Yeah I agree, I think that this is just a case where the transness of the cult members was actually beneficial in a Darwinian memetics sense - there have been public warnings about the Zizians for half a decade but they were all pattern matched to 'bigoted transphobic fear mongering' and excluded from the Overton Window. It took the random murder of a federal agent (which got media coverage on an entirely separate axis of attention) to break this, and I wonder how long Ziz would have walked free even if the group continued to commit less headline worthy crimes.
Bigotry causes cover for this shit. If trans people were just accepted for humans who just want to live their lives, then the pattern matching defense wouldn't need to exist. There'd be no need to assume "well, first and foremost, this is probably just some bigot claiming trans people are evil again".
But no, some people have to punch down, which means others have to develop defenses that assume all punches are punching down.
If nothing else, it would seem bigotry is highly inefficient.
