Author Talk Friday, January 21 6:00–7:30 p.m. PT Online program $5 | Free for members
Historians Miriam Frank and Allyson Brantley will discuss the long and interwoven history of LGBTQ and labor activism through the lens of Brantley’s new book, Brewing a Boycott:How a Grassroots Coalition Fought Coors and Remade American Consumer Activism (University of North Carolina Press, 2021). Drawing on oral histories and archival collections, including those held by the GLBT Historical Society, Brantley details how activists across the nation, from gay liberationists to Chicano activists and union members, built supportive, vibrant coalitions. Over decades of organizing and coalition-building from the 1950s to the 1990s, they molded the boycott into a powerful means of political protest, challenging the Coors Brewing Company’s antiunion, discriminatory, anti-LGBTQ practices and conservative political ties. This talk will examine the particular success of the boycott in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles and consider its impact in light of contemporary ongoing conversations about consumer power and corporate buyouts.
American Idol star Clay Aiken has launched a second congressional bid after being inspired to fight hate perpetuated by North Carolina’s top lawmakers.
Aiken was the runner-up on the second season of American Idol in 2003. Afterwards, he launched a music and acting career – even appearing as acontestant on Celebrity Apprentice hosted by former president Donald Trump.
In 2014 he turned his attention to politics, winning the Democratic primary in North Carolina’s second congressional district, but he was defeated in the general election by Republican incumbent Renee Ellmers.
Now he’s running for Congress again. But this time, Aiken, who has referred to himself as a “loud and proud Democrat”, is running to represent the newly drawn sixth district. He is hoping to replace representative David Price, who was first elected in 1986 and said he would not seek re-election in October.
Aiken told Variety that he wasn’t initially planning to run for congress again, but he changed his mind after hearing a homophobic speech by North Carolina’s lieutenant governor Mark Robinson.
He described how “several people” asked if he would be interested in running for Price’s seat after the long-time politician announced he would be retiring from the role in 2022.
“I told them, you know, I’m keeping an eye on it, but I’m not really necessarily thinking about running right now,” he recalled.
“He gave a speech in which he said: ‘What is the purpose of homosexuality? What purpose do homosexuals serve?’” Aiken said.
He continued: “I watched that sort of with just dumbstruck awe that someone could be so ignorant.
After watching it, I said, you know, ‘I got your purpose, bitch. I will show you’.”
Clay Aiken onstage during the opening curtain call for “Ruben & Clay’s First Annual Christmas Show” on 11 December 2018. (Getty/Walter McBride)
Aiken described himself as a “North Carolinian” his entire life, adding his family has “been here since the 1700s”. He said Robinson’s anti-LGBT+ hatred made him “really think about the reputation” the state has “gotten over the past several years”.
“In my entire life, I’ve never known a time when this state has had a reputation that wasn’t progressive and welcoming and friendly,” he added.
He added that some friends wouldn’t want to visit because they didn’t feel “comfortable in North Carolina”. Aiken said he was “sick” that his beloved state has such a reputation, and he isn’t “willing” to let it continue any longer.
“And that p**ses me the hell off,” he said. “Because this area is not like that, and the fact that people outside of this state have this opinion or this perception of North Carolina based on people like Mark Robinson and Madison Cawthorn.”
A group of North Carolina voters have launched a bid to keep Cawthorn, a Republican congressman, off the ballot in this year’s midterm elections, citing his alleged involvement in the 6 January Capitol riot.
Cawthorn claimed the election was stolen from Trump during the “Save America Rally” before the riot and has been accused of firing up the crowd, The Guardian reported.
A group of voters have said that Cawthorn can’t run for Congress because he fails to comply with an amendment in the Constitution.
The 1868 amendment says no one can serve in Congress if they have “previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress … to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same”.
In the video announcing his congressional run, Clay Aiken condemned Cawthorn and Robinson as “white nationalists” and “hateful homophobes”.
