On American Anti-Trans Groups With Imara Jones

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2024/11/03

Imara Jones is an Emmy and Peabody award-winning American political journalist and transgender activist. She founded TransLash Media, a platform focused on transgender storytelling. Jones holds degrees from Columbia University and the London School of Economics and previously worked in the Clinton White House and Viacom. In 2019, she chaired the UN High-Level Meeting on Gender Diversity. Time magazine named her among the Time 100 most influential people of 2023. She discusses the post-January 6th shift of hate groups like Patriot Front and Proud Boys towards local politics, focusing on anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric to destabilize communities and gain political legitimacy.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Today, we’re here with Imara Jones. What is happening in the American hate space, particularly with groups like Patriot Front and Proud Boys?

Imara Jones: You asked, “What is happening in the American hate space?” Is that right?

Jacobsen: Yes, especially concerning Patriot Front, Proud Boys, and others. 

Jones: What often goes unnoticed and is intentionally ignored is that after January 6th, these organizations decided to “atomize” their activities. This shift was a response to the American national security state, which, even though it was slow to respond—let’s be honest, it still shows signs of being slow—posed a significant threat. So far, over 1,000 people have been indicted, and many of these groups’ leaders are behind bars. It’s not been a good look for them. So, they adopted a strategy to “go local.”

In an interview, Gavin McInnes told me that this “go local” approach kept members engaged, recruited new ones, and aligned themselves with local politicians. The idea was to maintain relevance as a brand and continue their national efforts on a regional level. Their goal is to destabilize democracies and create an atmosphere of fear and intimidation. This strategy isn’t unique to the Proud Boys; Patriot Front and other groups are doing the same.

Patriot Front, in particular, has identified Idaho as a testing ground for these ideas. They’ve worked in tandem with local politicians and a think tank called the Idaho Freedom Foundation. The foundation serves as a center of gravity, linking paramilitary activities, new laws that seek to legalize militia groups, and local politicians—all with the goal of destabilizing communities, spreading fear and intimidation, and paving the way for the election of more extreme politicians. People are either too afraid to speak up, intimidated to run for office, or chased out of office.

This “petri dish” approach—targeting democracy at its core, one community at a time—has been replicated in many places across the United States. What was unexpected for me and my team as we investigated this was how anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ sentiment has become a focal point for these local demonstrations of force and intimidation. Anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ hate is being used to galvanize and localize these groups’ activities. Still, their ultimate goal remains the same as before.

Jacobsen: What kinds of emails do you receive from people sympathetic to these hate groups?

Jones: Interestingly, they have largely steered clear of me and my organization. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason as to when they decide to show their “dragon teeth,” so to speak, but it’s infrequent. Occasionally, we see a little spike in some messages on social media but not a full-throated focus on us. We’ve been told that they tend to pick on people they believe they can intimidate because showing force and then seeing people back down is key to them appearing powerful, which helps them recruit more members and makes them seem bigger than they are.

If they are, they may be more reticent because they may sense, “That’s kind of not me, and that’s not us.” That also may play into it. Someone told me explicitly, “Well, these groups know who you are, but they know that if they come after you, they’re going to elevate you.” So, much of their calculus goes into who they decide to attack.

Jacobsen: When it comes to a lot of these organizations, particularly the white identity ones, they are oriented around various far-right ideologies and conspiracy theories. I was talking to Dr. Alon Milwicki, a senior researcher in antisemitism at the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). He described how the unifying scapegoat for many of these hate groups is antisemitism. You mentioned Patriot Front, the Proud Boys, and others. Granted, antisemitism isn’t the main focus for these groups, but it’s an element that remains consistent across them.

Jacobsen: How does this manifest locally, especially when they’re shifting their tactics to target local politics, counties, towns, and rural areas?

Jones: Yes, antisemitism is the long-standing baseline for all of these groups. However, what we’ve seen over the past year, and there’s so much evidence to support this, is that the new animating, cross-cutting factor among these groups is anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ activity.

The SPLC released a report over the summer that shows two key things. First, there are now more hate groups on record than ever before in their history of keeping such data. Second, half of all white supremacist groups were engaged in anti-LGBTQ activity in 2023 alone. One thing often overlooked is how effective this issue is for them. It gets to the heart of “otherization,” which is crucial for these groups. It allows them to target a vulnerable community they know lacks the resources to fight back.

Another factor is that this approach gets to the core of their arguments about white supremacy and patriarchy in an easily digestible way. It enables them to make connections with larger political infrastructures, particularly the GOP, which, in their view, gives them an air of legitimacy. They don’t get that kind of legitimacy around antisemitism.

