- Victoria A. Brownworth
Far Right Protests Targeting the LGBTQ Community Show Link with Violent Attacks
December 16, 2022 PGN

Far-right activists engaged in at least 55 public actions targeting members of the LGBT+ community, according to a new report released this week by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED). That number, up from only 16 last year, marks an increase of 340%. But more concerning, states ACLED, is “a corresponding rise in violent attacks on people perceived to be gay or transgender.”
In 2022, ACLED reports, 14% of demonstrations involving far-right groups have been anti-LGBT+, up from less than 3% last year.
Though not limited to organized far-right actors, these groups have taken an increasingly large role in anti-LGBT+ mobilization around the country: far-right groups have engaged in over three times more anti-LGBT+ demonstrations than they did last year (55 events in 2022, up from 16 events in 2021), and in three times as many states (18 in 2022, up from six in 2021).
ACLED describes itself as a “disaggregated data collection, analysis, and crisis mapping project.” ACLED collects information on the dates, actors, locations, fatalities, and types of all reported political violence and protest events around the world. That the U.S. is increasingly on the ACLED radar is emblematic of how the GOP has normalized far-right groups like the Proud Boys and Patriot Front in the wake of the January 6 insurrection.
Last month, Donald Trump had dinner with Nick Fuentes, a far-right neo-Nazi white nationalist and Holocaust denier. Fuentes attended the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, and was a speaker at the “Stop the Steal” rally prior to the January 6 insurrection. He has expressed strongly anti-LGBTQ views, calling out the “LGBT agenda.” Fuentes has referred to both trans people and same-sex marriage as “deviancy.”
Trump is the only declared GOP candidate for president. Trump’s dining with Fuentes and antisemitic performer Kanye West was decried by Democrats, but not by Republicans, further normalizing the link between the GOP and such ideologies.
The sudden increase in protests is in part due to the midterms, and in part due to anti-LGBTQ rhetoric from Republican politicians. Potential GOP presidential candidates like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott have pushed anti-LGBT+ legislation and policies throughout 2022. Extremist members of Congress, like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) have promoted anti-LGBT+ rhetoric.
