Faces of Hate: Violence against Pride Month/LGBTQ+ people escalating – Los Angeles Blade
LOS ANGELES – Pride 2022 has become a litany of violent threats against the LGBTQ+ community. A Drag Queen Story Hour is disrupted by alt-right nationalist white males menacing the event with homophobic and transphobic epithets in Alameda, County on the sixth anniversary of the massacre that took 49 lives in a mass shooting at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando during a LGBTQ Latin Night event.
The next day a state senator is threatened via email, that is deemed credible enough, to dispatch police with dogs trained to seek out explosive devices to his home and legislative offices.
A Pride event in Idaho nearly ended in a riot or worse tragedy save for an alert citizen phoning in to law enforcement the fact that masked alt-right agitators armed with riot shields and tear gas were crammed into the back of a U-Haul box van headed to the event. Royal Canadian Mounted Police working in concert with the FBI and Florida law enforcement agencies arrest a 17-year-old Ontario teen who threatened to commit a mass shooting at a Palm Beach County, Florida Pride event.
Whispers on popular alt-right channels, websites, and social media apps talk about disrupting other Pride events while the organizers of the two largest Pride gatherings in the U.S., New York City and San Francisco prepare security measures to deflect potential violence.
NBC News reported Dan Dimant, media director for Heritage of Pride, the group behind NYC Pride, said that based on the group’s safety guidelines it does not plan to make changes to the march.
“We are always in close coordination with local and federal authorities,” he said in a statement to NBC News. “This year our private security has a larger footprint than in previous years so that all of our attendees can enjoy a safe, fun, and memorable return to in-person Pride.”
Dimant also noted that the group’s staff and executive board undergo active shooter training annually.
But is 2022 any different than previous years in anti-LGBTQ+ activism and vitriolic hate speech in public by those arrayed in opposition to LGBTQ+ equality and rights ? According to several sources ranging from law enforcement to non-profit organizations and advocacy groups the answer appears to be a definite yes.
Factors driving renewed anti-LGBTQ+ acts include codification of ‘Don’t Say Gay’ laws, anti-trans youth sports bills coupled with a push to criminalize healthcare or investigate their parents for ‘child abuse’ for trans youth under the age of 18 and other laws considered or passed in the last 2 years by over 35 states.
Stepped up rhetoric from Fox News, OAN, and online media personalities such as Ben Shapiro, Joe Rogan, Charlie Kirk, and Matt Walsh alongside religious leaders such as extremist Dillon Awes, pastor of the anti-LGBTQ+ Stedfast Baptist Church in Watauga, Texas. Dillon recently sparked outrage after declaring that gay people “are dangerous to society” and should be “lined up against the wall and shot in the back of the head.”
In primetime mainstream media, Fox News and host Tucker Carlson in particular have been proactive in stirring up considerable aversion and hostility against LGBTQ+ Americans, especially the trans community.
“From false accusations of ‘grooming’ to fearmongering about mutilation, Fox News has been instrumental in building outrage and the fake conspiracy theory that the existence of LGBTQ people is a threat to children. The network should not be surprised to discover that its audience is listening to their dangerous lies, especially when its primetime stars are calling for violence against the trans community. LGBTQ people deserve to be who we are and to spend time with the people that we love without fearing that a far-right group is going to show up. Fox News and the right-wing media need to turn down the temperature of their hateful propaganda before somebody is hurt or killed.” Media Matters LGBTQ Program Director Ari Drennen told the Blade.
In a phone call with a senior U.S. Justice Department official, the Blade was told that in tracking the hate & extremist groups in the United States, FBI agents and other Justice investigators noted that since the Trump era there seems to be a sharp uptick in the alt-right’s anti-LGBTQ+ messaging.
Asked if public statements including social media posts on Twitter and other platforms by right-leaning public figures contributed to the surge in violent rhetoric, such as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ press secretary Christina Pushaw, who likened opponents to the so-called Don’t Say Gay law to pedophiles and said it could be aptly titled the “anti-grooming” bill, the official agreed with that assessment.