Especially in light of the ongoing conflict following the events of October 7th in Gaza, antisemitism doesn’t have the same appeal for them. But anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ sentiment allows them to foster relationships with mainstream politicians, solidifying their legitimacy. This, in turn, advances their overall goals and cause.

Building relationships with these groups can be advantageous for some politicians because maintaining an air of intimidation, especially when pushing unpopular views, isn’t necessarily bad for them. There’s a currency that these hate groups gain from this activity, a currency that antisemitism alone cannot provide. That’s one reason why they’ve embraced anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric so strongly in the past two years.

Jacobsen: In my interviews with the humanist and freethought communities, a common observation is that many groups opposing LGBTQ+ rights often base their views on theological reasons—or rather, theological excuses. Typically, they rely on selective literal interpretations of Abrahamic texts, particularly from the Old and New Testaments. How much do you see theology being used as a bludgeon to justify emotional, verbal, and sometimes physical violence against members of the trans and wider LGBTQ+ community by these hate groups? They claim to see something in hermeneutics in the Christian holy texts.

Jones: What animates these groups is, honestly, patriarchy and white supremacy. As we can see, there’s a crisis among men in America. Still, white men, in particular, are experiencing a unique crisis for various reasons.

When you combine that with the growing decline in religious activity in America, you find these ideas being secularized in powerful ways. For example, we know that historically, within the Ku Klux Klan, there was a significant connection between Christianity and white supremacy—it was explicit and deeply interwoven. This was a core belief.

What’s happened now is that the secularization of these ideas has been distilled into concepts like the “Great Replacement” theory. This theory essentially argues that white people, particularly white men, are in danger because not enough white people are having babies. While there is still a strong Christian element to the Great Replacement theory, its main appeal is racial and patriarchal supremacy.

Part of their argument is that to protect the white race; they must enforce the gender binary and prevent Black and brown people from coming into the country and changing the fabric of America. To the extent that religion plays a role in this, it involves ensuring that Jews are excluded from society. This is why Jewish organizations in the United States are focused on these groups, given their targeting of Jewish communities.

The Great Replacement theory has Christian supremacist overtones, but it’s fundamentally about patriarchy and race. Additionally, we can’t ignore that new groups, like the Blood Tribe, are creating new religions, particularly around Odinism. This is a fusion of worship of the Norse god Odin with elements of Nazi ideology, including the worship of Hitler. We must recognize the religious aspect of these movements. Still, we also need to understand how they transform in important ways.

Jacobsen: When combating ideologically driven hate at an individual level—whether it’s a friend making an offhand comment at work, activism at a political rally, or policy-making at the state or federal level—what are the common mistakes we make? How can we learn from these failures and build on the successes in combating this?

Jones: The first mistake is to take the threat seriously. Ironically, the Canadian government does take them seriously because the Proud Boys are on a terrorist watch list. Canada added them to that list right after January 6th. Whatever the Canadian government saw from an intelligence or national security standpoint led them to take this group seriously. But people don’t take these groups seriously daily because they mask their true intentions.

They try to present themselves as beer-drinking frat boys, which helps hide how organized they are and what they’re trying to achieve. This image makes it easier for them to recruit because it doesn’t seem threatening at first. Then, once people are in, they acculturate them to violence, organize them into paramilitary structures, and gradually get them used to taking risks and committing acts of violence. When they believe it is right to reveal their true colours, they’ll drop the frat-boy facade and show who they are.

In some ways, they thought January 6th was their moment, but it wasn’t. Still, they haven’t abandoned their goal of using violence—and force of arms, if necessary—to make the United States what they want it to be. That’s something people don’t fully understand about these groups, including the Proud Boys. People don’t take them seriously enough, and that’s the first issue.

The second issue is that there’s an entire ecosystem that conditions people for supremacist violence. This ecosystem exists online, particularly in gaming communities, chat rooms, and other digital spaces they’ve created. We haven’t done enough to counter that. There’s very little education about white supremacy and supremacist violence.

This lack of education is evident, especially with the push to ban discussions about actual history in the United States or even in Canada when it comes to the atrocities committed to seizing land and the rest of it. Without acknowledgment of these histories, people don’t understand how they might be participating in a legacy of violence. If they were more aware, we’d likely see less of it.

We also don’t enforce the laws we have. Technically, many of these groups are not allowed under U.S. law. Organized militias or non-military armed groups are supposed to fall under state jurisdiction, like the National Guard. That’s what militias are, by law.

So, you have armed, politically motivated groups operating in the U.S. That’s technically not allowed in that case, but we don’t enforce those laws. Organizations are trying to change this. They’re educating local attorneys general, law enforcement, and others, telling them they must crack down on these groups. This isn’t First Amendment-protected activity under the Constitution; it’s something else entirely.