He also acknowledged it wasn’t a “North Carolina thing” before showing images of reviled GOP representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene (Georgia) and Lauren Boebert (Colorado).
Nearly seven years after the Supreme Court ruled same-sex marriage the law of the land, New Jersey enacted a law Monday to protect this relatively new right throughout the Garden State.
Prior to the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Obergefell v. Hodges — which legalized sex-marriage nationwide in 2015 — New Jersey’s state courts had already struck down a same-sex marriage ban in 2013.
But as a majority of the Supreme Court’s conservative justices appeared open to overturning Roe v. Wade last month, new fears that the court could also make an about-face on the Obergefell ruling have prompted some lawmakers to enshrine same-sex marriage into state law.
“We’ve been fighting for marriage equality for decades, and to turn back the clock would be devastating,” New Jersey Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle, who co-sponsored the newly passed bill, told NBC News. “I can’t emphasize enough the fact that we need to safeguard it in light of what’s happening on a federal level today.”
Both chambers of the New Jersey Legislature passed the bill last month, and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, signed it into law Monday.
“Despite the progress we have made as a country, there is still much work to be done to protect the LGBTQ+ community from intolerance and injustice,” Murphy said in a statement. “New Jersey is stronger and fairer when every member of our LGBTQ+ family is valued and given equal protection under the law.”
Last month, the Supreme Court heard 90 minutes of oral arguments concerning a Mississippi law that would ban almost all abortions in the state after 15 weeks of pregnancy. A majority of the court’s conservative justices appeared prepared to uphold the law and possibly overturn Roe v. Wade — the 1973 landmark decision holding that women have a constitutional right to have an abortion before fetal viability, usually around 24 weeks.
The prospect of the 1973 ruling being overturnedhas prompted fears among lawmakers and LGBTQ advocates that the justices might also walk back precedent on a range of other cases, including Obergefell.
Before the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide, 37 states and U.S. territories had already legalized marriage equality. But of those, only 19 had legalized the nuptials through state legislation, according to an NBC News analysis. Therefore, if the Supreme Court were to overturn Obergefell, same-sex marriage would be prohibited in the majority of the country and vulnerable in states where it was not written into law.
“The Supreme Court right now is showing us that nothing is guaranteed,” West Virginia Del. Cody Thompson said. “A lot of things that we take for granted right now, that we think are enshrined and are safe, ultimately now we’re realizing are not safe and are not necessarily always going to be there for us unless we remain vigilant.”
In response to the court’s oral arguments on reproductive rights, Thompson and fellow West Virginia Del. Danielle Walker — who are the Legislature’s only out LGBTQ lawmakers — said they will introduce a bill this month to codify same-sex marriage into law, similar to the legislation New Jersey enacted this week. West Virginia legalized same-sex marriage through litigation in 2014, but it never enshrined the right through legislation.
While the court’s seeming willingness to overturn Roe v. Wade has sparked fears among some state lawmakers, lawyers who argued in favor of gay rights in landmark LGBTQ cases shot down the notion that the high court would overturn the same-sex marriage decision even if given the opportunity to do so.
“I appreciate that you have legislatures who are trying to step in and do what they can to update their laws,” said Mary Bonauto, who argued on behalf of same-sex couples in Obergefell and now serves as the civil rights project director at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, or GLAD. “We all just have to be careful to avoid giving credence to the idea that reversing Obergefell is inevitable. We are not expecting this. It would be outrageous.”
Bonauto added that Obergefell was “constitutionally correct” because the court has repeatedly made clear that “marriage is a choice for the individual to make and not the government” and is “part of equality.”
Over the last several decades, the court has struck down laws when states tried to prevent people from marrying on the basis of their race, criminal history and their ability to pay child support payments.
Paul Smith, who argued in favor of gay rights in Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down state laws criminalizing consensual same-sex activity in 2003, agreed with Bonauto, saying it is “unlikely” that the court would overturn Obergefell because it is “incredibly popular.”
