LGBTQ People Face Christian Nationalism, Violence at Pride 2022
First full, post-covid Pride punctuated by violent threats and plots
Content warning: transphobic slurs, threats of violence
Weekend two of Pride 2022 featured violence and barely averted violence
I don’t know about you, but when Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, I thought anti-LGBTQ hatred around the U.S. would simmer down. I presumed the absence of a demagogue at the federal helm would mean “better angels” of tolerance and respect would start to center on the U.S. public stage.
Instead, anti-LGBTQ rhetoric is heating up as politicians like Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis whip up fear of LGBTQ people in cooperation with Fox News and hands-off policies of social media companies. Words have consequences, and this weekend, the consequences of anti-LGBTQ hatred started to crystalize for many of us.
Six years ago yesterday, a gunman in Florida killed 49 people and wounded 53 at the Pulse gay nightclub. How long before our hostile political climate inspires a repeat of that massacre?
As the weekend approached, LGBTQ social media exploded with stories about a Texas Baptist pastor’s sermon that gay people need to be “lined up against the wall and shot in the back of the head.” Local authorities say he’s breaking no laws, and social media brims with approving commentary.
Pride events around the nation have been reporting threats of violence, including a threatened mass shooting in West Palm Beach, according to the LA Blade.
A North Carolina Pride event scheduled for last Saturday was canceled in the face of violent threats then reinstated at the last minute, as Logan Silkwood reports in Prism & Pen.
On Saturday, rioters converged on a Pride Fest in Idaho, thwarted at the last minute by a tipster who called in a warning.
Also on Saturday, a Drag Queen Story Hour in California was violently disrupted, alleged members of the Proud Boys “freaking out” small children and their parents.
Set against this backdrop, Governor DeSantis spoke as an honored guest in the heart of New York City’s Chelsea “gayborhood,” mere blocks from the Stonewall Inn.
Christian nationalists converged on Idaho to disrupt Pride
On Saturday, according to the Blade, police and sheriff's deputies in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho intercepted a U-Haul van packed with self-described “Christian nationalist” Patriot Front members from 11 states who planned to riot at a local Pride fest.
Coeur d’Alene Police Chief Lee White told reporters law enforcement arrested 31 men who had “shields, shin guards, and other riot gear with them, including at least one smoke grenade,” adding that police found paperwork indicating plans to riot at various locations around the city besides the Pride event.
Video shows the men wearing identical white headgear with the message, “Victory or Death.”
White said that before the tip came in, police were aware of online threats and had observed people at the Pride fest walking around with “long guns, hand guns, and bear spray.”
He told reporters that’s not a concern in Idaho unless people actually try to use the weapons they’re carrying.
Drag Queen Story Hour violently broken up near San Francisco
Bay Area newspaper SFGate has reported that 8 to 10 men claiming to be members of the Proud Boys white-supremacist group broke up a peaceful Pride event on Saturday at the San Lorenzo Library in Alameda County, California.
Parents who had brought their children to a Drag Queen Story Hour say the men stormed in shouting homophobic/transphobic slurs, forcing San Francisco drag queen Panda Dulce, who goes by Kyle Casey Chu when not in character, to run out of the room with a security guard and hide in a back office.
“They got right in our faces. They jeered. They attempted to escalate to violence,” Chu wrote on Instagram in a post that has since been deleted. Chu added that the confrontation “totally freaked out all of the kids.”
A video taken at the event records the men yelling, “So who brought the tranny?” and screaming that Chu is an “it” and a “pedophile.”
SFGate reports that sheriff’s deputies escorted the men from the premises but made no arrests. Reports allege that the men formed a line and tried to block library doors. Deputies still made no arrests.
Alameda County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Lt. Ray Kelly told KQED that the men “caused the organizer of that event to actually flee the area,” though it’s not clear if he was referring to Chu or someone else. He said the Sheriff’s Office is opening a hate crimes investigation, but he did not explain why the men were not taken into custody at the time.
Chu later finished the reading. A spokesperson for the Alameda County Library told SFGATE on Sunday afternoon that it would continue to celebrate Pride Month and offer similar programming.
GLAAD calls on political leaders to stop the hateful rhetoric
Yesterday, GLAAD’s executive director Sara Kale Ellis called out political leaders, Fox News, and social media companies — urging them to recognize that hateful rhetoric has dangerous consequences:
Lawmakers and Governors like DeSantis and Abbott, along with their co-conspirators at Fox News, better pause today and recognize that their anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and the nearly 250 anti-LGBTQ bills introduced this year are responsible for this dangerous climate. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and social media platforms must also take responsibility and urgently stop fueling the hate and misinformation that inspire white supremacist groups like the Patriot Front.
I join Ellis calling on politicians to do better and for Twitter to do better
Speaking of Destantis, his press secretary Christina Pushaw has been pushing the lie that LGBTQ people groom children for sexual abuse, and she recently tweeted a photo of a small child stuffing money into a woman stripper’s bikini bottom, falsely claiming the woman is a drag queen.
Pushaw’s blatant, hate-mongering lie is still up on Twitter despite my complaint and the complaints of dozens of other LGBTQ people who have told me they reported it.
I’ve reported dozens of comments by Twitizens congratulating that Texas pastor who called for gay people to be lined up and shot in the back of the head. Twitter has removed exactly zero of those comments.
Is it any wonder violent threats are mounting?
Is it any wonder a gang of “Christian nationalists” descended on Idaho to riot at a Pride event? Is it any wonder Proud Boys swarmed into a library shouting anti-gay, anti-trans slurs?
Six years ago yesterday, a gunman in Florida killed 49 people and wounded 53 at the Pulse gay nightclub. How long before our hostile political climate inspires a repeat of that massacre?
LGBTQ people in Idaho dodged a bullet this weekend. Who knows how violent things would have gotten if a tipster hadn’t phoned police.
When will enough finally be enough?
If Republican politicians don’t start acting like grown-ups, and if giant media companies don’t start putting real teeth in their hate-speech policies, the answer may be “never.”
James Finn is a columnist for the LA Blade, a former Air Force intelligence analyst, an alumnus of Queer Nation and Act Up NY, and an “agented” but unpublished novelist. Send questions, comments, and story ideas to [email protected].
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