In the name of “protecting” children, homophobic protesters doxxed and attacked an 11-year-old for playing dress-up
It was just a matter of time before the anti-LGBTQ protests got violent. For months now, egged on by Republican leaders like Gov. Ron “Don’t Say Gay” DeSantis of Florida, far-right groups have been mounting increasingly aggressive anti-queer protests under the guise of “protecting” children. By framing any expression of LGBTQ identity that occurs around kids as “sexualizing” children, groups like the Proud Boys have spent months targeting family-friendly Pride events and child-oriented events where drag performers read to kids from storybooks. Even though these events are deliberately sanitized and intended only to amuse children and adults by playing dress-up, lurid claims of “grooming” and pedophilia are being leveraged to send protesters into a frenzy. In some places, protesters are showing up with guns, threatening violence around the children they claim to be “protecting.”
Unsurprisingly, then, one protest in Eugene, Oregon got violent this week. Worse, the queerphobic protesters have focused their ire on an 11-year-old child, doxxing her and putting her in danger, all while claiming to do it for her own good.
Far-right activists seized on the existence of this child as “proof” of their false claims that drag is an elaborate cover for more sinister activities. One woman, going by the name “Honey Badger Mom” on Twitter, posted pictures of the child and made hay out of the fact that, at night on different days, the pub hosts events that are more adult in nature.
Once it was discovered that, as Eugene Weekly reports, “a drag queen who has appeared in photographs” with the tween “was later arrested on charges of child pornography,” all hell broke loose. Even though the family says the child has only had cursory contact with and has never been alone with the offender, that was all the excuse that the Proud Boys needed to go on an all-out attack.
Proud Boys and other anti-LGBTQ groups showed up at the drag show on Sunday and were met by a much larger group of locals there to show their support for the pub and their family-oriented events. The pub asked supporters to “keep things civil” because “[c]hildren will be present,” but very quickly, according to The Register-Guard, things turned violent. Eugene Police report that firearms were being displayed by “both groups,” and soon the two sides were throwing rocks at each other.
“The issue here is they want to label queer people as pedophiles,” the organizer of the event told the Eugene Weekly. He denounced the protesters for making children unsafe, despite claiming they wish to protect them.