Support for same-sex marriage among Americans reached an all-time high last year, according to a June Gallup Poll, with 70 percent of Americans — including a majority of conservatives — in favor of it.
“The court would be shooting itself in the foot if it were to do this,” Smith said.
Regardless, in 2020, following the Supreme Court’s rejection of an appeal from Kim Davis, a former Kentucky county clerk who denied marriage licenses to same-sex couples, two of the court’s conservative justices, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, issued a blistering rebuke of the Obergefell ruling and signaled that they would be open to reversing it.
The justices said Davis “may have been one of the first victims of this Court’s cavalier treatment of religion in its Obergefell decision, but she will not be the last,” adding that the high court “has created a problem that only it can fix.”
Some legal experts pointed to this statement and some of the court’s more recent rulings involving same-sex couples as evidence that marriage equality remains vulnerable.
In 2018, the court issued a narrow ruling in favor of a Colorado baker who refused to make a cake for a same-sex wedding in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. And last year, in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, the court ruled in favor of a Catholic adoption agency that wanted an exemption from Philadelphia’s nondiscrimination law, which would have required the agency to allow LGBTQ couples to adopt.
“The justices have been asked to chip away at the equality and liberty of same-sex couples in a variety of different contexts, and the Supreme Court has not done an adequate job in recent years of rebuffing those efforts,” said Camilla Taylor, director of constitutional litigation for LGBTQ civil rights organization Lambda Legal. “And so, certainly our opponents feel like they have an open invitation right now.”
The Sonoma County Library offers programming for all ages. Join us for virtual events throughout the month of January, from bilingual storytimes to book clubs! All events are free and you don’t need a library card to attend, however registration is required. Explore a selection of January events below!
Kids & Families
sHelp get your child ready to read with bilingual family storytime on Wednesday, January 5, at 10:30 am! Join a children’s librarian and model the everyday practices of talking, singing, reading, writing, and playing with books, fingerplays, rhymes, and songs. For families and caregivers with children, ages 0-6.Listen to librarians read to you with Dial-a-Story! Call (707) 755-2050 to listen to a recording of children’s librarians reading storybooks. New stories available each Wednesday. Stories are available in English and Spanish and geared towards preschool age children. Tweens/Teens Are you an amateur filmmaker? All Sonoma County teens ages 12 to 19 are invited to compete in our second annual Teen Film Festival! Take some time over the winter break to shoot and edit your own 6-minute masterpiece. A jury will review all submitted entries and select films screened at the festival. Prizes will be awarded for the top films. Accepting submissions now through Tuesday, February 1.
Adults Join us online for our new monthly Queer Book Club! The club offers readers the opportunity to meet virtually with librarians and discuss books centering on LGBTQ+ voices. Our first meeting is on Wednesday, January 12, at 6:00 pm and the book is Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe. Discussions are held on the second Wednesday of each month. Check out through Hoopla (eBook) or through the library catalog. Find out more here.
It’s winter and weather can be challenging. Join us on Saturday, January 22, from 11:00 am-12:00 pm and learn how to be ready for whatever comes your way this winter. Sonoma County Emergency Management, the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office, and California Highway Patrol will present on winter risks and how to stay informed.All AgesDon’t forget to join our Winter Reading Scavenger Hunt for a chance to win a Sonoma County Regional Parks Pass! Add a little fun to your winter and complete 10 out of 15 tasks to enter. You have until January 31 to complete the challenge. The raffle winner will be notified on Tuesday, February 1!
Book Clubs
Love book clubs? We’ve got you covered! Check out the calendar for virtual and in-person clubs, or click here for a list of all Sonoma County Library book clubs.This month’s Read BIPOC Book Club is on Tuesday, January 25, at 6:00 pm and the book is The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. Borrow the eBook or eAudiobook. Physical copies available (while supplies last) at Cloverdale Regional Library. Call 707-894-5271 to have a copy held for you, either at Cloverdale or sent to your local library for pickup.Looking for more? Explore the full calendar! Explore the Calendar
Thank you for being a member of the Sonoma County Library community. Visit us online or in person at one of our branches. Be sure to check out open jobs at Sonoma County Library here.
