This year the tide of anti-trans and anti-queer hate has surged to new heights. More than 300 anti-trans or anti-LGBTQ laws have been introduced in 2022 alone — often by the same Republican lawmakers introducing anti-Black and anti-abortion bills. Over 25 have passed, most of them targeting trans teens and children. Republican politicians, as well as right-wing pundits and influencers, have encouraged their followers to murder or otherwise harm trans people, drag queens, queer people and parents who support trans children.
As if COVID and monkeypox weren’t enough, this Pride month has seen tragic anti-LGBTQ violence in Oslo, Norway; Baltimore, Maryland; San Lorenzo, California; Palm Beach, Florida; Arlington, Texas; Apex, North Carolina; Coeur D’Alene, Idaho; Anacortes, Washington; Kalama, Washington; Karlsruhe, Germany; Kraaifontein, South Africa; Accra, Ghana; Kampala, Uganda; Jerusalem; and more. In some of these incidents, groups of white supremacists were the perpetrators — including five Proud Boys interrupting Drag Queen Story Hour in San Lorenzo, Proud Boys among others disrupting a drag brunch in Arlington and 31 Patriot Front members gathering in Coeur d’Alene to attack LGBTQ+ people at a Pride event.
The Interconnected Targets of White Christian Supremacy
White Christian supremacists tend to save most of their bullets for those who are Black, Indigenous, immigrants, Latinx, Jewish, Muslim, Asian, Arab, or acting in solidarity with one or more of those groups. That includes a lot of LGBTQ+ people, of course. But it also includes a lot of straight cis people. While Buffalo shooter Payton Gendron saw trans advocacy organizations as part of a Jewish plot to reduce white birth rates, the people he actually chose to murder were Black folks shopping for groceries. Still, anti-LGBTQ+ violence has always formed a part of the larger white Christian supremacist toolkit. White Christian supremacy is a gendered ideology and movement that hinges on patriarchy.
In their eyes, white, Christian, non-disabled children raised by white, cis, straight, non-disabled, Christian adults and protected from other influences will and should become white, cis, straight, non-disabled, Christian adults who will have and raise more white, Christian, non-disabled children and carry out the white Christian supremacist agenda.