Armed Extremists Showing up at LGBTQ Events Across the Country

Last month’s mass shooting at a Colorado Springs LGBTQ club—or more precisely, the mainstream right’s “they had it coming” response—seems to have spurred far-right extremists to a higher level of action. Since those murders, groups like the Proud Boys, armed militiamen, and various neofascist groups that have been turning out to harass LGBTQ communities under the rubric of labeling them “groomers” since this summer have begun ratcheting up their politics of menace.

This past weekend alone, as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) reports, neofascist thugs showed up to menace planned LGBTQ events—all of them drag shows—in Columbus, Ohio; in Lakeland and Fort Lauderdale, Florida; and in New York City. Additionally, there are suspicions that the gun attacks on two electrical substations resulting in a massive power outage in Moore County, North Carolina, may have been targeted at a drag show there.

The largest and most concerning of these occurred in Columbus, where a school operated by the First Unitarian Universalist Church had planned to hold a “Holi-drag” storytime event. A group of Ohio-based Proud Boys announced that it planned to show up to protest. Their post warned: “It’s gonna be wild!”  On the morning of the event,  officials at the school were forced to announce they were canceling the planned event, claiming Columbus police officials “offered nothing” to provide security, describing their response to their concerns as only a "casual, distant acknowledgement" of the event.  After a week trying to reach out to the local police department, event organizers were told they could hire a special duty officer-- but that officer may or may not show up because they're understaffed.

The cancellation did not affect the far-right extremists who came marching to protest across the street from the church: not just Proud Boys, but also masked neofascist Patriot Front marchers, armed Oath Keepers and other militiamen, and neo-Nazi White Lives Matter activists. The various factions marched to the church site from different directions, and mostly appeared to remain clustered within their respective organizations once they got lined up across the street from the church. Columbus police officers were recorded chatting amiably with the marchers, but told people recording them that they were just trying to keep things even-keeled. 

In Florida, a group of neo-Nazis wearing masks and waving swastika-adorned banners showed up to protest outside of a Lakeland event featuring drag performers. The Lakeland marchers, nearly all of them masked, performed Hitler salutes and marches outside the Lakeland venue, some of them shouting, “Heil Hitler!” The men wore black pants and red shirts, and carried a banner proclaiming: “Drag queens are pedophiles with AIDS.” They also displayed a sign equating Jewishness with communism, as well as a Christian nationalist banner with a Crusader-style red cross. The masked Nazis frightened the children and their families inside the event. They remained sheltered in place until after police arrived.

 In New York, a smaller group of neo-Nazis led by notorious New York neo-Nazi Jovanni Valle, aka Jovi Val, attempted to make a scene at the Lincoln Center, which was also hosting a draq-queen storytime event, and met even stiffer resistance.  At least a dozen counter-protesters were there to meet them outside the venue and chased them away unceremoniously by fighting them.

“The goals are clear,” tweeted author Andy Campbell: “Cancel community events by mobilizing violent bigoted gangs, and ultimately, flood the narrative with ‘groomer’ until all drag/LGBTQ is accepted as inherently threatening.”

"The world is getting more and more unsafe for the LGBTQ community,” Cheryl Ryan of the Red Oak Community School told NBC News. “We have to do better."