President Donald Trump's first days in office have seen many Americans' freedoms rolled back at a lightning pace as he has fired off dozens of executive orders reversing Biden-era policies on everything from diversity policies to who has the right to call themselves a citizen.
On Day 1, Trump unilaterally defined sex so as to exclude gender-expansive people and include references implicating fetal personhood, setting the stage for a national ban on abortion and emergency contraception. Meanwhile, a flurry of actions sought to restrict opportunities for people seeking refuge in the United States, as well as targeting their children by attempting to end birthright citizenship, suspending asylum and refugee resettlement, and sending troops to the U.S.-Mexico border to deter irregular crossings. He also began his presidency by pardoning some 1,500 far-right supporters serving sentences for storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
In a moment marked by levels of political violence unseen in decades — including two attempts on Trump's own life last year — the president's moves lay the foundation for such violence to flourish under his administration — and attacks on transgender people will be at the forefront of it, argues Imara Jones, CEO and founder of TransLash Media and host of "The Anti-Trans Hate Machine" podcast, which most recently chronicled the links between far-right paramilitary groups and anti-trans hate at the local level.
Data makes the threat clear, she said: 2023 saw the highest number of active anti-LGBTQ+ and white nationalist groups ever recorded, according to a Southern Poverty Law Center report that documented 86 anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups and 166 white nationalist chapters. The report also found that nearly 50% of white power demonstrations held in 2023 targeted LGBTQ+ people.
Jones, a journalist who last year interviewed Proud Boy founder Gavin McInnes, spoke with Salon about how she anticipates such political violence will manifest in the latest Trump-era, how the pardons will boost anti-trans violence — and how Americans could combat extremists' push toward authoritarianism before its too late.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
We've seen Donald Trump pardon around 1,500 Jan. 6 rioters and sign an executive order federally excluding gender-expansive Americans on government forms, etc. What impact are you seeing these actions having with respect to this rise in political violence we've seen as of late, this past year in particular?
We know that we are in an era of political violence unseen since the 1970s — that's a fact. And we know from the Southern Poverty Law Center, that an increasing focus of far-right paramilitary groups is violence against trans people and LGBTQ+ writ large. In our latest investigative series in "The Anti-Trans Hate Machine," we dug deep into the obsession of paramilitary groups with trans people and enforcing the gender binary and the way in which they were using that in order to recruit and keep themselves alive during the Biden administration, and then to make common cause with local Republican politicians, to strengthen their bonds. Therefore, the release of these insurgents — many of which are highly trained both in terms of paramilitary tactics and approaches, and who served in the U.S. armed forces — radically altered the security environment in the United States and opens up to an even more heightened and dangerous period of political violence.
Enrique Tarrio, who led the Proud Boys, said ... upon his release that ["success is going to be retribution"]. That means that they're coming out to settle scores, and they're coming out to target the politicians and the people that they believe should be targeted. I think among that will be members of the LGBTQ+ community and trans people. They believe that not only have they been pardoned, but they've been given a green light by this administration to do whatever they think they should do because of, for example, the nomination of Kash Patel in the FBI and even Trump saying that he's open to inviting some of them to the White House for a conversation. They believe that they now have carte blanche to enact violence and intimidation in whatever way they think is in service to their largely patriarchal vision for the country.
What kind of political violence are you anticipating over the course of these next several months, next few years, and against trans and gender-expansive folks in particular?
Well, I think that we can see a range of things. I am basing my response upon what we have already seen, with an anticipation that it will increase.
We know that, for example, there were a series of bomb threats to gender-affirming clinics and hospitals across the country. I think that we can move from actual bomb threats to actual bombs, very similar to what we saw in the anti-abortion movement. I think that we could see the targeting of both events — Pride events and marches — and demonstrations and protests by these groups. We know that, and have seen that in the past, when there have been protests for marches about people or topics that they disagree with, they show up and those have turned violent. I think that those will now be even more violent. I think that this will encourage individuals to share the ideology and follow these groups online, to act violently in themselves, such as the person who attended a massive rally in Wadsworth, Ohio and then went and tried to firebomb a church that was supportive of trans and LGBTQ+ people.
I just think that we are going to see all types of violence from physical violence and intimidation and confrontation to gun violence, individual acts of gun violence and possible bombings and more. We have to prepare ourselves for a much more turbulent and disturbing future because these groups have been given the green light.
Can you break down the link you've identified between these paramilitary groups and the anti-trans ideology that they espouse, and how that's influencing their approach to brokering connections with GOP officials at all levels of government?
Around the world, a lot of radical insurgent movements have a violent wing. The Sinn Féin had the [Irish Republican Army], for example. And in Nazi Germany, the party had the brownshirts. If you establish a social order, muscle is an essential ingredient in that.
