"We've been threatening to come for your children for years, so don't be alarmed now that we're really doing it!"
Over the weekend, a short video circulated widely on social media of an unidentified person at a New York City march during Pride festivities saying, "We're coming for your children."
In the 21-second clip, circulated by a right-wing web streamer channel, dozens of people march in the streets and are clearly heard chanting, "We're here, we're queer, we're not going shopping." But one voice that is louder than the crowd -- it's not clear whose, or whether the speaker was a member of the LGBTQ community -- is heard saying at least twice, "We're here, we're queer, we're coming for your children."
To conservative pundits, activists and lawmakers, the video confirmed the allegations they've levied in recent years that the LGBTQ community is "grooming" children.
But to Brian Griffin, the original organizer of the NYC Drag March, if that's the worst they heard, it's only because he wasn't there this year.
Griffin said he chanted obscene things in the past, like "Kill, kill, kill, we're coming to kill the mayor," and joked about pubic hair and sex toys during marches. People at the Drag March regularly sing "God is a lesbian."
"It's all just words," Griffin said. "It's all presented to fulfill their worst stereotypes of us."
The "coming for your children" chant has been used for years at Pride events, according to longtime march attendees and gay rights activists, who said it's one of many provocative expressions used to regain control of slurs against LGBTQ people. And in this case, they said, right-wing activists are jumping on a single video to weaponize an out-of-context remark to further stigmatize the queer community.
Conservatives are "weaponizing" threats to prey on our children, treating threats to prey on our children as a bad thing.
Conservative politicians and pundits have increasingly referred to advocates for LGBTQ rights as "groomers," associating people who oppose laws that restrict drag performances or classroom discussions of gender identity with pedophiles. The charge is an echo of a decades-old trope anti-gay activists have used to paint the community as a threat to the country's youths, an allegation that some advocates say endangers LGBTQ people.
If you stop fixating on other people's children, maybe they wouldn't think that you're fixating on their children.
So they're claiming, "We're deliberately feeding this stereotype about being child predators, and how dare you believe this stereotype about us being child predators that we're playing into to upset you!"
And the intense reaction to the video has scared some attendees, who insist the quip has been taken out of context.
"It's really scary to us," said Fussy Lo Mein, a drag performer and activist who was at this year's march and declined to give their real name because of safety concerns. "It doesn't represent everybody -- it represents that individual. I thought it was a dumb idea, and I started chanting on top of it with alternate verses."
Oh, you're scared? When you threatened to come after other people's children, those people got angry, and now you're scared?
...
Chants at Pride marches, Jay said, are usually meant more for the compatriots in the crowd, not for people watching later on video.
Conspirators' statements are meant for other conspirators, not the police. And yet, when the police hear the statements of people engaged in a conspiracy, they're duty-bound to act accordingly.
"The person who said this in a march isn't the person who came up with this idea -- the person in the march is saying, 'Go ahead, call me this; why do I care?'" she continued. "The person is trying to destigmatize this and claim their own power. You can't blame the victims here, and that's what the right wing is doing."
"The victims" = "the people threatening to "come after your children"
Photos of this year's march show on social media people with signs reading "Groom Cisies" and "Trans, Your greatest fear, your biggest fantasy."
"These are the words that they've used all our lives to manipulate and control us," Griffin said, "and we can now own them and see them for the falsehoods that they are."
I don't see them as falsehoods. I see them as confessions.
Sometimes criminals want to be caught.
Change my mind.