The word “grooming” has long been associated with mischaracterizing LGBTQ people, particularly gay men and transgender women, as child sex abusers.
Tony Hoang , the Executive Director of the largest statewide LGBTQ+ rights organizations in the country, Equality California told the Blade in an email;
“These violent acts targeting the LGBTQ+ community are the logical result of the rhetoric we’ve heard from anti-LGBTQ+ extremists and politicians, which has been building for years now — and especially in recent months. This is the boiling point. When anti-LGBTQ+ politicians and Fox News hosts demonize and dehumanize us, when they lie and accuse adults who support LGBTQ+ kids of child abuse and pedophilia, their hateful and dishonest words are a call to arms for their followers. These politicians may think that their attacks are political games that will earn them votes, but they’re going to get people killed.”
The noticeable surge also caught the attention of President Joe Biden who acknowledged the rise last month in his remarks on the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia. “We continue to witness disturbing setbacks and rising hate and violence targeting LGBTQI+ people in the United States and around the world. This is wrong,” the president said.
A source with the New York City Police Department reflected that as it prepares for Pride festivities and the parade marking the 52 anniversary of the Gay Liberation March held the year after the rioting at the Stonewall Inn in the West Village there are grave concerns.
The official noted that the first time it will be held in person since 2019, when it attracted an estimated 5 million attendees additionally pointing out that in February, a party for the Black queer community at the Brooklyn bar, Nowadays, was interrupted by a pepper-spray bomb. And in May a man walked into another LGBTQ+ establishment, Rash Bar, with a bottle of flammable liquid and set the venue on fire.
In December of last year, agents from the New York Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested and charged a Long Island man for mailing letters threatening to assault, shoot, and bomb LGBTQ+ affiliated individuals, organizations, and businesses.
In the criminal complaint and affidavit for arrest, federal prosecutors allege that one letter threatened that there would “be radio-controlled devices placed at numerous strategic places” at the New York City Pride March with “firepower” that would “make the 2016 Orlando Pulse Nightclub shooting look like a cakewalk,” referencing the massacre in which 49 persons were killed and dozens wounded at Pulse.
“There are times when we should be wary of overreacting to a momentary backlash or even a mere difference of opinion. This is not such a time. The danger now is that we as a country will under react to one of the most serious threats our nation has ever faced: an increasingly open hostility to freedom and democracy by the Maga wing of the Republican Party. These extremists are mounting an aggressive takeover of our nation’s politics and, among other scapegoats, viciously targeting LGBTQ people and, particularly, transgender kids,” Shannon Minter, the Legal Director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights told the Blade Tuesday.
Also creating an environment of hostility towards LGBTQ+ people is the rise of the Christian Nationalism movement, which is also tied to White Nationalism online through platforms like ‘GAB’ whose founder and CEO Andrew Torba bragged recently on that platform:
“We have multiple members of Congress embracing Christian Nationalism. We have the most watched News show on TV talking about the Great Replacement.
We have normalized the widespread use of the phrases “anti-White” and “anti-Christian” in normie right wing circles. We have eliminated the taboo of criticizing the Tribe.
All of these things were utterly unthinkable even three years ago, yet here we are. Little by little, inch by inch the dissident Christian right is gaining ground.”
A federal Joint Terrorism Task Force has been charged with addressing concerns over the safety of Pride events in several metropolitan areas, but noting the arrests in Idaho last week, the Justice official told the Blade that the burden really rests on observant citizens notifying authorities to potential threats.
Chicago will hold a number of Pride events from June 18 to June 26. Following the incident in Coeur d’Alene, Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown “put those who might be planning something on notice” during a news conference Monday, according to NBC affiliate WMAQ-TV.
“We are going to be vigilant to ensure that this event, as well as others, go off safely,” he said, according to WMAQ-TV. “And we’ll hold you accountable if you’re planning [and] if you’re doing anything to jeopardize the safety of others.”
But the Chicago Police Superintendent also echoed the words Justice official expressed to the Blade stressing that everyday folks need to be on alert and take steps to notify police before tragedy strikes.