Alternatively, the cult leader targeted vulnerable men and manipulated them into believing that they were trans women and transitioning would solve their problems, when actually it made their problems worse and thus made it easier for the cult leader to manipulate them.

I think some people here doubt such a thing is possible. Read up on Jim Jones. He manipulated his male followers into believing that they were homosexuals, that he was the only heterosexual, and therefore they should have sex with him. Completely insane, it makes no sense that such manipulation could be possible but it demonstrably is.

There is reason to believe this sort of manipulation was occurring in the zizian cult, as at least some of the supposedly transexual cult members only "discovered this about themselves" after falling in with the cult and being subjected to the cult's manipulation.