Eventos virtuales de enero La Biblioteca del Condado de Sonoma brinda eventos para todas edades. ¡Únase a nosotros para eventos virtuales todo el mes de enero, desde horas de cuento bilingües hasta clubes de lectura! Todos los eventos son gratis y no necesita una tarjeta de biblioteca para asistir, pero sí es necesario registrarse. ¡Explore los eventos de enero a continuación!
Niños y familias¡Ayude a prepararle a su hijo a leer con la hora de cuento bilingüe para familias el miércoles, 5 de enero a las 10:30am! Acompañe a una bibliotecaria de niños para modelar las prácticas diarias de conversación, canto, lectura, escritura, y juego con libros, rimas, canciones, y movimiento. Para familias y cuidadores con niños de 0 a 6 años.¡Escuche un cuento leído por una bibliotecaria con Telecuentos! Llame al (707) 755-2050 para escuchar un cuento. Presentamos nuevos cuentos cada miércoles. Marque 2 para el cuento en español y 1 para el cuento en inglés. Los cuentos son para niños preescolares en adelante. Adolescentes y jóvenes¿Eres un cineasta aficionado? ¡Todos los adolescentes de 12 a 19 años en el condado de Sonoma están invitados a competir en el segundo festival de cine para adolescentes! Toma tiempo durante las vacaciones de invierno para grabar y editar tu propia mini película de maravilla de 6 minutos. Un jurado revisará las entregas y seleccionará las películas que estarán estrenadas en el festival. Los premios se estarán otorgados a las mejores películas.
Obras aceptadas AHORA hasta el 1 de febrero. Adultos
Prosecutors are considering pressing charges against a transgender woman who used the women’s public restroom in Osaka, Japan.
According to Osaka Prefectural Police, a customer complained that a transgender woman in her 40s was using the women’s room at a commercial facility last May. The customer told employees that she couldn’t use the restroom out of “fear” because “a man wearing women’s clothes was using it” and the employees called the police.
On Thursday, the case was referred to prosecutors, who could charge the transgender woman with trespassing. Police say that the woman’s ID still has a male gender marker, which means that she was not legally allowed to use the women’s room.
The Osaka Prefectural Police is not seeking indictment in the case, leaving the decision of whether to pursue charges to prosecutors.
Most transgender people in Japan “pay attention when they use toilets at public facilities so they can stay out of trouble,” Mikiya Nakatsuka, president of the Japanese Society of Gender Identity Disorder and Okayama University professor of health sciences, told the Japan Times.
“I am worried that if this single case draws attention, it might lead to more prejudice and discrimination against them.”
Chukyo University professor Takashi Kazama said that restrooms shouldn’t be separated by gender.
“Gender identity is invisible, so people cannot help but judge from a person’s appearance on the appropriateness of the use of toilets separated by genders,” they said.
Correcting the gender marker on legal documents in Japan remains difficult. A 2003 law requires a person to be over 22-years-old, be unmarried, prove they have been sterilized, and not have children under the age of 20.
In 2019, the Supreme Court of Japan upheld that law, saying that the government had an interest in limiting societal “confusion” and “abrupt changes.”
Only 7000 transgender people in the country with a population of over 125 million had their gender legally recognized between 2003 and 2019.
The Times has been forced to issue two corrections within two days after publishing ‘anti-trans’ misinformation.
On Tuesday (4 January), the newspaper finally offered a correction to a story on inclusive language around birthing which it published almost a year ago.
In February, 2021, a Times article claimed that in new guidance, Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust was telling staff in perinatal services to “say ‘chestfeeding’ instead of ‘breastfeeding’”, and to “replace the term ‘mother’”.
