Libs Of TikTok Targeted A Drag Show: Now 40,000 People Are Without Power

Terrorism. On November 18th, Libs of TikTok targeted a theatre in Moore County, North Carolina. December 3rd, power substations were sabotaged across Southern Pines. 40,000 people are without power.

Yesterday, December 3rd, was the date of multiple anti-drag events targeted at drag queen story hours across the United States. Extremist militias carrying firearms paraded with the Proud Boys, the Patriot Front, and other far right groups to intimidate, harass, and shut down drag queen story hours and drag shows. Perhaps the most troubling of yesterday’s events was what occurred during the drag show in Moore County, North Carolina. Substations were vandalized and shot with firearms and power was cut to 40,000 people. One thing is becoming clear - an attack like this was weeks in the making. In the weeks leading up to this, hate account Libs Of TikTok, which was recently allowed to freely post hate on twitter, targeted the event.

On November 18th, Libs of TikTok posted a tweet focusing her audience on the Sunrise Theatre’s drag performance in Southern Pines, North Carolina. Her audience, as it often is, was whipped into a frenzy. People called the event a “grooming event,” advocated getting rid of drag entirely, and threatened violence. This is not abnormal for Libs of TikTok. I have documented in another article the way that Chaya Raichik, the woman who runs Libs of TikTok, has successfully whipped her audience into a frenzy that then instigates violence at its targets. In this particular case, there were multiple messages that advocated the use of firearms against the event - note that the post targeting the event occurred just one day before the Club Q Shooting. Here is one example of many violent messages that were inspired by Chaya Raichik’s targeting of the Sunrise Theatre:

On December 3rd, a massive power outage rolled over Moore County, North Carolina at just after 7:00 PM. This is notably the exact same time that the drag show in Southern Pines was slated to begin. Sheriffs noted that the attack appeared targeted and that firearms were used on multiple substations to take out power to the area. One of the locations, the power substation in West End, North Carolina, is only 15 minutes away from the theatre on Google Maps. Officials have noted that it will take days to repair the damage.

Although we do not know the motive of the attack, we do know the response to it. Multiple right wing figures reacted to the attack with insinuation that the attack was due to the drag show. Emily Grace Rainey, a disgraced army officer who resigned after being investigated for her role in January 6th, posted that “The power is out in Moore County and I know why.” She later posted that the Sherriff’s office checked in with her and she insisted that she was just referring to “God” being “responsible for the outage” and that they were wasting their time. Sarah Fields, a Republican State delegate in Texas, posted #ImOkWithIt while connecting the attack to the drag show. We know that the attack came on the same day armed militants shut down a drag queen holiday event in Columbus, Ohio and on the same day anti-drag events were organized by far right groups and militants around the country. Glaad has been tracking these events, of which over 124 have occurred this year.

Libs of TikTok was there targeting many of the events that later received violent threats and even violent actions. Libs of TikTok once targeted a town in Kiel, Wisconsin for investigating a trans kid’s bullying under a Title IX complaint. The town was brought under bomb threats and school buildings were closed for over a month. In the comments, people advocated that “something must be done” and posted pictures of assault weapons. There is a history of Libs of TikTok targeting an event, people responding to that targeting with violence, and violent events occurring. In the immediate hours after the Club Q shooting, Libs of TikTok targeted Colorado’s only transgender legislator as well as multiple drag events in the state - this is nothing new for her.

Perhaps one of the most clear examples of this was Libs of TikTok targeting Boston Children’s Hospital. The account was suspended shortly after focusing on Children’s Hospitals for a week. Weeks later, multiple people have been arrested for sending bomb threats to Boston Children’s Hospital - many people in the replies to her attacks on children’s hospitals advocated violence and that did not stop her from targeting them. Under the old twitter rules, the account would likely continue to be suspended. Elon Musk however ensured that Chaya Raichik and her account could not only stay on twitter, but that it deserved the ability to be verified. Not only that - when LGBTQ+ activists put pressure on Shopify, the platform that LOTT uses in order to sell its “groomer” merchandise, Elon Musk himself jumped in to defend Shopify’s decision to continue to platform LOTT. See here:

The attack on Moore County is terrorism, and December 3rd indicated a step further into the void of violent anti-LGBTQ+ extremism that is fueled by accounts like Libs of TikTok. In Columbus, multiple armed militias took over the neighborhoods around a holiday drag event and openly called it a grooming event just because people dressed in drag were present. These events were organized immediately after the shooting in Club Q. It is clear that right wing anti-LGBTQ+ groups are feeling emboldened, and we need a massive community response against these groups in order to ensure that they do not increasingly feel like they have room to enact their threats. We cannot allow tech companies to platform hate that leads to overt violence against our people. We also need FBI investigations into these organizations that target LGBTQ+ people. It is not a far step to go from lone wolf attacks and attacks on critical infrastructure to indiscriminate killing and public terrorism. The last few weeks have been exceptionally frightening to many people covering anti-LGBTQ+ movements in the United States.

The event in Southern Pines, North Carolina did change its admission to 18+ only, but the use of children by far-right extremists to terrorize LGBTQ+ people is just pretext. They oppose all forms of drag and all LGBTQ+ people, and those with legislative power make this clear in the way they back them. In Texas, an anti-drag bill was released that defined all transgender people as “being in drag” if alcohol was present, and would ban transgender people from doing any sort of performance - comedy, plays, movies - unless in a strip club. Far right groups do not actually care about kids - they only care about eliminating transgender people and gender nonconformity.

It is important to acknowledge the role that accounts like Libs of TikTok play in instigating violent extremism, especially as Elon Musk allows more of these kinds of instigations on his platform. Advertisers that stick with Twitter are guilty of likewise fomenting this kind of extremism. Platforms like Shopify need to be resisted, and pressure needs to be placed on Twitter to hold accounts like Libs of TikTok accountable for the violence that comes in their wake.