To: Chair and Ranking Member
House Committee on Homeland Security
Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
Re: Violent Transactivists Warrant Congressional Investigation for Terrorism
We write to urge the Committee on Homeland Security, on which you sit, to conduct an investigation into the rising tide of threats and violence, largely targeting women, being deployed by activists who subscribe to gender identity ideology. For the last several years, we have observed online threats of sexual and physical violence directed at anyone, particularly women whom they deride as "terfs" (an epithet acronym standing for “trans exclusionary radical feminists”), who have voiced criticism of this ideology or disagreement with gender ideologues. In addition, there have been physical assaults by these activists on peaceful demonstrators rallying for women’s rights, in some cases causing serious injury. In some cases law enforcement agencies have failed to use their existing authority to protect the women targeted by this violence.
This pattern of violence recently culminated in a plan by TRAN (Trans Activist Radical Network) for a rally scheduled for April 1st, 2023 in Washington D.C., which organizers framed as a "trans day of vengeance". Within days of this announcement, the Nashville school shooter, who identified as trans, shot and killed 6 people, 3 of whom were children, on March 27th, 2023. This is not the only incident of mass murder by someone who has identified as “trans” or “non-binary”, four of which have been documented since 2018. In a departure from usual procedure and despite FOIA requests being filed, the manifesto written by the Nashville shooter has yet to be released by the FBI.
We have begun to document, at this link, incidents which we believe make the case that these appeals to violence are not isolated, but rather an organized campaign which represents a grave threat to law and order in this nation and which interferes with the ability of those who dissent to effectively participate in public forums or to engage democratically on questions of public policy. We believe that the willingness of extremist activists for gender ideology to resort to violence represents an escalation of a pattern of behavior to silence, deplatform, and attack anyone who disagrees with the belief system which they advance.
We urge the Committee on Homeland Security to initiate an investigation into these violent threats to our rights to free speech, assembly, and association. We also urge the Committee to take appropriate action to curtail this mounting violence and to direct the law enforcement agencies of our nation to exercise their existing powers and authority to protect the civil liberties of those who stand up for biological reality.
Thank you for your attention to this emergent threat.
Sincerely,