A quick glance through the trust’s guidance proves this claim to be categorically untrue, as it clearly states that it will be “taking a gender-additive approach”, which it says means “using gender-neutral language alongside the language of motherhood”.
However, it took a ruling by the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) to convince The Times to admit the inaccuracy of its story.
In its correction, the newspaper said: “Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust’s guidance did not advocate the universal substitution of the term ‘breastfeeding’ with ‘chestfeeding’, rather that the term ‘breast/chestfeeding’ should be used instead in the trust’s literature and communications.”
With no evidence, The Times claimed that hundreds of ‘male-bodied sex offenders were classified as women’ in recent years
Just a day later, on Wednesday (6 January), The Times was forced to print another correction relating to trans people.
In the story, Massie claimed: “We pretend that women can — and do — commit rape… In England and Wales 436 male-bodied sex offenders were classified as women from 2012 to 2018.”
In the correction, The Times said: “In fact, under English law, accessories to a crime are charged as principal offenders, and therefore women can be charged with rape.
“How many female defendants were ‘male-bodied’ is not recorded. We are happy to make this clear.”
Following the correction, The Times has now re-published the piece, removing the explicit claim that all recorded female sex offenders are trans.
However, at the time this article was published, it continued to claim that “436 rape defendants were classified as women”.
Stonewall CEO Nancy Kelley was among those to comment on the correction, tweeting: “Good to see [The Times] issuing a formal correction of the misinformation it published on rape statistics.
“Trans women are constantly being represented as threats and as predators in our press and public conversation. They are not.”
A court in South Korea rejected a lawsuit brought by a gay couple attempting to gain equal access to health care benefits Friday — a ruling that advocates say highlights the struggles of LGBTQ people trying to gain rights in the country.
The lawsuit, filed last year by So Seong-wook, challenged South Korea’s National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) after it took away his ability to receive spousal benefits from the employer of his partner Kim Yong-min.
“The union of a man and woman is still considered the fundamental element of marriage, according to civil law, precedents of the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court and the general perception of society,” the court ruled, according to the United Press International (UPI).
The couple is not married as same-sex marriage is not recognized in South Korea.
However, according to the Korea Herald, the NHIS allowed Kim to register So as his dependent in early 2020 — later reversing the decision citing their same-sex marriage. It was believed to be the first such case in the country.
In the lawsuit, So claimed he and his partner were discriminated against because the NHIS grants spousal coverage to common-law partners, often used by opposite-sex couples who are not married.
“Under the current legal system, it is difficult to evaluate the relationship between two people of the same sex as a common-law relationship,” said the ruling.
At a press conference, So told reporters that they plan to appeal the decision, adding: “I believe a world in which people can live equally is coming soon.”
“Even though the court has left it as a matter for the legislative branch, we will continue to fight until the day that our relationship is recognized,” Kim said outside the court. “I believe that love will eventually win.”
Advocates in South Korea said Friday’s ruling was a missed opportunity to move LGBTQ rights forward in the country, where there are also no anti-discrimination laws protecting sexual and gender minorities.
“The court could have made a more meaningful decision on the case, but they are trying to avoid touching this issue,” Lee Jong-geol, general director of LGBTQ advocacy group Chingusai, told UPI after the verdict.
“But [the case] may help push the country to see that this is an unavoidable issue that we need to do something about,” he said.
A judge in Taiwan has ruled in favour of a gay man who wants to adopt his husband’s non-biological child, in a historic step for LGBT+ rights.
Currently Taiwan, which in 2019 became the very first country in Asia to legalise marriage equality, only allows same-sex couples to adopt when one partner is the biological parent of the child.
But on 25 December, a family court in Kaohsiung city ruled that 38-year-old Wang Chen-wei’s child, who he previously adopted, could also be adopted by his 34-year-old husband Chen Chun-ju.
However, the ruling only applies to their specific case, and has not legalised same-sex adoption across the country.
