Anti-LGBT+ social media influencer Libs of TikTok attended the 6 January Capitol insurrection, according to deleted tweets.
Libs of TikTok, which began on TikTok but later moved to Twitter, posts content from liberal social media users, inviting ridicule and outrage from right-wing conservatives, often directed at LGBT+ folk and teachers.
The account has soared in popularity, garnering almost 700,000 Twitter followers since 2020, and although known to be a woman, Libs of TikTok has managed to remain anonymous, until now.
On Saturday, 16 April, software developer Travis Brown revealed the account’s previous Twitter handles, information he said was “OSINT [open source intelligence] 101-level stuff”
He tweeted: “Pro-tip: If you want to run a viral moral panic account for the worst people on earth and stay anonymous, maybe start from scratch instead of doing whatever the f**k this is.
“The first screen name used by the Libs of TikTok account seems to have been @shaya69830552, then @shaya_ray (also used by apparently unrelated accounts both before and after), then @chayaraichik.”
After finding the account’s previous Twitter handles, Brown was also able to unearth deleted tweets which show that the account holder reported attending the 6 January Capitol insurrection.
The tweets show that the account posted video footage of the riots, reported rubber bullets and tear gas being used by law enforcement, and wrote: “I am taking off work to come support Trump. Every single supporter matters.”
It has been reported that a Brooklyn-based real estate agent named Chaya Raichik is behind the Libs of TikTok account based on the accounts former Twitter handed, and the blank libsoftiktok.us domain name is also registered to someone named Chaya Raichik.
Washington Post columnist Taylor Lorenz published an exposé on Tuesday (19 April), which also named Raichik as the person behind the account.
Throughout the last two years, Libs of TikTok has used its platform to target activists and teachers that promote LGBT+ rights and LGBT-inclusive education.
The account has described teaching children about the existence of trans people as “literal grooming”, and said that parents embracing their trans children is “child abuse”.
The account’s influence has reached such a level, that experts have even said it is influencing legislation.
Ari Drennen of US media watchdog Media Matters told the Daily Beast: “Libs of TikTok is basically acting as a wire service for the broader right-wing media ecosystem.
“It’s been shaping public policy in a real way, and affecting teachers’ ability to feel safe in their classrooms.”
Ben Holmstrom, a minor league professional hockey player with New York’s Rochester Americans team, has received an eight-game suspension from the American Hockey League (AHL) for using homophobic language. Some online commenters have said the punishment isn’t enough.
The 34-year-old player was heard using anti-gay language against Comets forward Chase De Leo at the end of the first period in their March 30 game. The exact language Holmstrom used is unclear, but his team’s general manager, Jason Karmonos, acknowledged the incident in a statement.
“We were made aware of an inappropriate comment made by one of our players in a recent game. Once aware, we took immediate action through numerous conversations with the player, team, and league,” Karmonos wrote. “To be clear, we have no tolerance for any form of hate and regret any harm his comment inflicted. We strive to maintain an inclusive environment in which our differences are celebrated. We have sought counseling and awareness resources for the player.”
The “awareness resources” will include “diversity and inclusion education” for Holmstrom, the AHL wrote in a statement.
While some web commenters expressed appreciation for the AHL’s swift action, others noted that San Jose Barracuda forward Krystof Hrabik received a 30-game suspension for allegedly directing racism towards Tuscon Roadrunners forward Boko Imama. Imama is Black.
“Hrabik got 30 games for a racist gesture. Holmstrom gets eight games for a homophobic slur,” wrote Twitter user @SeanOBrien81. “Not exactly holding everyone to the same standard, are we? To be clear, Holmstrom should not be getting a significantly lighter suspension here.”
Holmstrom has already sat out from five games, according to the Los Angeles Blade. He will remain suspended from the ice until April 19, when the Americans face the Springfield Thunderbirds.
A 2021 study of LGBTQ athletes found that 70 percent of 820 out queer student-athletes had heard anti-LGBTQ language from teammates before coming out. However, the same study found that 82 percent reported positive experiences after coming out, including acceptance and support from their teammates.
As such, the study suggests that sports teams may actually be accepting of LGBTQ players, even if their teammates have used anti-queer language.
In July 2021, the Nashville Predators defenseman Luke Prokop made history by becoming the first active National Hockey League (NHL) player to come out as gay. While that’s a big deal for a major league, he’s definitely in the minority.
War came to our house suddenly and severely. It was brought by a cruel and ruthless aggressor: Russia.
