Proud Boys showed up at an NC school board meeting over trans kids playing sports | Opinion
On Tuesday night, the New Hanover County Board of Education made the controversial decision to ban trans middle schoolers from joining sports teams that match their gender identity.
The new policy passed with a 4-3 vote, despite a long list of public speakers who asked the board to reconsider. It’s possible that others in attendance affected the outcome.
Nine men dressed in the black and yellow uniform of the Proud Boys stood in the back of the meeting, concealing their identities with neck gaiters and hats. One held a sign that said “KEEP FEMALE SPORTS FEMALE.” Another sign read “STOP TRYING TO ERASE WOMEN,” while two said “KEEP BOYS OUT OF THE GIRLS’ LOCKER ROOM.”
These men stood watch in the back of the meeting room, taking photos of pro-LGBTQ speakers for their Telegram channel. They ridiculed social media users expressing their concern at seeing a SPLC-designated hate group openly protesting in public.
The last post on the chapter’s Telegram is a photo edited to look like a panel from an old school comic book. A member further down the row of masked men was a member making the “OK” hand gesture to the camera — a gesture that has been co-opted by the far right. The caption is an ominous statement: “We are everywhere.”
Neo-fascist group the Proud Boys showed up at a school board meeting last night in New Hanover county.
They're so proud, they're all wearing face masks! That's normal behavior, right? #ncpol pic.twitter.com/5MptDSYcOU— Carolina Forward (@ForwardCarolina) February 8, 2023
This isn’t the first time a group of Proud Boys in New Hanover County have stormed a public building to intimidate others. In June 2022, a group identified as the Cape Fear Proud Boys chapter marched into the public library to disrupt an LGBTQ story hour being held there. Parents and their children were told to stay in the room while police walked the men into the building.
The scene is part of a full-blown moral panic about LGBTQ kids, particularly trans women who some feel would “benefit” from moving to the girls’ sports teams. This also is the politically calculated environment that Republicans are cultivating by singling out trans children in North Carolinia and across the country. How can we see this as anything other than an act of intimidation - grown men reveling in the fact that a 12 year old trans boy wouldn’t be allowed to play soccer with his peers?
This is what happens when Republican leaders target trans children, as they are in the General Assembly this same week. This is what happens when you use a community for your political gain. This, in all its ugliness, is part of the plan.
