They’re going after health care workers again
Right-wing media figures have spent more than a week encouraging their audiences to harass healthcare workers at Boston Children’s Hospital for providing care to trans youth, leading to fears that the disinformation campaign could result in acts of violence. After reports surfaced of death threats against hospital employees, some on the right have broadened their focus to other children’s hospitals.
On Thursday evening, Fox News’ top star Tucker Carlson devoted two segments to the topic, interviewing far-right Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and anti-LGBTQ activist Chris Elston, who goes by the moniker Billboard Chris. Carlson repeatedly, falsely described providing gender-affirming care as “mutilation of children,” before asking Elston to elaborate.
“We have the biggest child abuse scandal in modern medicine history,” Elston said.
“I don’t think there’s any debate over whether we should be allowed – which doctors should be allowed to mutilate children,” Carlson responded.
Elston and Carlson are both completely wrong here. Numerous studies show that having access to gender-affirming care is associated with improved mental health outcomes, while being denied access is associated with increased rates of suicidality and depression. And while much of that care is non-surgical, experts have found that those who do have surgical procedures experience very low rates of regret.
Carlson added that “we can debate, you know, the trans question,” channeling the antisemitic phrase “the Jewish question,” that has long been used by Nazis and others on the extreme right.
Carlson also downplayed the concept of “stochastic terrorism,” a term that describes a process through which ubiquitous violent rhetoric creates conditions that can lead to acts of violence by individuals. The idea describes an environment in which each individual act of violence is impossible to predict, but the likelihood of some sort of violence becomes far greater.
In his introduction, Carlson praised Libs of TikTok, an extremist, anti-LGBTQ social media influencer account run by Chaya Raichik, which has driven much of the anti-LGBTQ harassment across Twitter and Facebook. On August 11, Raichik shared a video falsely claiming that Boston Children’s Hospital was performing hysterectomies and genital surgeries on minors. Facebook reportedly suspended Libs of TikTok on August 17, but the page has since resumed posting content targeting children’s hospitals. Twitter has yet to take any action against it.
Earlier this year, Libs of TikTok repeatedly suggested that drag events were inappropriately exposing children to sexual content. In several instances, those posts were followed by members of the far-right Proud Boys gang showing up to disrupt the event.
Since Raichik’s post about Boston Children’s Hospital, numerous figures and outlets on the right have joined in the effort.
The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh, one of the most virulently anti-LGBTQ pundits on the right, announced that he was organizing an intimidation campaign against hospitals that provide gender-affirming care for trans youth.
Walsh addressed the issue on his show days later, accusing Boston Children’s of lying about the threats they’d received and dismissing his connection to stochastic terrorism.
“When they claim that threats are coming in – that they’re being threatened – you can never take that claim at face value,” Walsh said. “Of course, they’re not above simply lying, and what’s more, we know what they consider a threat to be.”
“What was the word of the day that we learned yesterday? It was, uh, sto – sto – stochastic terrorism, is what it is,” Walsh continued. “So we already know that any criticism is an act of terrorism.”
They are not lying. These people are just projecting again.