More than 10 million Ukrainians were forced to seek refuge around the world, where it is much safer today. My elderly mother and I stayed in Kyiv because she needs daily help and support, and she can’t move far from home because of her poor health.
It is not easy for an intersex person to live in Ukraine, even in peacetime, but in times of war it is even tougher. Moreover, without the appropriate ID (passport) that corresponds with my gender and appearance, it is nearly impossible for me to leave the country.
More than 10 years have passed since I began my struggle to get a correct document, but today the lack of one creates for me a real danger. During the occupation of Bucha and Irpin and other cities we lost touch with some our intersex colleagues. We do not know what happened to them, and for me it’s very scary because as it turned out I live just 10 km from the frontlines.
I am well-known to the Russians because of my activism, and as it turned out they are not tolerant of Ukrainians. I know that they are even more cruel towards people like me. They also slaughter LGBTIQ people; torturing them before killing them.
Julia Pustovit is the head of Egalite Intersex Ukraine, the first intersex rights organization in Ukraine. Pustovit lives in Kyiv, Ukraine, with her mother.
The Biden administration is preparing to scrap a Trump-era rule that allows medical workers to refuse to provide services that conflict with their religious or moral beliefs, three people familiar with the deliberations told POLITICO.
A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed that the policy change is underway, saying: “HHS has made clear through the unified regulatory agenda that we are in the rulemaking process.”
The move, which HHS could propose as soon as the end of this month, comes as many GOP-led states are moving to limit access to abortions and transgender care, and as progressive advocacy groups are calling on the federal government to do more to protect the rights of patients.
Read the full article. Photo: HHS Sec. Xavier Becerra.
On Thursday, CBS 46 News reported that four teenagers in Loganville, Georgia have been arrested following an incident in which they allegedly “forc[ed] a 15-year-old male 9th grader into a bathroom closet for a prolonged period of time while being sprayed or doused with liquid cleaning products,” all the while taunting him with homophobic slurs.
Only one of the suspects, 17-year-old Kelsey Juliana Hayes, has been identified and her mugshot released. The four of them face several charges including felony and misdemeanor false imprisonment, battery, and reckless conduct.
“While police reports state that the harassing comments were homophobic in nature, CBS46 does not know if the student victim in this case identifies with the LGBTQ community and would not expose the victim’s personal information without consent,” reported Joyce Lupiani and Hayley Mason. “CBS46 reached out to Jeff Graham, the executive director of Georgia Equality, who the homophobic bullying allegations are troubling. ‘Knowing that the administration did take action that is important, but this student that was so violently attacked needs to be protected,’ Graham said.”
“Student safety is a top priority and school officials are investigating the incident and working with law enforcement officials to ensure the district’s code of conduct and legal charges are appropriately enforced,” said Loganville High School in a statement.
God bless Curtis Ingraham, Laura Ingraham‘s gay older brother.
After the Fox News propagandist did a segment on her show in which she cited a Breitbart article that accused schools of grooming preschoolers to be LGBTQ, Curtis took to Twitter to slam his baby sister for being a “Putin-loving monster.”
“This is rich coming from my Putin-loving sister who seems okay with children being killed in Ukraine,” he tweeted this morning, along with a clip from the segment, which aired last week. “Looks like she has a new trope in hand to further rile and anger her followers. What a monster!”
This isn’t the first time Curtis has put his homophobic sibling on blast. Last month, he took to Twitter to criticize a segment she did about Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill, during which she claimed schools wanted to “sexually brainwash” other people’s children.
“My sister has the credibility of a tabloid,” he tweeted. “Spins like this reveal her deep-seated anger, desperation and complete ignorance of what is actually going on in education today.”
In the past, Curtis has also called Laura “nauseating” and suggested she is soulless. Speaking to the Daily Beast in 2018, he said, “She’s very smart, she’s well-spoken, but her emotional heart is just kind of dead.”
A Vermont community is “heartbroken” over the loss of a trans woman who was “always in bloom” and brought “joy and happiness to everybody”.
Fern Feather, 29, was found dead alongside a road in Morristown, Vermont, on Tuesday (12 April) morning, VTDiggerreported. Autopsy results showed that Feather died of a stab wound to the chest and their death is being ruled a homicide, NBC5 reported.
Authorities have arrested Seth Brunell, 43, in connection to Feather’s murder. Police told WCAX that the two met several days ago, and officers said that they were seen together on Tuesday sometime after 10am on Duhamel Road near the intersection of Cadys Falls Road.
