No, I do not personally believe this. I believe that this phrase is one of the shortest-form strawman "arguments" that exist and is usually spoken by itself with zero justification or understanding of the issue referenced.
And beside that, it should be obvious that it is very often not true. Most of the time with issues "the point" is cost-saving, stubbornness, cause & effect disagreements, or difference of opinion on how to carry things out. If there is cruelty involved, it is a side-effect, not the point. Even then, the side being accused may feel the cruelty lay on the opposing side because cruelty is a moral argument, and you can not apply morals universally.
The phrase is like saying "the point of drinking water is to touch your genitals while peeing." It actively avoids the real point in order to make the entire act seem absurd and is a bad faith argument from the jump.
A good way to find out if "cruelty is the point" is to do a thought experiment.
"If they could do / remove the crux of the issue and the perceived oppressed group would still be happy some other way, would this still be an issue?"
For example (and I am not passing a value judgment here, I'm simply doing the thought experiment with a real-world example), if a state passed an anti-transitioning law, but found a single pain-free pill to remove all dysphoria from the affected group, would they allow that pill? If yes, then the cruelty didn't factor into the decision - the issue and how to deal with it did.
To be absurdist, if you feel they wouldn't allow the "pill fix", and cruelty is still the point, then why have they not made the suffering worse? They could say "you can have whatever treatment you want, but only if you allow us to torture you for 6 hours per day!"
If a person eats meat, but is grossed out by factory farming and avoids it, is the point the cruelty or the ease, nutrients, and flavour of a standard omnivorous diet? Rationally, do you really feel that their first thought before biting into a burger is "Fuck this cow, I hope it died screaming."
No. That would be insane.
Thinking and speaking in this fashion only removes the ability to deal with difficult situations in a meaningful or rational way and simply shows others that you can't even pretend to fathom other people. It shows that the speaker is not empathetic in the slightest, but sure would like to be perceived as such by their in-group.