Two Ohio LGBTQ+ elected officials were targeted by the far right for their comments after the Sept. 10 shooting death of Charlie Kirk, founder of the conservative college organization Turning Point USA.
After a comment about right-wing double standards, Ari Childrey, a trans St. Marys councilwoman and state house representative candidate, received a death threat on X that resulted in the FBI arresting a suspect.
Sheena Barnes, an LGBTQ+ Toledo Public Schools board member, was harassed on X for drawing a comparison on Facebook between comments by Kirk’s wife, Erika and the television show “The Handmaid’s Tale.”.
‘You’re gonna be one of the first to die’
Childrey posted on X on Sept. 11 pointing out the “hypocrisy” of the right wing calling for civil war while “demanding Democrats to tone down rhetoric.” She did not celebrate Kirk’s death or mention him by name.
“Look who’s condemning violence and look who’s stoking it,” she said. “That tells you everything about where we are in history.”
Two minutes after she posted, an account called @ifunny_patriot replied: “You’re gonna be one of the first to die. I’ll be seeing you soon.”
Initially, Childrey said she thought nothing of the threat, but her campaign team members told her to report the account to the FBI anyway.
“As I clicked over to the person’s profile and just kinda looked, that’s when it was obvious that this person was having some sort of moment because there were an amazing amount of very bad comments that they were making, threatening what could only be called mass murder,” Childrey said.
Later that day, an FBI agent in Toledo called her and informed her that the agency was taking the post seriously. Two days later, she was told that agents in New Mexico arrested a 19-year-old who told agents that he was a neo-Nazi and wanted to start a civil war.
The information gave Childrey “mixed emotions,” she said.
“I can imagine somebody who was probably lonely, searching the internet, and found themselves on the dark side of the internet getting pulled further and further into these rabbit holes,” Childrey said. “I sincerely hope that this is somebody who will end up finding their way out.”
Barnes: ‘We have to do better.’
Robby Starbuck, who describes himself as a “filmmaker” and visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation – an anti-LGBTQ+ extremist group – published a post on X on Sunday with screenshots from Sheena Barnes.
In the images, Barnes compared some of the rhetoric from a recent video of Erika Kirk – Charlie Kirk’s widow – to language from “The Handmaid’s Tale,” a dystopian television show based on the novel by Margaret Atwood, in which women are treated as property of the state.
Starbuck encouraged his 840K+ followers to email the Toledo Public School Board president about Barnes. His post has been viewed more than 440,000 times.
“The hypocrisy of these doxxing attacks is clear: people are being harassed simply for saying no one should face hate or harm based on their identity,” Barnes told The Buckeye Flame. “No one condones violence, and that should include hate speech and legalized white supremacy.”
Barnes, a former board member of The Buckeye Flame, expressed hope that these national tragedies should unite communities to remand common-sense gun laws, rather than silencing Americans.
“Children, not just Charlie Kirk, lost their lives to gun violence that day,” Barnes said, referring to a mass shooting at a Colorado high school that left two students critically injured. “We have to do better, and that starts with naming white supremacy in all its forms and refusing to hide the truth.”
An intense and dangerous atmosphere
Childrey believes the right-wing’s violent rhetoric, including rhetoric directed specifically at transgender people, has ramped up after Kirk’s death and the recent Minneapolis school shooting committed by someone who identified as transgender at some point in their life. The Trump administration wants to restrict trans Americans’ rights, she said.
“I just think the rhetoric has shifted so much [and] has changed the conversation in a much darker way,” she said.
Childrey thinks future threats of violence and doxxing will target local politics more, and she said the media might continue to “whitewash” Kirk’s actions. Two views can be held at the same time: political violence and murder are unacceptable, but Kirk was “doing real harm to the LGBTQ+ community,” she said.
The LGBTQ+ community needs to stay vocal and must resist these attacks, Childrey said. In doing so, more people who are in an “echo chamber” can come out the other side and be a “powerhouse for change.”
“This is our moment in history,” Childrey said. “We’re not going back into the shadows, and we’re not going into anybody’s damn closet.”
‘Deeply concerned’
Representatives from the local law enforcement said they are “deeply concerned” about targeted threats and acts of violence and that the FBI is authorized to investigate crimes in which the perpetrators act based on protected characteristics per United States code – race, color, religion, national origin, sex, disability, or actual or perceived sexual orientation.
“Crimes of this nature are not only an attack on victims but also meant to threaten and intimidate an entire community,” a representative from the U.S. Department of Justice and FBI Cleveland told The Buckeye Flame. “Oftentimes, copycat criminals will follow highly visible and tragic situations, targeting particular people, similar groups or threaten to carry out violent actions as part of their need for retaliation.”
The FBI encourages individuals to report these incidents to their local law enforcement or FBI, as that would be a “crucial first step” in helping them identify whether the act could be pursued as a hate crime.
“The FBI has defined a hate crime as a criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender or gender identity,” said the representative. “Hate itself is not a crime, and the FBI is mindful of protecting freedom of speech and other civil liberties.” 🔥
IGNITE ACTION
- The FBI recommends downloading their Threat Response Guide if you are faced with a threat of any type.
- If you think you are a witness to or a victim of a hate crime, the incident can be reported anonymously to the FBI by calling 1-800-CALL-FBI or going to tips.fbi.gov.
- The FBI further recommends that individuals be alert and aware of your surroundings, and mindful of suspicious behavior and have an exit plan when attending gatherings or a crowded event. Do not worry about your personal belongings; worry about your life.
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