According to court documents, Brunell has claimed that Feather made a sexual advance on him before attacking him, and he stabbed her in self-defence. However, police have said there was no evidence of such an attack.
Brunell appeared in court on Wednesday (13 April) where he was charged with second-degree murder. He did not offer a plea.
The local community has expressed its deep grief and outrage at Fern Feather’s murder
Her friends said Feather recently came out as a trans woman and told NBC 5 that she had used ‘she/her’ pronouns and sometimes ‘they/them’ pronouns. Feather said on Facebook in March that it was “time to tell the world I’m a Hot Trans Woman in a currently male Hot Body Suit”.
Brittany Tetlow told NBC 5 that Feather was a kind, free spirit who loved animals – especially birds – and would help anyone who needed it.
“Every time I saw Fern, they had a wildflower in their hair,” Tetlow said. “But they didn’t need the accessory, they were a wildflower themself. Always in full bloom. Bringing joy and happiness to everybody around them.”
Aeryn Reynolds, who was previously a roommate with Feather, couldn’t think of a “single bad thing to say about Fern” and “couldn’t sleep” after learning the “heart-wrenching” news of Feather’s death.
“When we’d go out to anywhere if anyone was silently suffering, Fern would go over to them and make them feel important and make them feel valued,” Reynolds added.
People’s Pride Burlington described Feather as a person who was “universally adored by everyone who knew her” and was tragically “taken from us” by a “transphobic man who had recently wormed his way into her life and gained her trust”.
The organisation that Brunll was attempting to exploit an “age-old transmisogynistic spectre of sexual aggressiveness to wriggle out of taking responsibility for his brutal actions”.
“The evidence does not support his claims, but it doesn’t have to: His claims fit the narrative creeping across our state, our nation, and our world, and as such will be a suitable excuse in the eyes of many,” People’s Pride Burlington wrote.
“In a local and national political climate characterised by the sexual demonisation of the LGBT+ population, and especially of the transgender population, this justification will become increasingly common.”
Last year, Vermont passed legislation prohibiting the use of a victim’s gender identity or sexual orientation as a justification for the criminal actions of a defendant in court – commonly known as the LGBT+ ‘panic defence’.
People’s Pride Burlington also called out several local news outlets for “predictably deadnaming and misgendering her, as well as universally avoiding the phrase ‘Hate Crime’” in relation to her murder.
Vermont House speaker representative Jill Krowinski said in a statement to VTDigger that Feather was “tragically taken from this world too soon, like so many other transgender people who are targeted in bias driven attacks.”
“We absolutely need to continue to take steps to make Vermont a more equitable place and be clear that hate has no place in our state,” Krowinski said.
“Unfortunately, recent events show we are not immune to this in Vermont, and we must commit to continuing our work to make Vermont a more inclusive and welcoming place,” Scott said. “Exploiting fear and targeting divisive rhetoric at people who are just trying to be who they are is hateful and can lead to violence.”
The Republican governor asked Vermonters to “do their part” to ensure that “everyone feels safe in our state”.
“To Vermonters in the LGBTQA+ community, I want you to know we stand with you and support you but know we have more work to do,” Scott added.
Pride Center of Vermont said it was also “heartbroken by the loss” of Feather, saying they “brought such joy to so many who were honoured to know them”.
The LGBT+ organisation planned to host a space for the community to mourn Feather in due time.
In the meantime, Pride Center of Vermont said anyone needing support can reach SafeSpace advocates on (802) 863-0003 or via the anonymous chatline https://www.pridecentervt.org/safespace/.
Fern Feather is at least the 11th trans, non-binary or gender non-conforming person violently killed this year. The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) has been tracking these killings since 2013 and has confirmed at least 10 people within the trans community have been killed this year.
Tragically, these deaths often go underreported or misreported so the true toll of the “epidemic of violence” against the trans community in the US could be higher.
A Home Office minister attempted to defend Rwanda’s LGBT+ and human rights record amid backlash to Boris Johnson’s plan to give asylum seekers a one-way ticket to the African nation.
Prime minister Boris Johnson announced on Thursday (14 April) plans for the UK to ‘offshore’ many asylum seekers to processing centres in Rwanda.
Tom Pursglove, junior minister for justice and tackling illegal migration, was confronted with the Foreign Office’s own travel advice for LGBT+ people going to Rwanda by Sky News on Friday (15 April).