What we see on this particular issue is that these paramilitary groups have a political vision for the United States. It ranges in how radical it is, but all want patriarchal authoritarianism in the United States. Whether it's Blood Tribe or Proud Boys or Oath Keepers or Patriot Front, they all want that. Proud Boys would say that they want patriarchal democracy but understand that authoritarianism is a part of that. Then Blood Tribe just wants straight-up Nazism. Because they have a political vision, they are looking for the people and places who share that vision and can help bring that about. One of the things that gravitated Proud Boys, for example, to Donald Trump — and he's very aware of this — is his anti-trans rhetoric. He's chosen to pull close a group of violent people as a part of his project through his anti-trans rhetoric. And anti-trans rhetoric from some of the Proud Boys that were interviewed by the Jan. 6 committee was an important affinity point, both for their membership and for their connection to Donald Trump.
Ideology in conversation is a way that both members of paramilitary groups and radical politicians are able to find each other and begin to work together — and we see that across the country. We see that in a place like Idaho that we talk about: an LGBTQ+ event in Coeur d'Alene. A radical politician in that state gave a talk in front of a paramilitary militia type of group and encouraged them to show up at this LGBTQ+ Pride event in a demonstration of force and intimidation. And they did. So there's a way in which anti-trans ideology cuts through the noise and allows both politicians at the federal level and at the state and local level to find each other and to begin to work together. And what they're doing is shifting the tone of democracy in America.
You used the term earlier "patriarchal authoritarianism." Could you briefly lay out what that means?
All these groups — and they share this kind of conversation with members of the Trump administration like Pete Hegseth and all these other people — they have a diagnosis that America ceased to be great when it began to move away from patriarchy. And I would say white patriarchy. The Proud Boys would dispute. They'd say, "We have Black and brown members." But essentially it's white patriarchy. That's their diagnosis: The country is in decline and declined when it began to move away from a patriarchal vision — when men ruled, when women were without rights, when we didn't accommodate people who are LGBTQ+, who have disabilities, who they believe weaken the overall country.
What they took is that we need to reassert — echoing Mark Zuckerberg — masculinity. We need to reassert masculine control in the country and masculine energy, but the way that you have to do that, given the reality, is through authoritarianism. I think that they all have a patriarchal authoritarian view. What the Proud Boys would say is that you have patriarchal authoritarianism, which reasserts the role of men, and then you can have democracy because essentially men will have more rights in the democracy. Patriot Front and Blood Tribe are not interested in democracy.
In the final episode of "The Anti-Trans Hate Machine" this past season, you attempt to lay out some potential ways to combat this rising tide in violence, naming education, law enforcement and individual deradicalization as a few options. But in the current climate — and the one that's being introduced by the new Trump administration — how would you say now we combat what seems to be this inevitable rise in policy rolling back individual rights and the potential for violence that comes with it?
That's a really good question. Well, it's much harder. I just want to say that. A part of what we were talking about is education. We know that they intend to weaponize the Civil Rights [Office] at the Education Department and talk about discrimination against white people, against cis kids, about a whole host of things.
There still is something called federalism in the United States. Schools are overwhelmingly controlled at the local level. Many states have their own version of the Justice Department and/or the FBI. Georgia has the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, for example. Other states have similar things. I don't think this could happen with Georgia, but it's just to illustrate that there are state structures that can implement some of the things that we talk about. The focus would really have to shift to the states as a possibility. But that means that the progress would be slow and uneven. And because of the very successful Republican attempts to control state legislatures, that becomes much harder.
So I think it is much, much, much harder to bring about the solutions that we outlined, which means that we're on a train that's gaining momentum. What's happened is that a lot of the possibilities for the breaks to be applied have been removed. And it's hard to see how this train, which is hurtling us towards a much more violent and turbulent nation, is easily stopped.
Is there any room for hope with everything that's getting harder? Are there any solutions on the table?
Yes, and the hope is that people wake up. That, once it becomes clear that we are on the verge of crossing over into this era of political violence that might be unstoppable, the American people say that that's not the future that they want. That's the hope.
But people haven't woken up yet. And I don't understand, overall, why they haven't, and I don't understand why people don't understand what's happening in terms of us moving into a more authoritarian era with fascism now very much on the march.
And how might they go about [opposing this]?
Electing different people, demanding authorities take action, putting pressure on state and local politicians and state and local public safety officials and apparatus to take action, to demand that schools teach tolerance. I think that's the hope: is that the people rise up democratically and say, "This isn't what we want, and we want you to stop it. And if you don't stop it, we are going to fire you because that's what we get to do in a democracy."
Democracy — it's asleep right now in so many ways. I think that my hope is that it wakes up and awakens in the people. And if that happens, this can all go away.