Chen-wei told AFP: “I am happy that my spouse is also legally recognised as the father of our child… but I can’t feel all that happy without amending the law.
“It’s really absurd that same-sex people can adopt a child when they are single but they can’t after they get married.”
According to Taipei Times, Chen-wei added on Facebook: “We will continue to fight. The key is having the law revised.
“If our family wants to adopt another child, will we have to go through the same process again and gamble on which judicial affairs officer we get? Or will the law have been amended so it won’t be so hard for everybody?”
The path forward for other same-sex couples who want to adopt is unclear.
The Act for Implementation of Judicial Yuan Interpretation No 748, which legalised same-sex marriage in Taiwan, does not expressly allow or forbid same-sex adoption of children who are not biologically related to either parent, and only mentions one spouse adopting “the genetic child of the other party”.
While the Kaohsiung ruled that it the child in question should not be discriminated against, and that it would be “inappropriate to give a negative or discriminatory interpretation of the provision”, the Taiwan Equality Campaign said that two other couples it supports had had their adoption requests rejected.
Jennifer Lu, executive director of the LGBT+ rights group, told AFP: “We hope the rulings serve as a reminder to government officials and lawmakers that the current unfair legal conditions need to be changed.”
A California bill aiming to outlaw forced and unnecessary genital surgeries on intersex children has been pulled.
California state senator Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat, has been working for three years to try to ban the “corrective surgeries”.
His bill, SB225, would have banned unnecessary surgeries on intersex children under the age of 12, but it has been stuck in the Committee on Business, Professions and Economic Development, according to the Associated Press.
In 2020, the bill was opposed by committee chairman and state senator Steve Glazer, who said he believed it was moving “in the right direction,” but that he did not support the bill in its current form.
It has faced opposition from parents who want to make decisions on behalf of their children as well as the California Medical Association, and on Tuesday (4 January) Wiener said the bill “does not appear to have a viable path forward”.
He wrote on Twitter: “For three years, we’ve worked to pass legislation to protect intersex babies from medically unnecessary genital surgeries.
“Sadly, SB225 continues to lack the votes in the Business and Professions Committee. Despite this setback, I’m committed to this fight.”
Speaking to the Associated Press,Wiener added: “Pausing medically unnecessary genital surgeries until a child is old enough to participate in the decision isn’t a radical idea. Rather, it’s about basic human dignity.
“I’m not giving up, and I stand in solidarity with the intersex community in its fight for bodily autonomy, dignity and choice.”
Ebony Harper, executive director of California TRANScends, told PinkNews: “We are furious that SB225 had little to no support in the California state legislature. You can not claim pro-LGBTQIA+ liberties and drop the ball on protecting intersex babies.
“We hear stories of infant genital mutilation and the mental harm that it often causes.
“These archaic practices need to stop now… People are dying; there are high rates of suicide in our intersex communities because of mutilation. It is our duty to protect intersex babies, that will become intersex adults, defending them from non-consensual cosmetic medical interventions, violence, and protection from discrimination.
“That is our duty! And California has just dropped a huge ball… We will regroup and support any future bill to ensure protection from infant genital mutilation.
‘We want our intersex community to know you’re not alone, and we stand with you, love and support you.”
Intersex is an umbrella term, which encompasses those who are born with sex characteristics outside of the binary “female” and “male” definitions, and being intersex is thought to be as common as having red hair.
However, around the world, intersex children are forced to undergo unnecessary and cosmetic surgeries to “correct” their genitals.
These surgeries can cause long-lasting harm, and a 2013 United Nations report said: “Children who are born with atypical sex characteristics are often subject to irreversible sex assignment, involuntary sterilization, involuntary genital normalizing surgery … leaving them with permanent, irreversible infertility and causing severe mental suffering.”
There are currently no laws in the US, federal or state, which protect children from these surgeries.