The department warns that while there is no law forbidding same-sex relations, homosexuality is “frowned on by many” in Rwanda and LGBT+ people experience “discrimination and abuse”.
Tory justice minister Tom Pursglove sought to justify the government’s ‘evil’ immigration plan. (Sky News)
“That is the advice given to gay people in this country from the Foreign Office, just round the corner from you,” said host Niall Paterson.
Pursglove stumbled over his words: “We have this, I have to say, some appalling stereotypes thrown around in the last 24 hours since this announcement.
“The fact is Rwanda has made huge strides forward over the last three decades. It has a female-majority parliament, it has an anti-discrimination law that runs right through its constitution.”
Tory plans asylum plan will ‘result in gay refugees being deported to death’
Pursglove was again confronted with a 2021 Human Rights Watch (HRW) report on the practice of “round-ups” by Rwandan officials.
The non-profit spoke to nine LGBT+ people as well as sex workers, homeless children and others who were detained by officials to “clear up” the streets ahead of a high-profile Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.
Detainees were held in overcrowded rooms without adequate food, water and healthcare and beaten by guards at a transit centre in Kigali.
Gay and trans detainees told HRW they were accused of “not representing Rwandan values”.
One trans woman said: “Police said we were cursed, and asked how we could behave in this way, having sex with people of the same sex as us. They said we’re delinquents and put us in that room. But in the room, we were badly beaten by other detainees and police did nothing despite our cries.”
One detainee was arrested after kissing his same-sex partner in a bar. Another gay detainee said he was beaten and told he needed to be “rehabilitated.”
While same-sex relations are not illegal, there are no legal protections for LGBT+ people aside from a general anti-discrimination measure.
Similar “round-ups” have been recorded before other high-profile events, with widespread reports of authorities arresting queer people on charges of “deviant behaviour”.
In 2020, one trans woman told Vice that she was arrested while making her way home from a party. Officers falsely claimed she was homeless and selling drugs, taking her to Gikondo Transit Center – where she was detained for six months.
Men sit in the Gikondo transit center in Kigali on September 24, 2015. (Getty)
“They directly cut your hair, they remove your clothes, and see who you are. They put me in front of 400 people and removed my clothes,” the woman, Bella, said. “They said, ‘See how he’s behaving, and he has a penis.’”
Bella said that she was held in a dark, dirty cell known as “the cat box”, where she was forced to urinate and defecate on herself. She was told “to become a man”, beaten multiple times, and raped by fellow detainees at least three separate times.
This reputation is why LGBT+ rights advocates have reacted in horror to the UK government’s Rwanda asylum proposal.
Among them is Dr S Chelvan, head of immigration and public law at the firm 33 Bedford Row, who told PinkNews that if enacted, the plan “will result in genuine gay refugees being deported to death”.
“Rwanda’s human rights record includes forced disappearances and killings, and even today’s UK [Foreign Office] travel advice warns LGBT+ travellers of state-sanctioned abuse and discrimination,” Chelvan said.
“This government has lost its moral compass, and as we have seen in the past few days has no respect for the rule of law.
“The British public has shown with both Afghanistan and Ukraine we are a country that provides sanctuary and welcomes refugees into, and to stay in the UK.”
Home secretary Priti Patel visited Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, on Thursday to sign the agreement.
British home secretary Priti Patel (C) visited Kigali, where a dozen LGBT+ people were detained last year by the authorities. (Cyril Ndegeya/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
The plan would relocate thousands of migrants and offer them the option of seeking settlement in countries other than Britain, being forced back to their home country or staying permanently in Rwanda.
Trying to justify a policy that LGBT+ and human rights activists have dubbed “evil“, Pursglove said Rwanda has a “rich and proud history” of providing sanctuary to asylum seekers.
He claimed that the decision of whether to fly asylum seekers out would be taken on a “case by case” process.
Asked by Good Morning Britain whether he would happily live in Rwanda, he said he would only visit.
According to a Home Office fact sheet on the Migration and Economic Development Partnership, any asylum seeker who is “inadmissible to the UK asylum system” and can be “removed” would automatically be flown away to a “safe third-world country”.
Only if the person cannot be “removed” would their claim be considered by the Home Office.
Whether the policy will be implemented remains uncertain. This week, parliament will again consider the Nationality and Borders Bill that would intensify the Conservative government’s already hardline immigration policies. Johnson has admitted that he expects the plan to face legal challenges.
