary person, hiding her radical views.

That same year, 2022, San Francisco authorities were able to evict the Zizians from the tugboat Caleb. It cost $50,000 to pump out the fuel from the vessel. A couple of weeks later, the old tugboat sank, and its former inhabitants were presented with a bill, which they simply ignored. By then, the community had moved to a trailer park in Vallejo, continuing to live by its radical principles.

At first, the Zizians found common ground with the park's owner, Curtis Lind, and paid regularly. But later they refused to pay, citing rules protecting low-income tenants from eviction during the Covid pandemic. This led to ongoing conflicts with Lind, who eventually sued the Zizians.

Shortly after the court ordered the negligent tenants to pay for their stay, Alex Leatham, Suri Dao and Emma Borhanian attacked Lindh. Despite his advanced age, Lindh was no slouch – he wounded Leatham and killed Borhanian. The court later found that the missing Lasota and Danielson were present during the altercation.

And a month and a half later, the parents of one of the society members, Michelle Zaiko, were found dead. They were killed in their own home. The cameras only recorded the car of the perpetrators. Although Zaiko came under suspicion, she had to be released due to lack of evidence. Meanwhile, the police detained Lasota, but she was again released on bail.

This decision led to another tragedy. In 2024, Ziz again ignored the subpoena and went into hiding. In January 2025, a group of assailants attacked Curtis Lind's trailer park and killed him. The person charged was 22-year-old programmer Maximilian Snyder, an Oxford graduate. He actively supported Lasota on social media and shared her radical views.

A few days later, border guards tried to stop a suspicious vehicle at the US-Canada border. As you might guess, the Zizians involved in Lindh's murder were inside. They refused to surrender, which led to a shootout. Theresa Youngbluth and Ofelia Bauckholt opened fire on the border guards. They ended up shooting border guard David Mæland, but Bauckholt was killed in return fire, and Youngbluth was seriously injured.

The investigation of the incident was handed over to the FBI. The agents quickly found the organizers of the Zizian movement. Lasota and three of her supporters were detained during another action - they were blocking the exit from the Westminster Woods camp in California. They were charged with conspiracy, illegal entry onto private property and obstructing the police. At the same time, the authorities had special claims against Ziz.

In court, the lawyer tried again to get Lasota released on bail, but the trick didn't work for the third time. Even the argument that the prison doesn't have a vegan menu didn't help. The charges of organizing riots are not Ziz's main problem. She is suspected of involvement in at least six murders.

One of Lasota's last blog entries was this parting word:

Now Lasota and other defendants in the case face the harshest sentences. The sect of radical vegans, having lost its backbone, has gone into hiding. Most likely, having lost its guru, it will cease to exist. The history of the Zizians is a strange interweaving of radical ideas, crimes and tragedies. What do you think attracts people to such movements, and could their radicalization have been prevented?