Threats against LGBTQ community spark domestic terrorism warning, Homeland Security says
Threats and violence against certain communities — including LGBTQ+, Jewish and migrant — could increase in upcoming months, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
The agency issued a nationwide alert Wednesday raising concerns about the safety of people who belong to these often-targeted communities.
The bulletin comes on the heels of a particularly violent year of threats and attacks against the LGBTQ+ community.
The alert warned that terrorists, both domestic and foreign, are motivating their online followers to make threats and carry out attacks and have “recently mobilized to violence” and could “exploit several upcoming events,” including large holiday gatherings.
“Targets of potential violence include public gatherings, faith-based institutions, the LGBTQI+ community, schools, racial and religious minorities, government facilities and personnel, U.S. critical infrastructure, the media, and perceived ideological opponents,” the bulletin warns.
Specifically referencing the LGBTQ+ community, the bulletin pointed out the deadly shooting at Club Q nightclub in Colorado Springs, which officials are investigating as a hate crime.
Following the shooting, Homeland Security officials say they’ve noticed comments “praising the alleged attacker” on forums where users regularly post “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremist content.
Rise in anti-LGBTQ protests
A recent report by GLAAD, the world’s largest LGBTQ+ media advocacy organization, found 124 incidents of anti-LGBTQ protests and significant threats targeting specific drag events covered by the media in 2022.
GLAAD examined news reports across the U.S. to find protests that targeted drag events and information on drag events that had to reschedule or cancel entirely in the face of threats.
Most of the incidents took place during Pride festivities in June through November, “including the firebombing of a Tulsa donut shop that had hosted a drag event in October,” and the June arrest of 31 Patriot Front members “who had traveled from ten different states armed with riot gear and smoke grenades to protest a Pride event that had been targeted by LibsOfTikTok online,” the report states.
The analysis noted there has been “increasingly violent” and false rhetoric against drag performers used in campaign ads for the midterm elections, and determined a total of eight anti-drag bills were proposed this year.
It also said that some right-wing media outlets, their hosts, and social media accounts were the first to target a number of drag events.
Twitter briefly suspended LibsOfTikTok in September after its posts spurred bomb threats against children’s hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to transgender youth, “but the account was reinstated,” the GLAAD report found.
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