A Proud Boys war on drag is fueling a surge in anti-LGBTQ+ protests as anti-vax outrage fades across the US

• Once a week on average in 2022, Proud Boys joined or led anti-LGBTQ+ protests held across the US.
• Most of the group's demonstrating targeted drag performances; many involved violence and armed protesters.
• Insider's interactive map shows what happened each time they joined anti-LGBTQ+ protests last year.

The Proud Boys are on the march against the LGBTQ+ community — and especially against drag performers.

Once a week on average last year, the extremist group waved its black flag at "straight pride" rallies or shouted slurs during tense protests against gender-affirming health care and Pride Month celebrations.

But drag —an ancient, misunderstood art form — was the group's number one target.

There was a nationwide surge of at least 174 anti-LGBTQ+ demonstrations last year, according to the latest stats from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, or ACLED.

The Proud Boys are now showing up at roughly half of these demonstrations, watchdogs say. 

"Among the far-right militias and militant social movements that we track, the Proud Boys were the top group involved in anti-LGBT+ incidents in 2022 by a significant margin," said Sam Jones, who directs communications for ACLED.

ACLED recently shared its raw data with Insider. 

It shows alarming trends. 

Proud Boys had averaged just one or two anti-LGBTQ+ protests per month for most of 2022, but picked up speed by the end of the year, with 13 anti-LGBTQ+ protests in December, more than in any other month last year, ACLED data shows. These included demonstrations against the Fresno Drag Festival in California and against "Drag Queen Christmas" shows in California, Texas, Tennessee, and Florida.

By the end of 2022, the Proud Boys had joined or led 53 anti-LGBTQ+ protests in total for the year. Of those protests, 34 — or 60% — were drag-related, most of them billed as family-friendly dance parties and story hours.

Drag is not synonymous with LGBTQ+ and one doesn't need to identify as queer to participate in drag. But the performance-art form has become a big, sparkly avatar for the extreme right in its pushback against LGBTQ+ rights.

"There was this really big push in December," against drag in particular, confirms Emily Kaufman, a researcher for the Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism.

The push is strategic, she said.

The Proud Boys are tracking the culture wars, and as public attention shifts away from their previous mainstays of anti-COVID mandates and "stop the steal" election denial rallies, the group is moving on to the next hot-button issue, she said.

Not only have the Proud Boys ramped up anti-LGBTQ+ protests, it has become a much larger share of what the group does over the last few years. In 2020, only 2% of the group's marches and protests targeted LGBTQ+ issues or events. In 2021, they only accounted for  8%. But last year, anti-LGBTQ+ events comprised 40% of the Proud Boys' demonstrating.

More protests, more weapons

Weapons — including paint guns, mace, pepper spray, fireworks, handguns, and rifles — are also turning up at these protests more often, the data shows.

Firearms were reported at 13 anti-LGBTQ protests in 2022, including in the hands of pro-LGBTQ+ counterprotesters. Nine of these armed protests happened in the last four months of the year. 

"The only scary thing about a drag story hour is one of these conservative white men with a gun — it's not what we're reading, it's not what we're singing, it's not our arts and crafts projects," said Jonathan Hamilt, founder of the national Drag Story Hour organization.

"It's literally the opposition trying to kill us," said Hamilt, whose organization supports 50 chapters around the US, celebrating diversity and literacy at public libraries and schools for seven years.

A network of 'defenders'

Story hour artists, organizers, and hosts rely on a network of what Hamilt calls "defenders" to keep protesters at bay. These include drag activists, pro-LGBTQ+ groups and members of the  "Parasol Patrol" — counter-demonstrators who deploy giant, rainbow umbrellas and ridiculously loud singing to shield children and parents from homophobic shouting and signage.

"At this point, although it's always a bit tense and scary, it has also become routine," said Flame, a New York City drag queen. "And we have developed protocols and have gotten volunteer community support to help keep us all safe." 

Flame and Oliver H, a local drag king artist, say the Parasol Patrol and other defenders typically outnumber — and drown out — the haters who protest at New York City story hours.

At a December 29 Drag Story Hour, the two watched from the window of a library in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of Queens as at least eight men in Proud Boys regalia shouted "Send the groomers home!"

There were some three-dozen protesters in all outside the Queens library, including a few heil-Hitlering neo-Nazis.

They were drowned out by more than 200 counter-protesters, who sang Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" and held signs reading, "Libraries are for everyone," "Drag the homophobia away," and "Sashay this way for books," Gothamist reported.

"It's too important, so we just kind of try to push through," explains Oliver H, who read to some 50 children at the event, and who gave a detailed account of that "definitely crazy" story hour to Insider.  

By ACLED's count, the Queens protest was the last of 18 drag story hours targeted by the Proud Boys in 2022.

Alliances of hate 

In another disturbing trend, the Proud Boys are building alliances with other extremist groups at anti-LGBTQ+ demonstrations, including local right-wing militias, QAnon, and white nationalist groups including Patriot Front, ACLED data suggests.

Neo-Nazis accompanied Proud Boys at nine anti-LGBTQ+ events last year. These happened in Texas, Oregon, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, and — twice — in New York City. 

The Proud Boys are themselves considered a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the ADL. The group also stands accused of being key players in the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

One need only look at a single day  — December 3, a Saturday — to see Proud Boys attending four anti-LGBTQ+ protests alongside a grab-bag of the most extreme extremist groups.

ACLED data records Proud Boys members mixing it up with members of the neo-Nazi group NSF outside a charity drag performance in Lakeland, Florida. "Drag queens are pedophiles with AIDS," one sign read at that demonstration.

That same Saturday, some 20 Proud Boys joined an anti-LGBTQ+ "Protect the Children" rally on the beach in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. They were joined by QAnon conspiracy theorists and a group called "Gays Against Groomers."

Also that day, in New York City, at least three Proud Boys rallied alongside anti-COVID-vaccine groups and still more flag-flying neo-Nazis outside a drag story hour at the Staten Island Children's Museum.

And at the fourth event that Saturday, more than 50 Proud Boys rallied against a family-friendly holiday drag show outside a Unitarian church in Columbus, Ohio. With them were some 30 Patriot Front members, who handed out propaganda alongside neo-Nazis who heil-Hitlered at passing cars. 

At least six people outside that church, including one counter-demonstrator, were armed with long guns, ACLED reported.

"It really makes no sense to say you're here to protect the children when all you try to do is scare them, bring weapons, shout homophobic and transphobic slurs," noted Hamilt.

"That doesn't seem like love to me."