On January 6, 2021, Trump supporters who believed that President Joe Biden had secretly and successfully stolen millions of ballots across multiple states to usurp the presidency stormed the Capitol with the intent of stopping Congress from accepting the states’ election results.
The crowd chanted for the death of Mike Pence – who was presiding over the Senate that day – and fashioned a makeshift noose as elected officials were swept to safety by the Secret Service and Capitol Police.
He has been charged with unlawfully entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds as well as violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol Grounds.
After the charges were announced, Shroyer released a video claiming his innocence and that he was merely at the Capitol as a journalist.
Yet the complaint filed against him quotes his appearance in a video that day saying, “Today we march for the Capitol because on this historic January 6, 2021, we have to let our Congressmen and women know, and we have to let Mike Pence know, they stole the election, we know they stole it, and we aren’t going to accept it!”
Mark Sahady
Mark Sahady is the Vice President of the far-right conservative group Super Happy Fun America (SHFA) and was arrested after the riots for entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds, disruptive and disorderly conduct in a restricted building or grounds, and disorderly conduct in a Capitol building.
On its website, SHFA describes itself as “a right of center civil rights organization focusing on defending the Constitution, opposing gender madness and defeating cultural Marxism.”
It’s tagline: “It’s Great to be Straight.”
In 2019, Sahady was an organizer for the group’s infamous Straight Pride Parade in Boston, the city where he would be arrested in January 2021.
Gina Michelle Bisignano
Gina Bisignano, allegedly at the MAGA riots Screenshot/Twitter
Gina Michelle Bisignano, a Trump supporter who made headlines in 2020 for shouting anti-gay slurs at an anti-mask protest, was arrested last January for participating in the Capitol riots.
“You’re a faggot,” Bisignano, said in the viral video from December 2020. “I said it. I don’t give a shit. You’re disgusting. You’re a New World Order Satanist.”
Bisignano owns Gina’s Eyelashes and Skincare salon in Beverly Hills and was taken into custody by the FBI on charges of civil disorder, destruction of government property, and aiding and abetting in connection with the January 6 riots at the Capitol.
“Everybody, we need gas masks, we need weapons,” a woman believed to be Bisignano shouts on a megaphone in a video posted to social media during the riots. “We need strong, angry patriots to help our boys, they don’t want to leave. We need protection.”
In another video, a woman who identifies herself as Bisignano at the MAGA riots said, “I’m a patriot!”
Suzanne Ianni
Screenshot, NBC10 Boston
Suzanne Ianni, the operations director of Super Happy Fun America, was arrested for entering a restricted building or grounds as well as disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.
The international news agency Agence France Presse captured photographs of Ianni inside the Capitol on January 6, MetroWest Daily News reported in July. Ianni also reportedly helped organize 11 buses of protestors that traveled from Massachusetts to Washington to denounce President Joe Biden’s victory.
Kevin Tuck
Pastor Kevin Tuck Screenshot
After police officer Kevin Tuck was charged for participating in the riots, he began ranting on YouTube about how he believes it’s unjust that people are getting arrested for rioting in Congress.
“Patriots were fed up – fed up,” he said about that day, calling himself “Pastor Kevin.”
“Patriots are being arrested left and right for trespassing. You’ve got to be kidding me.”
He told conservatives to “rise up” and said that the GOP is supporting “alternative lifestyles.”
“The Republican Party is weak,” he said. “We need to rise up and be conservative again. Do you remember what conservative means, Republicans? Hear me out: We are embracing the homosexual lifestyle as if this is normal.”
“Was that your motivation for going to Washington?” she asked. He said he couldn’t answer without talking to his attorney first.
Prosecutors say that Tuck texted his family immediately after the insurrection: “We stormed the Capitol, fought the police, took the flag. It is our flag.”
Tuck was charged with obstruction of an official proceeding, aiding and abetting, entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds, entering and remaining in the Gallery of Congress, disorderly conduct in a Capitol building, and parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building.