We need to be more proactive and robust. We don’t have a program to deradicalize people once they’re in these groups. So much could be done, but we need to do it. The reason is that we need to take this threat seriously. There’s still this idea that it’s just a few people on the fringe, and we don’t need to take it seriously. Meanwhile, these groups are preparing more and more for the moment when, as I mentioned earlier, they believe it’s time to drop the facade and engage in violence.

That’s something we need to pay more attention to. 

Jacobsen: Something interesting I came across recently is the notion that there’s no such thing as a lone wolf. For years, we’ve heard that the real danger comes from lone wolves. That’s right. Episode 3 challenges that idea. What do you mean by that?

Jones: The concept of the “lone wolf” actually originated from white supremacist groups in the 1980s. It was a way to mask the violence they were inciting by encouraging individuals to commit violent acts, often through books, videotapes, and demonstrations. These individuals were not acting alone—they were part of a larger movement, even if they were isolated in their actions.

A prime example of this is Timothy McVeigh, responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing. McVeigh had been deeply influenced by a book called The Turner Diaries, which still strongly influences these groups today. The book tells the story of someone who starts a civil war through individual acts of violence while being part of a like-minded community. Fast forward to today, and these dynamics happen even faster because of social media. Is the idea of lone wolves a strategy for these groups?

These groups perform public demonstrations because they know it will spread across social media, which helps to activate people. Take Dylann Roof, for instance. He carried a Rhodesian flag and shot up a Black church filled with mostly older adults. Rhodesia hadn’t existed during Roof’s lifetime, so why did he feel an affinity for it? It’s because of the radicalization that happens online and elsewhere through the kind of activities we’ve been discussing.

These paramilitary organizations created the notion of a “lone wolf.” Their goal isn’t just to be an organized hammer. They’re hoping that individual acts of violence, which appear isolated and unprovoked, will be the spark that allows them to drop the facade and go all in. Do lone wolves exist in this context?

For example, just last year in Ohio, the Blood Tribe held a large demonstration. Afterward, someone who had participated attempted to commit an act of domestic terrorism by targeting a church hosting a drag story hour. He had originally gone to protest, and it almost escalated into a firefight with Blood Tribe members present. These so-called lone wolves are, in reality, part of a larger, cultivated plan.

Jacobsen: I travelled across the United States earlier this year, tracing a W-shaped pattern from New York to Seattle, and I saw evidence of this. Yes, I see what you’re saying. On Amtrak, in coach. I wouldn’t necessarily do that again—it was a long trip. But I could see the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston. What struck me was how ordinary the church looked; it could be anywhere. This could have been any church. The idea that there are no lone wolves—that these acts result from people being radicalized through online spaces—is key. But the victims? This could have been any church. It just happened to be the one the shooter targeted because that’s where he was radicalized. Yes, it was targeted, but that’s my big takeaway from travelling in the United States. I also felt more unsafe compared to Canada. The atmosphere is different.

Jones: Right. It feels tense. I notice that when I travel too. It feels different here compared to other places. There’s something indescribable but noticeable. We see it reflected in statistics about mass shootings and other forms of violence. Still, there’s a palpable difference in the atmosphere. Many older people have said they don’t remember the country feeling this unstable.

Yes, and one thing to note is that these so-called “lone wolves” believe they are engaging in heroic acts. They think they’re taking the action that will spark a larger race war, which they see as necessary. They believe they’ll win and that it’s necessary to impose racial, gender-based, and sometimes religiously informed authoritarianism in the United States.

They don’t see these acts as isolated incidents. They’re likely surprised when there isn’t a mass uprising after their actions because they’ve been told through these networks that their actions will spark a revolution. They see themselves as figures like the assassin of Archduke Ferdinand, whose actions led to World War I. They probably expect the same result and are baffled when it doesn’t happen.

Whether it’s the Buffalo shooter who deliberately targeted a Black grocery store, Dylann Roof, or others we’ve discussed, they seem to expect this larger reaction. 

Jacobsen: Imara, unfortunately, we’re almost out of time. Do you have any final points that need to be addressed?

Jones: Yes, the oxygen these groups thrive on is provided by our failure to acknowledge who they are. If we did, we could stop them. The ideas may persist, but we don’t have to live with the constant threat of paramilitary violence. The fact that we now have more of these groups on record than ever before—since the SPLC started counting 40 years ago—shows we’re not taking this threat seriously enough as a society. There’s also a lack of understanding about how anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ sentiment has been an accelerant for their growth and activities. Until we confront both of these issues, we’ll continue to live under this spectre, and it could even worsen depending on the outcome of future elections. There’s much work and many reasons to be concerned about, but it doesn’t have to be this way. 

Jacobsen: Imara, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it.

Jones: Thank you so much. Take care.

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