Given that the proposal is not yet law, Chelvan called on the House of Lords and judges “to make sure our obligations to the Refugee Convention in line with our proud history and tradition in the UK to provide sanctuary to refugees is not broken by our broken politicians.”
Lawmakers in the Pennsylvania House have passed a bill that would ban trans students from competing in girls’ and women’s sports – despite the governor’s promise to veto it.
House Bill 972 (HB 972) would prohibit trans girls from participating in girls’ and women’s athletics at publicly-funded schools, “public institutions of higher education” and any school or institution where “students or teams compete against a public school”.
The controversial bill passed in the state’s House by a 115-84 vote on Tuesday (12 April). A lone Republican voted against it, while four Democrats crossed lines to vote in support of the anti-trans bill, CNNreported.
The bill will now make its way through the Republican-controlled Senate, but HB 972 may be ultimately doomed to fail. Governor Tom Wolf has vowed to veto “transphobic legislation” pushed by GOP lawmakers in the state.
“As states across the country push transphobic legislation, some Republicans in the General Assembly are wasting time attempting the same in Pennsylvania,” Wolf wrote on Twitter. “It won’t get past my desk.”
The Democratic governor also promised to veto HB 972, which he described as “discriminatory”, last year as the bill made its way through the state legislature.
The Pennsylvania bill comes as the inclusion of trans youth in school athletics has become a flashpoint in US politics, and over a dozen states have passed legislation restricting the ability for trans kids to play on school sports teams.
Ryan Matthews, Pennsylvania state director for the Human Rights Campaign, said the bill “serves one purpose” – to “advance self-serving political objectives” of anti-LGBT+ lawmakers at the “expense” of trans youth”.
Matthews said lawmakers in the state’s House knew the legislation “isn’t going anywhere” – given Wolf’s promise to veto it – and called on the Senate to now “reject this bigoted attack”.
“This kind of legislation, which targets a marginalised population without doing any good whatsoever, is simply part of a coordinated, nationwide campaign aiming to incite hatred and attract extremist votes, and it has no place in this state,” Matthews added.
The Pennsylvania legislation also comes after Lia Thomas, a student at the University of Pennsylvania, became the first trans athlete to win an NCAA Division I title in March. Thomas, who came in first in the women’s 500-yard freestyle event, has faced mounting vitriol as she has become the centre of the debate on trans women’s participation in sports.
Republican state representative Barb Gleim, who is the prime sponsor of HB 972, spoke about Thomas during the debate around the legislation, NBC Philadelphia reported.
Gleim claimed that allowing trans girls to compete in girls’ sports gives them an “immense unfair advantage” and alleged that Thomas’ win ‘decimated an entire league’ in women’s sports.
Olympic silver medalist Erica Sullivan, who recently competed against Thomas, has also declared that all athletes “deserve to be respected and included, exactly as we are”. She wrote in an op-ed for Newsweek that Thomas has been “unfairly targeted” for “being who she is”.
The openly queer swimmer also condemned those pushing anti-trans legislation in the name of ‘protecting women’s sports’.
“As a woman in sports, I can tell you that I know what the real threats to women’s sports are: sexual abuse and harassment, unequal pay and resources and a lack of women in leadership,” Sullivan declared. “Transgender girls and women are nowhere on this list.”
A family in Florida is is facing counts of first-degree attempted murder, burglary with battery, and kidnapping, all with hate crimes enhancements, following an alleged attack that left the gay victim permanently blind.
Prosecutors with the Broward County State Attorney’s Office didn’t give many details about the alleged August 6, 2021 attack when they announced that Inna Makarenko, 44, Yevhen Makarenko, 43, and Oleh Makarenko, 21, were arrested this past March and are all facing charges because they are “accused of severely beating a man based on his sexual orientation.”
The 31-year-old victim, a gay man, lives in Pompano beach and was “severely beaten” during the alleged attack.
“He has been permanently blinded and sustained other serious injuries as a result of the incident,” the Broward County State Attorney’s Office said in a statement. According to court documents, the family brandished a firearm during the attack.
The victim has asked that his name not be made public.
A fourth person, Vladyslav Makarenko, 25, was transferred from a jail in Alabama to Florida. Prosecutors have not said whether he will be facing charges in the case yet.
All four of the defendants are being held without bond and Assistant State Attorney Darryl Torres of the State Attorney’s Office Hate Crimes Unit is handling the case.
Florida’s hate crimes law allows for enhanced penalties for crimes committed because of the victim’s sexual orientation. The law does not include gender identity as a protected category.
